Dear White America

by Tim Wise

  And yes, it’s true, not all people of color agree about the extent to which racism remains a problem. I am well aware that there are black conservatives, about whom many of us seem quite animated, who insist that everything I am saying here is wrong; they believe, for instance, that there are no real barriers to opportunity any longer, and they hold themselves up as proof. But doesn’t it seem problematic that we would so readily rely on the opinions of a statistical handful of the black community for our insights concerning that community? That we would so readily dismiss the expressed realities of the vast majority of persons of color, cleaving instead to the perspectives offered by those who not only constitute a small minority of those communities, but have minimal connections to those communities: people who work for white-led organizations and think tanks, live in white communities, and in some cases even brag about having left the black community behind?

  If I were to suggest that the period during which blacks were enslaved hadn’t really been that bad, and utilized as my evidence for such a position the testimony of those blacks (yes, they did exist) who, despite being deprived of personhood, swore that whites treated them well, would any rational person consider that testimony credible? Were someone to propose that the cruelty of white enslavers could be judged just as well, or even better, by those black folks who informed them of pending slave rebellions as by those who planned and carried out such rebellions—or that since most of the enslaved didn’t run away, we should presume the business of trafficking and enslavement benign—who would proclaim such inanity reasonable? The answer, of course, is that while few would think such a thing reasonable now, most of our people thought exactly that during the period in question. Indeed, Dr. Samuel Cartwright, a well-respected physician of his day, insisted that only mental illness (what he called drapetomania) could cause enslaved black folks to run away from the plantation system within which they toiled. And whenever possible, white folks did proclaim the system of enslavement benign, by holding up the apparent “loyalty” of those they owned—since they mostly stayed put and very few went the way of Nat Turner—as proof. Even more, whites pointed to African Americans like Booker T. Washington, whose acceptance of segregation and second-class black citizenship—he eschewed agitation for voting rights or an end to racist laws in favor of black thrift and self-help—fit more neatly with our sensibilities.

  No, I am not claiming a direct parallel between the current period and the period of slavery; the analogy is not between the system of oppression then and the ongoing problem of racism today. I am quite aware of the differences, as are, I assure you, people of color who insist that racism in the present is a real and persistent matter. The analogy is, instead, to the way so many of us have, in every generation, sought out the testimonials of utterly unrepresentative outliers within the nation’s communities of color to ratify the system most of us already believed to be just and fair, never taking note of the irony involved: the implicit suggestion that black people really do understand their lives, but only when their understanding mirrors our own.

  As for our understanding of these issues, which can be gleaned fairly easily by looking at recent survey data, it appears that a disproportionate number—certainly a clear majority—believe the following, in no particular order of importance:

  First, that the real thing holding people of color back—especially black folks—is not racism, but rather their own behavioral pathologies, personal choices and dysfunctional cultural values, as manifested in high rates of out-of-wedlock childbirth, reliance on public assistance and general devaluation of educational achievement.

  Second, that if people of color—and again, especially black folks—would simply try harder, they could make it. The problem, in other words, is that such persons lack the willpower to “pull themselves up out of poverty.” Plenty of other groups (like the Irish, Italians and Jews) have pulled themselves up, and even Asians, a non-European group, have done so. If they can do it, anyone can, with sufficient effort.

  Third, that even if racism remains a problem, dwelling on the matter or making too big an issue of it will only harm people of color, encouraging them to adopt a “victim mentality” and thereby sapping individual initiative. In other words, we shouldn’t discuss racism too much, for the sake of the very people affected by it.

  And fourth, that it is unfair to criticize the United States for racism in the past or present; after all, every nation has had its problems with discrimination and inequality. If anything, America has done more than these other places to make things right and to create an equal-opportunity society, and black and brown folks are better off here than anywhere else on earth: a point that ostensibly mitigates against continued discussion of racial injustice here.

  Because these positions are so common, and at first glance may seem reasonable to many, I’ll spend some time addressing them before moving on to more important issues. I understand, after all, where these types of perspectives come from, even if I view them to be largely without merit. Much of what we’ve been told over the years by parents, friends, the media—or politicians competing for our votes and using racially tinged imagery to obtain them—has made its mark and warped our thinking. It is hardly surprising that many of us, having been misled around a whole host of racial subjects, would have developed a mentality in which beliefs like those above would find a comfortable home.

  The quite common position, that black social pathology and lack of effort explain the economic status of African Americans, rather than racism, confuses two related, yet somewhat distinct issues: racism and poverty. Even if I were to grant, for instance, that black poverty could be largely explained by internal dysfunctions within the black community (or what we sometimes like to refer to broadly as “black culture”), that would be irrelevant to the issue of racism facing people of color who are not poor. Even those black and brown folks who are well above the poverty line (and thus neither on public assistance nor often in single-parent homes) continue to struggle and face substantial disadvantages relative to their white counterparts.

  As mentioned previously, even persons of color with college degrees, working in professional and managerial occupations, have far higher rates of unemployment and far lower wages than similar whites. Across virtually all job and educational attainment levels, blacks and Latinos with the same levels of education, working in the same occupations, routinely have double the rates of unemployment experienced by whites,28 and income-rich black and Latino households still have less than one-third the net worth as comparable whites, thanks to long-standing inherited advantages among our families.29 African American children from middle-class and affluent households are also far more likely than their white counterparts to attend high-poverty schools,30 to be relegated to low-track classes,31 and to be suspended or expelled from school altogether, despite breaking serious school rules no more often than white students from the same socioeconomic status.32 Middle-class and more affluent blacks are also disproportionately the targets of subprime mortgage loans, paying much higher rates of interest than comparable white borrowers, and are subjected, according to the available evidence, to racial profiling of all types.33 In other words, even if all the conservative critiques of the black and brown poor were accurate, the issue of racism as a unique and independent contributor to the status of the black community, relative to the white community, would remain.

  But of course, the critiques of the black and brown poor are largely inaccurate, and the attempt to use such stereotypical imagery as a way to blame them for their own condition, and thereby skirt the issue of racism, is irresponsible in the extreme.

  As for out-of-wedlock childbirth, many of us are quick to point out that rates of so-called “illegitimacy” have grown so substantially in the black community (now representing over 70 percent of all African American births) that we can hardly be surprised that most black children and families will be struggling economically. Although it is certainly true that single-parent homes typically hav
e a harder time, financially, than two-parent homes, it is simply not the case that changes in the structure of the black family are to blame for racial disparities between whites and blacks. According to one study from the 1990s—at which point the out-of-wedlock birth rates in the black community had already climbed to their current high levels—even if these rates had remained the same since the 1960s and not budged upward at all, nearly all the income and poverty-rate gaps between whites and blacks would have remained the same.34 Even black married couples are twice as likely as their white counterparts to be poor, and Latino married couples are more than four times as likely as married whites to be poor.35 Currently, nearly one in five black children growing up in a two-parent home lives in poverty, more than double the rate for white children, while one in four Latino/a kids in a two-parent home remains poor—roughly equal to the rate at which white children in single-mother families experience poverty.36 And when black and Latina women are single moms, they are nearly twice as likely as our single moms to be poor.37 In other words, it is not single parenthood per se that explains the deprivation of persons of color relative to whites.

  Indeed, much of the imagery of irresponsible black women (especially teenagers) having babies they can’t afford is itself irresponsible, in that it so wildly misleads those who are exposed to that imagery. The fact is, birth rates for black women under the age of eighteen (almost all of them unmarried) have fallen by more than a third since the early 1990s,38 and fertility rates among all unmarried black women have plummeted since the 1970s.39 The reason the share of black babies being born out of wedlock has increased, despite these two statistical trends, is that two-parent black couples are having far fewer children than similar couples in previous generations. If “intact” black families have far fewer children, those children who are born in the black community will show an increased ratio born “out of wedlock,” but this will have little to do with irresponsible behavior on the part of single black folks, whose behavioral norms have only “improved” (using our apparent definition of that concept) in recent decades.40

  As for public assistance, the majority of people of color don’t receive any; hence it is hardly legitimate to blame so-called “welfare” for the larger community’s condition. Although people of color are more likely than whites to receive some form of income or health care assistance (which only makes sense, considering such groups are two to four times more likely to be poor) in any given month, fewer than four in one hundred blacks and fewer than three in one hundred Latinos receive cash welfare, between 6 and 12 percent receive some kind of housing assistance, and only 11 to 19 percent receive nutritional assistance (so-called “food stamps”).41 Considering that these recipients often overlap (particularly for cash and food assistance), the overall numbers of persons of color receiving benefits of these types is at no point greater than perhaps one in seven. Even then, benefits are paltry and hardly sufficient to encourage laziness or to serve as a serious disincentive to productive labor. Indeed, the median monthly value of cash and food assistance combined comes to only $255 per person—far lower in some states.42 Are we really to believe that any substantial number of persons would forgo a job so they could sit back and collect a few hundred dollars per month in benefits, leaving them still desperately impoverished?

  Significantly, and contrary to common belief, most adults who receive cash assistance (the most vilified of all public assistance programs) are not able-bodied scam artists gaming the system and unwilling to work; rather, nearly eight in ten are either already working, looking regularly for work but unable to find a job, in school, or unable to work because of a persistent health condition.43 With jobs so hard to come by44—even McDonald’s recently held a massive national employee search, in which they were only able to hire six out of every hundred applicants45—it is hardly fair to blame poor folks for their unemployment or occasional need to rely on public assistance. And the emphasis should indeed be on the word occasional here, as most persons who turn to one or another form of government help do not remain on the programs for long periods. For cash assistance, the typical recipient receives benefits for only five months; for food stamps, the typical duration for benefits is a little less than eight months; for housing assistance, the typical duration is only four months.46 Yet despite all this we continue to believe, at least most of us, that people of color are taking advantage of “welfare” and that this is what explains everything from their own economic condition to the nation’s current budgetary woes.

  As for the widespread notion that people of color—especially blacks—place too little emphasis on educational accomplishment, once again, stereotypes and racial prejudices buttress this belief far more than the facts do. To begin with, is it really logical to ascribe an insufficient drive for education to people who cared so much for learning that under enslavement they risked serious punishment just to learn how to read English? Are we really to believe that a people who created their own schools, including colleges and universities, when whites were shutting them out of educational opportunities, need to be lectured about the value of learning? It seems more likely that we are merely looking at differential outcomes for African Americans in schools—differentials that are quite real—and, after the fact, blaming those differences on presumed gaps in values, rather than deeper structural conditions. Some of these were mentioned earlier: significant funding differentials between mostly white and mostly of-color schools; high concentrations of poverty in the latter as opposed to the former; different levels of teacher quality in mostly white as opposed to mostly of-color schools; and racial disparities in access to advanced curriculum.

  In fact, research on the ways people from different races view schooling indicates that there is very little difference between racial and ethnic groups when it comes to how much their members value the importance of learning and doing well in school. Black youth are just as likely as white youth—sometimes even more likely—to say that doing well in school is important to them, their families and their friends. One study that looked at 40,000 students in grades seven through eleven actually found that it was white males—in other words, many of us and our children—who were the least likely of any group to say that good grades were “very important” to them.47 Another study, which examined measures of academic honesty and integrity among students in different racial and ethnic groups, found that it was we and our children who were more likely than kids of color to believe it was acceptable to cheat, cut class or talk back to teachers. In fact, the group that had the lowest measures of academic integrity were affluent whites—this was the most likely subgroup of all to endorse cheating and various corner-cutting techniques to get ahead without hard work.48 If anything, it is students of color who manifest better values when it comes to learning, but the opportunity structure continues to favor white students, resulting in unequal outcomes and the perpetuation of racial inequity. In short, we cannot blame different value systems, rooted in racial identity, for different educational outcomes between white students and students of color. Their values are largely the same. Their opportunities are anything but.

  Looking at our second deflection of responsibility—the notion that all people of color need to do is deploy greater work effort and willpower in order to succeed—it is hard to imagine a more unjust and ultimately racist argument. To begin with, listen to that position, stated perhaps a bit more colloquially, but ultimately with the same underlying logic:

  “Blacks aren’t behind because of racism. They’re behind because they’re lazy.”

  I want everyone to really mull that one over—read it again, two or three times if need be, until the fundamental contradiction and racist irony of the statement itself are crystal clear. It’s like one of those “magic eye” books our kids have, the ones where you blur your vision and suddenly hidden images appear that you hadn’t seen before. Do you see it yet? In our denial of racism we are insisting that blacks as a group are defective. Yet that notion of group defect i
s the textbook definition of a racist belief, and if large numbers of us believe that argument to be true, how realistic is it to then presume we would be capable of responding in an unbiased and equitable manner when faced with a black job applicant, loan applicant or student in a classroom?

  Beyond that, do we really believe that black folks need to be lectured about hard work, in a nation where, for generations, they were forced to do the hardest and most exacting labor in the entire country? In a nation where they provided as much as $1 trillion in unpaid labor under the system of enslavement?49 Do such a people as this truly need to be shown the value of work by those who benefited most from that unpaid labor: a group that includes millions of persons whose parents have, for generations, handed down opportunities, jobs and substantial fortunes to us, regardless of work effort?

  Are we to believe that blacks would choose to remain three times as likely as whites to be poor, rather than work harder?50 That they enjoy the excess mortality that derives from their current status at the bottom of the nation’s racial and class structure—currently 100,000 black folks die each year who wouldn’t if their mortality rates were level with those of whites51—and opt to continue down that road, rather than work harder to survive? Can differential work efforts and values really explain why African American households today have median incomes that are one-third lower, adjusted for inflation, than what white households were bringing in forty years ago?52 Are gaps such as these realistically the outgrowth of differential willpower alone? Along the same lines, do Latinos—so many of whom work in hot fields picking fruit, or clean up after us in hotels, and who generally work long hours at some of the most demanding jobs in the nation—need to be taught how to work hard by white people? Surely we can’t be serious when we say these kinds of things.