The Michael Eric Dyson Reader

by Michael Eric Dyson

  Moderator: Michael.

  Dyson: Well, I think what those statistics reveal—and they have been derived from Oliver and Shapiro’s study of the difference between black wealth and white wealth—reinforces the perception that affirmative action is part of a larger piece of the pie here. When black students get an education, they’re still making only 90 percent of what whites are making. What that statistic didn’t tell you is that sometimes college-educated black people still make less than what white people who have only gone to high school and graduated make. So what it suggests to me, however, is that equaling the playing field by a compelling interest in diversity is not only good for diversity as an inherent educational good; it’s also good for redressing the historic legacy of inequality in the society at large. And if we can get two birds with one stone like that, what an amazing thing to do.

  Question: During slavery, a system of classification was begun that established that one drop of black blood rendered one black, and so I want to sort of explore the ambiguity of the racial categories that affirmative action sort of enforces. And I was wondering how black or Latino one must be to garner the benefits of affirmative action.

  Cohen: It is in fact a dreadful consequence of systems of preference by race that the public institution is placed under the burden of deciding who is a member of the minority being preferred. And indeed, what minorities ought to be preferred, and whether they are to be preferred in equal degree. How much to each? And how many drops of blood make one a member of this or that race? That is the ugly and disgusting quality of divisions by race that has permeated our society lo these many generations, and that is what we must transcend. No longer attending to whether your grandfather or your great-grandfather, or your great-great grandfather was black or Hispanic or whatever, or Hispanic from Spain, or Hispanic from Argentina, or Hispanic from Mexico. It’s crazy to draw distinctions of that sort in a country of this sort and allow them to weigh in admission to universities.

  Question: Paul Dickler. I teach at University of Pennsylvania and Nashaminy High School. Professor Cohen, you seem to be opposing the Michigan plan because you see it as a quota plan. You have indicated before that you do approve of some affirmative action plans. I’d like our two speakers to give an example of an affirmative action plan that they both agree with, whether it’s the state of Texas plan or some other.

  Cohen: Well, that’s easy. There are many affirmative action plans that I have supported from the outset. Affirmative action is concrete steps taken to eliminate discrimination. When President Johnson and his executive order insisted upon affirmative action for federal contracts, he insisted that the contractors say that they will not discriminate by race, to eliminate residual discrimination. So, for example, [the nation was encouraged to begin] eliminating examinations which are inappropriately biased. Or eliminating old boy networks, which inappropriately keep people out, or engaging in all sorts of activities, which under the table discriminate by race. Such elimination is affirmative action, honorable and right. What affirmative action is not, is deliberately using race. Affirmative action was originally intended to eliminate the vestigial uses of race, the remnants of race, and that honorable spirit I supported from the outset.

  Dyson: Martin Luther King Jr. said, if the nation has done something special against the Negro for 200 some odd years, the nation must now do something special for the Negro. And I think . . . affirmative action . . . was to address both the vestigial remnants of racial oppression, but also to address concrete examples of present forms of racial discrimination, to prevent them from poisoning the pool of resources from which minorities could draw now in order to represent more equality in the country.

  Moderator: What do you both think about programs like in Texas and Florida that essentially take a percentage of the top students in high schools, and therefore try to get a balance that way?

  Dyson: Well, I think that on the face of them, prima facia evidence suggests that that’s an interesting [approach]. It may be a supplement to affirmative action programs, but not a substitute for [them]. There’s a kind of resegregation afoot in this country, and I think what we’re not addressing here is that the re-segregation of black and brown students in poor schools that don’t have equal resources only reproduces the very thing he’s worried about—that is, students who are not competent or capable of competing or performing in our broader educational system. So I agree with him in this sense, that we must not simply start at the higher educational level, we must begin at K–12 to fix the system. But, again, it’s a both/and, not an either/or.

  Moderator: Carl do you believe . . .

  Cohen: Do I get a chance to respond to that? Good.

  Moderator: I just wanted to know whether you think those systems are fair.

  Cohen: The problem with these Texas-like plans, these 10 percent plans, is first of all, that they are based on segregated high school systems. They only work because the schools are segregated. And if we succeed in eliminating the segregation of the schools, these programs won’t accomplish what they were intended to. Moreover, they only work if you have a state system. But the worst thing about these percentage plans is that they are fundamentally ways of trying to do what you may not lawfully do. And if these plans have been devised to achieve a certain amount of deliberate racial preference without calling it that, then they are indeed constitutionally weak, and I think probably will fall.

  Question: Getting back to the question of admissions, Professor Cohen, I’m curious, you say that you think that acceptance to a university is not a right. But at the same time you advocate a system that depends on a definition of merit, which reinforces white privilege, and at the same time disallows minority students from presenting themselves and their experiences in an honest and respectful manner. I’m curious how you can kind of reconcile that.

  Cohen: With respect sir, I don’t support a system of merit that specially benefits white students. I support an admission system which is race neutral. You want to consider leadership. You want to consider character. You want to consider attainment. You want to consider socioeconomic disadvantage. Maybe all of those things admissions officers may appropriately weigh if they think it applies for their institution. What they may not under our Constitution, and under our civil rights laws, and under the principles of morality themselves—what they may not weigh is the color of people’s skin.

  Question: I’m an Asian-American person who went to a small private liberal arts college. I have a couple of comments to make, one to Professor Dyson: Your comment in regards to gauging how . . . the various minorities have been persecuted by the white man, I don’t think is relevant in this conversation.

  Dyson: Well, let me just say very quickly, I did not say that the “white man” had held anybody down. That’s an old boogie man deployed by black nationalists from the ‘60s. I’m much more sophisticated about the detection of . . .

  Question: You made a comment about the Vietnamese-Americans not having been persecuted enough to warrant twenty points.

  Dyson: No. I said as the basis of slavery and the reproduction of American society and privilege. I’m saying Vietnamese people weren’t here shucking corn and digging and planting . . .

  Question: They were violated and raped in their own land.

  Dyson: No doubt about that. And I’m saying affirmative action should be going on in their own land. What I’m suggesting here in America is that we deal with the people who have been historically . . .

  Question: You just lost me. You lost everything. You lost me.

  Dyson: God bless you, and I’m saying to you . . .

  Question: I’m disappointed in you.

  Dyson: I’m very disappointed that you’re disappointed in me. But what I’m suggesting to you . . .

  Question: You’re not. You don’t care about me. All you care about is you and the black population, and that’s fine, because that’s what you’re arguing for. But I’m here to represent Asian-Americans.

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sp; Dyson: Very good, and I want you to represent Asian-Americans in their diversity. And there’s a diversity of viewpoints among Vietnamese people, and Asian people. When we talk about Asians, we are talking about an enormously broad swath of people. What I’m suggesting to you is that I’m not insensitive to Asian-American or Asian claims about restitutional justice . . .

  Question: But you made that comment.

  Dyson: Let me finish. I made a comment that said Asian people were not here in America as slaves. Professor Cohen continues to refer to the Constitution, and the basis of race as a consideration of distribution of goods.

  Question: Okay . . .

  Dyson: Let me finish . . . I said specifically Vietnamese people were not here as slaves in this country. I’m not denying the historic legacy of oppression.

  Question: They don’t deserve twenty points?

  Dyson: I didn’t say that Asians didn’t deserve twenty points. In fact, the quota system has been used against Asians in California to keep Asian students out of the university system because white people could not compete against Asian students. And therefore it would have been disproportionate representation. I ain’t the one ranting against Asians; that is not me. I’m suggesting to you that you’re conflating issues of personal bias and perception of oppression—which I agree with . . .

  Question: Personal bias?

  Dyson: The perception of personal bias.

  Question: Wow.

  Cohen: Is it my turn, Professor Dyson?

  Moderator: Okay.

  Dyson: When you can jump in it will be your turn.

  Moderator: Carl.

  Cohen: My turn?

  Moderator: Yes.

  Cohen: The argument we just heard between our black speaker and our Asian member of the audience . . .

  Dyson: Our black speaker? Our black speaker? Are you a Jewish speaker? What are you?

  Cohen: Yes, that’s right. You’re the one who is calling attention to that. You are the one who said I’m a black man. Now let me finish.

  Dyson: I said black man, not black speaker.

  Cohen: The argument we have just heard is an example of the kinds of quarreling over racial lines to which preference leads. Because it is inevitable, once preference is given to one race or to one cultural group or to another, [the other will say]: “Well what about us? How much are we getting? You didn’t get your share.” It’s just that kind of spoils system that we ought to eliminate by seeking to pay attention to those lines.

  Question: Professor Cohen, if you had two absolutely equally qualified applicants, one white, one black, would you flip a coin to determine who gets in, or would you be willing to go with the black person?

  Cohen: I don’t know how I would respond in that situation. But I have served on admissions committees, sir, both for the undergraduate college at the University of Michigan, and for the medical school, and I’ve never seen a case in which we had two absolutely equal candidates. When we got into difficulties about who should be admitted to medical school, we sat there and we talked about these different candidates, and we looked at their credentials, and we finally decided, largely by consensus that it ought to be X rather than Y. And I don’t think there is ever a case in which two people are absolutely equal.

  Moderator: Michael and Carl, brief response to [director of polling for ABC News] Gary Langer’s poll [which found that Americans support or oppose affirmative action, depending on how they are asked: two-thirds of Americans oppose preferential programs, whereas more than two-thirds of Americans supported programs of assistance for minorities, with blacks expressing considerably greater support for such programs than whites]. Carl.

  Cohen: I think it’s perfectly clear that most people do not want to give preference by race or color, and I think that will come to an end. The Court won’t have it, and the people won’t have it. Whenever it’s been put to a public vote, the people don’t want it and they won’t have it. In this country race and national origin and color are not appropriate grounds for preference.

  Dyson: It’s no surprise to me that many white Americans, when told it’s a preference versus assistance, are against it when it’s preference, and for it when it’s an assistance, because of the altruism of the human spirit in America. And I think that it’s no surprise that African-Americans and all others are much more supportive of these policies than others, because after all, they have borne the brunt of discrimination upon which rests the necessity for affirmative action.

  Moderator: Michael, if universities did more to reach out, to recruit and retain black students without race-based preferences in admissions, and not just athletes, would you be willing to let go of affirmative action?

  Dyson: No, because I don’t think it addresses the fundamental issue here. . . . A special outreach program is itself predicated upon at least racial sensitivity, or racial consciousness. After all, we have to remember, it’s not just test scores, it’s not just grade point average—there are other intangible considerations that go into the makeup of a student body, and that determine whether or not we accept or reject a student. Ten thousand white people can apply for 1,000 slots at Harvard. . . . And if they’re all smart, with relatively equal grade point averages, you have to recognize that there will be other kinds of considerations [determining their admission]—legacy, athletics, whether they come from North Dakota, because we only have one student from there, and we’ve got ten from Iowa. All kinds of considerations play into the distribution of that good, and I think we have to be honest about that.

  Cohen: There is a difference between race and those other considerations.

  Dyson: Absolutely, because race has been the very tool to keep people out more than those others.

  Cohen: There’s a constitutional difference.

  Dyson: The constitutional difference . . .

  Cohen: There is a legal difference.

  Dyson: The legal and constitutional difference is predicated upon the history of slavery, Carl.

  Question: I wanted to speak directly to the legal question that’s before the Court: Does diversity increase how we learn in our culture? And I think Professor Cohen, you said specifically that our society is segregated. Our society has a history of racism that you will not deny. How is that going to be fixed? It has to be fixed by the legislature, by public policy. If people do not integrate, if they do not speak, if white students have never met a student of color who has been discriminated against, how will we fix those problems?

  Cohen: But the problem is that you seem to suppose that without preference there would be simply no opportunity for whites and blacks and other minorities to mingle. That’s simply not the case. It’s almost to the contrary because the presence of these preferential programs, I have to tell you in honesty often creates a certain amount of tension and hostility between the groups on campus and tends to divide and isolate them. Now I’ve been at the University of Michigan for a long time, and I will tell you that race relations at the University of Michigan are not all that good today. They were much better before preferential programs became paramount. And the reason for that is that people in different racial groups tend now less to trust one another than once they did. And do not credit one another as once they did. So it’s not the case that these programs are really helpful in advancing the objective that you and I would share.

  Dyson: Let me tell you this: [It is good] when we have classes, as the class I teach here at the University of Pennsylvania, where we have Latino, Native American, Asian, African-American, and a whole host of other “others” congregating together, to hash out problems of difference . . . of talking about the vicious varieties of identity politics and those edifying ones. When we talk about issues of class and culture in society, this is one of the last few places where such conversation can be had without the vicious consequences of racial animus that goes on. The race conversation on the streets of Brooklyn or anyplace in New York, is about a young black man reaching for his wallet, and four white policemen sh
ooting at him forty times, hitting him nineteen. That’s the race conversation in the larger society. The race conversation at a university is rather much more interesting, insightful, enlightened, heated to be sure, but we also know that this is one of the places where we can forge the sort of national solidarity that we claim we want in the aftermath of 9/11.

  Cohen: We can do it better without preference. We can do all of that much better without preference.

  Dyson: White preference does need to go, I agree absolutely. [Laughter]

  Question: Tukufu Zuberi, University of Pennsylvania. I teach here. I’m a professor here. It seems to me that Professor Cohen does admit that, for example, his own position in life has been heavily influenced by the affirmative action which has been attributed to white men, especially when he was going to school. His whiteness was a factor that actually aided him in getting into school. Yet, now he ends with a point of saying, “Let’s not consider race”—understanding that the legacy of using race has contributed to the differences in race that we see today. So if both speakers could speak to the role of history and the continued practice, both in their lives and in the society’s life, of racism?

  Cohen: Yes. The history of race in our country is painful and terribly important in understanding what is going on. As constitutional scholars have remarked again and again, the great lessons of our history, the great lessons of the Supreme Court decisions in this matter, has been again and again that using race as a dividing line has been the source of misery and anger and hostility. And the great steps that have been taken in our country, in the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, in the adoption of the Civil Rights Act of ’64, and in the Brown case, was the elimination of the race line. What I am urging is that at the universities also, we eliminate the line that divides by race, and all history teaches us that eliminating that race will improve our society, and using that racial categorization will injure us and set back the cause of racial relations.