You appear to have deliberately ignored the Supreme Court’s awful decisions regarding voting rights act. Why?
10
So wait, dear Brooksie... the left points put systematic racism, while the right touts progress towards equality through the military, church, and marriage? So what does one do, especially if one is an African-American, if one doesn’t want to kill people, primarily other brown people in the name of America, or worship at the altar of the equivalent of Santa Claus for adults, or, even, for any number of possible reasons, get married? Simply suffer the indignities of instituializes racism for wanting to live one’s own, individual, life?
How is it that everything ALWAYS the fault of “both sides” with you? Progressives generally ARE NOT racist. Many many conservatives are. Those are facts, not fairyland opinions. Perhaps you need to come to terms with them.
20
Today, many white rural areas have more poverty and despair than inner-city ghettos. Its hard to lift people up when you are sinking yourselves.
10
oh please, please....stretch your kids a tad and read a bit of black economist Thomas Sowell...and if you can't or don't want to read listen to his discussion with Dave Rubin on YouTube....
12
Once again Mr. Brooks disappoints. He simply can't look in the mirror and admit that he, and his other "moderate" Republicans have botched it. They were slow to see what the tea party has done to racial equality in the US. Slow to hold them accountable and tone deaf to BLM. Get off the fence Mr. Brooks, the splinters are clouding your mind.
15
WRONG! There's been no "quiet death." Your sepia-tinged columns have never once expressed any understanding whatsoever of how truly awful the continuing negative impact of white supremacy has been, and continues to be, on this nation. With you, and every other white male out there who benefits from things being just the way they are, America is always on a shining hill. It's always exceptional. It's one silly effete word salad after another. Your refusal to to say, "We were, and are, without moral or material qualification, wrong!" is stunning. You and yours brought us this, not Blacks, Mexicans, or Asians. It's white people: white people are the problem. Solve yourself; then write a column. Go straight to every relative you have and stand there until they see the light. Convert them! Beat their brains out with your paper towel words.
It isn't everyone going crazy in this country; it's white people! They are the ones destroying this country with their racist fascist views. They are self-piting louts who think they have suffered more than everyone else and deserve more than everyone else.
21
Quiet death? In what universe? The most troublesome of the societal problems as conveyed by the late James Baldwin are mirrored almost identically in modern America, except this time there is no excuse for us not having known better. It is awfully curious that public schools in the United States teach a romanticized hagiography of Martin Luther’s impact on the world, and then say almost nothing substantive about the life and legacy of the Revered Doctor.
“God gave Noah the rainbow sign, No more water, the fire next time!” -James Baldwin
5
Not sure what country Mr. Brooks sees but I see that in Obama’s 8 years we had many more racially charged incidents, Black unemployment was much higher and inequality zoomed after the economic meltdown.
If he thinks interracial marriage rates are a positive I would posit that while black men are increasingly marrying non black women the black women are increasingly not marrying anybody.
Not even sure why Trump’s name is mentioned. His economic measures have lifted all boats.
Sure fire way Blacks or anyone else to succeed: Learn in school, don’t use drugs, get a job any job, build your reputation, don’t have kids before marriage and don’t get married without a plan.
13
Blacks certainly face racial discrimination that holds them back. But there are things not directly the result of discrimination that also hold back blacks. Probably the biggest thing is that the majority of black kids are raised in one-parent households. I concede that many single parents make admirable and valiant efforts to raise their kids right, but kids who are raised in single-parent households are at a serious disadvantage to kids raised in a two-parent household. None of the commentariat - liberal or conservative - will deny that. A second thing that holds back blacks is that many of them do not speak standard English as their primary language. They speak "down home" talk. This puts them at a serious disadvantage because the minute they open their mouths, white folks assume they are ignorant. Presumed guilty right off the bat. Unfortunately, lots of people think "down home" talk is cool, but it is an immediate disqualification when you're trying to do something serious like get a job other than a minimum-wage job. I will probably get some nasty replies for saying this, but those who are honest will recognize this as being true.
15
Where do I begin here David. You almost sound like a bleeding heart liberal instead of a nominal conservative.
1-Racial equality in America is still light yrs better than it was as little as 50 yrs. ago.
2-Voluntary segregation has nothing to do with racial progress in America. Mandatory yes, is the cornerstone of inequality and every voluntary effort should be made to integrate. However to the extent it doesn't happen it should not be used as an excuse for racial in equality. Plenty of groups who basically remained somewhat segregated in this country has prospered namely Asians and Jews.
3-The military, marriage and church, although legit institutions have nothing to do with racial progress.
4-The racial liberals gave us the great emancipator Lincoln. They gave us LBJ and Civil Rights and Voting Rights. Now David it is up to blacks to be conservatives ie promote themselves like Jews and Asians did.
5-One area where you right re a turning back is the demagogue Trump inciting bigotry in America. However we are not in the 1770s or the 1850's or even the 1950s. America is too strong to go back to those days.
5
School choice. Those who force people to pay for lousy schools, and offer those schools as if they cost nothing, are doing racism, whatever they feel like. Voucherize radically: a structural change. Jesus is libertarian.
6
Mr. Brooks, with the election of President Trump, we have taken a large jump backwards in race relations. However, I don't expect that you can sense it in its full magnitude in your world.
6
The black community deserves reparation for slavery, for lack of adequate education, for lost opportunities, for being deemed “less than” in our country. You cannot possibly make up for years of poor education, poor wages, and desperately poor opportunities.
I am white and had the privilege of a decent education and never had to suffer years of lost wages due to my skin color. Our very wealthy nation would be well served to repair the devastation caused to people of color.
12
the hey day of black progress was 1960-1975, according to this article.
What happened in 1976? Oh, yeah, the Reaganites began taking over the Republican Party.
Reagan, simply stated, was Donald Trump without Twitter.
6
School choice. Those who force people to pay for lousy schools, and offer those schools as if they cost nothing, are doing racism, whatever they feel like. Voucherize radically: a structural change. Jesus is libertarian.
The party of slavery, segregation, and bureaucracy--of telling other people what to do--needs to repent.
Hmm. I'm pretty liberal, but I never for a minute doubted the social value of military service, marriage, or church. I'm white, but I've spent enough time in black communities to have seen first hand how those institutions shape black American lives. They shape white American lives, too, but it's pretty darn stark in black America.
Don't know where Brooks got the idea that liberals don't understand how minority communities work.
6
Democrats see the same value in the norms Brooks attributes to conservatives. But they don’t actively promote racial (and gender) hatred.
Unless he admits his Republican Party’s work to rabble rouse and kill civil rights protections, then Brooks has no authority on this subject, and I wasted my time reading this.
1
I wish we would stop using the word "racism" so much. Now, I think we know for a fact that there's a lot of racism in America. Apparently Google searches for racial slurs went up tremendously when Obama was elected. So lots of Americans are racist, but I'm not sure calling something racist really helps much, because few people really THINK in racist terms. Few people would say, "I can't vote for this person because he is black." The word racist has become a sort of buzz word that doesn't mean much anymore.
The new "racism," I think, is libertarianism, or something close to it. The idea that personal responsibility takes care of everything. We are not really a society, but just a bunch of individuals competing to get as big a piece of the pie as possible. If we just face that reality, the market can take care of everything. I don't think that idea really makes good sense of the world, and I think liberals should insist on debating its merits rather than calling people racist. We will not get much success from the latter strategy.
Now, I wouldn't say that all libertarians are racist. A lot of them are not. But there is a percentage for whom this ideology really is a cover for racism.
2
How does one deal with black racism? The constant clamor to have a black experience that only "their" people can provide; frequent accusations against whites of cultural appropriation (of black heritage), and a perpetuation of a "victim" mentality makes it harder to judge the issue of race/income/education inequality in the US.
The use of undue force against blacks by law enforcement is definitely a cause of concern, but it has more to do with their training methodology than systemic racism. The fact the mainstream media hardly talks about the other side of the issue foments more social division.
NYT commentators should ask themselves: How did they get where they are today? Did they make it because of social handouts, or because they had inherited some "cultural capital" that pushed them to success? A helping hand works best when coupled with the desire to rise up socially. The success of many immigrants-- both poor and with limited English skills -- suggests that US still is a good place to live and work. All you need is fire in your belly.
8
You say it's a quiet death, huh? Well, as a minority who have experienced so many completely unwarranted abuses, just because I happen to be a black immigrant, I disagree. But I understand why it might be a "quiet death" for good white people like Mr. Brooks. White supremacists who see Trump's election as a license to abuse minorities, do not usually target other white people. Trust me, there is nothing quiet about this death. I mean, how many stories were published here in the pages of the Times where white people threated to call cops on black people for doing absolutely nothing wrong other than being black/minority?
Some might loathe Trump for his policies and grabbing women the wrong place; but for minorities like myself, he is the purveyor of a screaming and immediate physical threat!
4
Amazing Mr Brooks, but how can you put out a piece on one day, lauding the great Conservative judicial machine developed and honed to near perpetual motion, and then follow up with the hidden stratification of minorities (read blacks) in America and how it is failing to be addressed.
Have you ever taken a good into the workings of that machine you so laud? You’ll find the answers to this piece there.
2
Enlightened leadership would help a lot. The better angels have taken flight. Inflamed hurtful rhetoric stokes passions, when we need to soothe hearts. Dystopian views distort reality. Fear of the other reflects human weakness. A saviour among us preaches fear. False prophets always lurking in shadows now assume leadership. They awaken the dark spirit of man capitalize on insecurities.
This is a test not a binary choice between left and right. Do we believe in our cherished ideals? Willing to live by rules of common decency? Or live in a world void of both?
Mr. Trump is a failed leader. Congress not far behind. It would be refreshing to hear a candidate proclaim I would rather be right on the issue than win a seat in Congress or occupy the White House.
Black men not conforming to bourgeois norms like military service, marriage, and the church -- or even getting and keeping a steady job? Try doing most of those things if you've already been labeled a criminal by the "structurally racist" criminal justice system, particularly the "war on drugs," as Michelle Alexander ably pointed out in "The New Jim Crow." The military, and many jobs, will typically not accept people with criminal records, even non-violent drug offenses. Women don't want to marry men whose economic prospects are slim to none. It's hard to have active fathers in a community when a high percentage of them are incarcerated. And church participation in African-American and Latino communities is often more robust than in affluent white communities. The "cultural norms" deficit that Brooks posits is a largely a product of the structural racism he acknowledges. And the economic inequality that conservatives eagerly embrace and foster produces similar effects on all less-than-affluent people, regardless of race.
3
Let’s put it this way. In those places considered progressive, change is positive. In those place where racism exists, it now openly on the surface.
Trump likes to tell us all that he has accomplished, this is one of them.
At least David Brooks admits that equality stats are dismal but what is amazing is that he's surprised. Affirmative Action has been gutted. The Republicans have pushed wealth redistribution tax "reform" down our throats - taking money from the 99% and giving it to the 1%. The Republicans have been vigorously gutting social programs for decades. Republicans have been promoting the privatization of prisons for decades and support a justice system thst maximizes incarceration rates for black males as payback to their wealthy campaign donors. Republicans believe in the "ownership" society ethic. For them that would be fully realized if they could have their southern plantations back with their free slave labor.
4
The stagnation of African-American economic progress coincides with the economic stagnation of all Americans in the middle and lower classes since the U.S. government’s embrace of supply-side economics in 1981. This is because minorities disproportionately occupy the lower rungs of America’s socioeconomic ladder. Additionally, America’s embrace of cultural conservatism, for one familiar example, our impulse to prosecute and incarcerate small drug dealers and users who tend to be people of color while overlooking larger dealers and users who tend to be white, has also adversely impacted the progress of minorities. The only certain way to permanently improve the lives of minorities in this country is to implement a serious plan to reverse the effects of trickle-down economics and resolve America’s gross wealth and income disparity and to promote a truly just criminal justice system.
1
Mr. Brooks, Please stop implying conservatives own marriage, church and the military! That is a disgrace to reality, those institutions and your integrity.
Quote: "But conservatives are right to point to the importance of bourgeois norms. Three institutions do an impressive job of reducing racial disparity: the military, marriage and church."
Do you really think that left-wingers (why you choose that wording instead of liberal, while not choosing "right-wingers" as a placeholder for conservatives is telling) think the military, marriage and the church are unimportant in providing support and stability to all races???
Racism exists because of stereotyping and narrow-minded thinking such as this. The current president, supported by a majority of "conservatives" "right-wingers" and "republicans" thinks that the military, church and marriage all be denied to LGBT people. That's not racist, but it is bigoted. And it's precisely why "left-wingers" say the problem is with systems of oppression. I believe that many liberals happily do and according to you "radically" would embrace the military, church and marriage as important to increasing equality. Unfortunately the "powers that be" have not or won't let them be enjoyed by all. Of course, liberals also allow for the possibility that people may choose not to engage with those institutions: their choice and fundamental to our constitution's respect for personal choice.
I'd like to see a column on conservatives being radical.
1
What Brooks' final conclusions miss is a key issue: economic security must come first. For all those wonderful middle-class norms to work their cultural magic, you need to have a stable income that is high enough to meet basic family needs. When you have a system where racism is keeping black families from economic stability, they won't "act middle class." Because acting middle class requires resources they don't have.
I am sorry, but for Mr. Brooks to bring up the church as an instrument of racial equality is totally absurd. Everyone knows that the most powerful church in the United States (evangelist) is a church in name only, and operates as a right wing political organization! Even their supposed pro-life position has very little to do with morality and everything to do with preserving the white majority in the United States! Had that not been the case, then we would have seen these church-politicians defend the defenseless poor as much as the unborn. Give me a break!
1
Just a few months ago, Mr. Brooks wrote a column praising John Stuart Mill and his liberal individualism. Here we are a couple months later and he is a communitarian. Which one is it?
I assumed you were shedding light on the question in your byline: how can we stop backsliding?
You are saying to blacks: join the military, go to church (which together is likely to place you in a significantly different social environment than without such affiliations) - that improves your chances.
If so, both are worth deliberation with extreme seriousness; any way out of endemic poverty and slide down the socioeconomic order deserves exploration, experimentation.
1
David Brooks started out to write an upbeat column about racial progress in the United States but unfortunately too many facts intruded on his rosy view.
Many Americans who voted for Barack Obama twice thought our country had made progress until the Republicans in Congress decided to "conspire" and make him a one term President. Following his re-election they obstructed and obstructed and obstructed to sabotage any chance of more rapid recovery from the 2008 meltdown. Their obstruction of Merrick Garland, his Supreme Court nominee, hit a new nadir for their racism.
And then there is Flint, Michigan whose lead poisoned water supply (saving taxpayer money) will cause lifelong damage to young people of color.
And then, there is the failed FEMA Puerto Rican relief effort, still not complete one year later.
Police shooting of unarmed people and children of color.
And the human rights violations committed by agents of the United States government against asylum seeking men, women, and children, including infants, at our Southern border.
Mr. Brooks does not need to read academic studies to learn that American Racism is thriving (in Republican circles), he just has to read the newspapers like the rest of us.
Mr. Brooks should use his "pen" to call out lies and traitorous behavior and write columns based on facts and truth free from his wishful thinking and rationalizations.
He should then find that with an untroubled conscience, he, as a journalist, can sleep better at night.
7
I recently read about a study done by Harvard researcher Robert Putnam back in 2000 which interviewed 30000 people across the US and came to the conclusion that racial and ethnic"diversitity" was not a good thing in a community. "The greater the diversity in a community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and work on community projects. In the most diverse communities, neighbors trust one another about half as much as they do in the most homogenous settings. The study, the largest ever on civic engagement in America, found that virtually all measures of civic health are lower in more diverse settings."
http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/the_downs...
Trying to force races and ethinic groups together doesnt seem to give a good outcome except perhaps on the job. I belive that aside from some people fleeing terror in their countries , people emigrate to the US from Pakistan, India, China etc to make more money and have a richer life. The dont come here to become Americans. I have worked with these groups in the electronics industry and once the job is over, they pretty much go back to their family and ethinic groups. The melting pot does not melt them.
7
So we should force everyone to marry, join the military and believe in god? Aren't those just synonyms for being part of a cohesive social group? There are more cohesive social structures than just marriage, military and religion.
4
David, I'll just note here that black folk never have got a fair deal even as far back as the 13th Amendment. Lynchings, Jim Crow, segregation, and redlining have each acted as a check against promised progress. And the Supreme Court's actions against gerrymandering and voter suppression efforts are simply more of the same: blocks to promises of change.
I'm disappointed but not surprised the SCOTUS decisions that make it harder for black folk to vote didn't get a mention in your essay, and almost nothing about the so-called justice system, either. Hmmm.
2
I think David Brooks forgot that systematic and state-sponsored 'hunting' of black men has a weight factor which is extremely high. It is much higher than any equalizing effect that the church, the military or marriage can have on an African American man's life. In order to equalize, every black man in America should first feel comfortable that they can make it alive through the day.
"... the general presence of fathers ... in the community is a powerful determinant of whether young men will be able to rise and thrive."
Mr. Brooks, please remind me again of what it was that made absolutely sure black families would be broken up, so that fathers (and mothers and children) could not remain in their own families, oh, let's say back in the first 85 years or so of our country? I think you can figure it out. Ever wondered what that did to family life?
3
I have been a teacher since 1966, and I have seen few indications that American schools have made any effort to provide equal education to all students. I have lived and taught in Malaysia and China, and saw with my own eyes that almost ALL students were considered capable of taking ALL courses and were ALL required to take classes - including classes such as Physics and Calculus - which, in many of our high schools, only a very small number of our kids ever are permitted to take. Many jobs nowadays require knowledge of math and science, so not giving them a chance to get their feet wet in Junior and High school makes it almost impossible to find jobs in those fields.
Most students who take higher level classes in this country are, in my experience, 90% or more white, while few minorities ever get a chance to take these courses. Countries who are competing with us require ALL students to take these classes. We are losing the international educational race because we don't give most of our students the chance to take classes they will need to get work in the economy in our future, and very few people are talking about this weakness.
3
Mr. Brooks is just restating the old myth that disadvantaged people are disadvantaged because they've made bad life choices instead of acknowledging that people often make bad life choices because they aren't given the opportunity to make good ones. It's victim blaming.
One joins the traditional institutions Brooks calls out as a matter of personal choice. Of course career members of the military, or people who have been married their whole lives, or people who attend church regularly have better life outcomes than people who don't do those things -- because those successes or behaviors are a part of a structured and stable life outcome, not a cause of them.
You would not thrive in any of those conservative institutions if you weren't already a disciplined and thoughtful person, and because of steadily worsening conditions for the middle and working classes in the US, it's increasingly the case that being mentally disciplined and thoughtful are challenging conditions to maintain if you haven't already been born with a certain amount of economic stability.
Our society should provide good choices to everyone. We don't do that: that is what is meant by "a system of oppression." Our society's failure to create those opportunities for everyone is the entire problem in a nutshell.
1
Income inequality.
Wealth is concentrated, tribally, in the hands of a white upper class, particularly with our oligarchic 0.1% overlords.
How can we desegregate schools? By investing in all schools regardless of a community's socioeconomic stays.
How can we get people out of poverty? By guaranteeing a living wage for all workers.
How can we encourage upward mobility among those with intellectual capacity to contribute? Make college accessible.
How do we keep the middle class intact once people make it there? Financial protections and universal health care.
Do I sound like Bernie Sanders?
Mea culpa.
4
Wealth is concentrated tribally? Where do you get this stuff? Do you think maybe it’s based on education? Hard work? Two parent families?
3
We really don't need "progress" on race, but rather to get to the point were "race" means almost nothing. When we get beyond race we will be where a famous person once said as a the ideal. Judge people by the content of the character, not the color of their skin. With progressives we are further from that ideal in some ways than before the Obama administration. Now at the grass roots I bet we have made progress that progressives in their fantasy alternative reality don't notice.
5
"Three institutions do an impressive job of reducing racial disparity: the military, marriage and church. As the A.E.I. study shows, black men who served in the military are more likely to be in the middle class than those who did not. Black men who attended religious services are 76 percent more likely to attain at least middle-class status than those who did not. As Chetty’s research shows, the general presence of fathers — not just one’s own — in the community is a powerful determinant of whether young men will be able to rise and thrive."
So in order to be "successful" and black in America, you have to either 1) fight for the country that oppresses you (as the writer agrees has/is, indeed, the case) 2) take part in a state sanctified relationship under the country that oppresses you or 3) be religious in the country that oppresses you that promises to separate church from state.
Institutions that all/most citizens take part in as Americans should be the ones linked to reducing racial disparities, so that they support the greatest number of people. You shouldn't have to fight a war, marry, or step into a church to feel the results of progress; you should only have to be human.
9
Well,well Mr.Brooks. Without actually saying it, you said it. We topped out around 1975 ; no coincidence there since the right began their ALEC plan about then: white flight to the burbs, the rise of the trickle-down thinkers, Anita Bryant, the end of the Selective Service(draft),the Lee Atwaters' ascent in gop philosophy. The "fiscally conservative/socially liberal" group think that let EVERYBODY feel good about themselves. And of course, the beginning of the descent for labor unions everywhere. The boomers started buying "rice burners" , putting their fathers, brothers,cousins and neighbors out of work. The manufacturers in the good old U.S.A. refused to spend the money for factory upgrades; Northern union shops moved south. Many unions were resisting "quotas", thereby creating anti-union sentiment along racial lines. And the gop began using their dog whistles . This column is a little late, don't you think, Mr. Brooks?
6
No doubt there are meaningful correlations between some of things you list in your comment and subsequent national history.
However, correlation is not necessarily causation. I'm no conservative but I can point out that Roe v. Wade came down at that time as did the rise of disco. In my local high school yearbook in 1970 no one had long hair. By 1975 almost everyone did. Fast food mega-chains began to explode onto the scene, as did shopping malls. Walmart began its march. The Arabs embargoed oil and Detroit gas guzzlers became unaffordable to fuel along with being unwieldy to drive. The bills for the Vietnam War came due. Stagflation took hold. The Bloods and Crips rose. The speed limit was reduced to 55 nationally. Cigarette ads were removed from TV. Mao Tse Tung died. Irish Spring soap was marketed, along with Old Spice aftershave, Gillette Foamy, and hair spray for men (The Wet Head is Dead). We were urged to "try it you'll like it", told "if it feels good do it", encouraged to "get down, get down", "do a little dance", "have sympathy for the Devil", and "rock and roll all night, and party every day".
I don't know about you, but none of that was either FDR's or my fathers United States of America, so all the loss of greatness wasn't just because of Republican policies, and not all of the wounds in the African American community have only been inflicted by whites. Many joined the "party", but it wasn't a political party, it was an economic one called blind consumerism.
4
A very interesting article, especially at the end citing left wing and conservative approaches. One thought did cross my mind. Perhaps we need to bring back 2 years of service when one reaches the age of 18. Either military or other service so that each coming generation has experience dealing with each other in such activities.
14
AS, yes you are! For decades and decades, the US has imported cheap labor from Mexico.That, is the history of the US. When manufacturing gets expensive here they just take the jobs to other countries. I remember a number of years ago, a Japanese manufacturer opened a plant in what is a red state. The job required high school math. The plant could not fill the positions because the applicants could not pass the test. They had to import workers,to fill the positions. There are many jobs out there for skilled workers, unfortunately, they don't have the skills.
3
Yep. The people that I meet that have just graduated high school here, are either absolute computer geniuses, the highest over achievers ever, or at the other end of the spectrum, basically illiterate. I've met very few middle of the road young adults.
1
My daughter, a single parent with two children, ages 7 and almost 10 live with me while she completes her college education. I asked my daughter if we could enroll them in parochial school for two reasons, one to teach them our religion and two to give them the foundation for a higher education in their future. No matter where a child attends school, a parent must be involved. Review their homework daily, read or have them read to you daily, ask questions when you need clarification from the teacher, show them the free educational apps on the computer, attend open house, at school, demand accountability from your children, teachers and principle, and participate in school activities. I know many parents work, but Dad, instead of sitting down with a beer or cocktail in front of the TV, talk with your kid. This is a parents obligation to their children EDUCATION IS THE GREAT EQUALIZER! It is never all up to the teacher.
11
You know Daytona, I can pretty much agree with that, except for parochial school, keep those guys away from my kids, I don't trust any of them, and I don't want them programming my kids. But your kid failing to learn how to read, write and count? Parental failure, if they get to 2nd, 3rd, 4th grade and you notice they can't read or write yet, the parents should be engaged enough to notice. My parents had flash cards for me, and paid attention. I don't think they were the exception then, would they be now? I notice that people blame the teachers now. I doubt if that is it, you get out of school exactly proportional to the effort you put in.
2
I remember Ronald Reagan talking about State's Rights and welfare queens.
Where were you then, Mr. Brooks, and all the years since?
18
AMEN!
1
It seems with each column, Brooks self-identifies as a product of a segregated, upper-class life lived in the ivoriest of towers. Anyone in the trenches of life in our nation, who actually knows people of multiple races and classes, knows that racial progress hasn't died quietly, any more than any of the advances were made quietly.
Racial progress has died kicking and screaming, begging and wailing, amidst police violence towards people of color, mass incarceration, redlining, gerrymandering, and the Supreme Court's gutting of the Voting Rights Act, which was the result of years of blood, sweat, tears, and death.
We aren't backsliding toward inequality. That's just the sound of the scales falling from Brooks' eyes.
15
Mr Brooks,
Your stats are interesting but I place this decline on Trump, and Trump alone. We may have been teetering before he stole the Presidency but he has tipped the scales. He has made this country unsafe for everyone: blacks, whites, browns, and yellows.
His antipathy towards those who are not white has also made his kind more insecure about their own safety. He has instigated domestic and international terrorism. By separating asylum seeking toddlers, he has pushed America off the moral high ground; he could care less about Reagan's shining city on a hill or Lincoln's moral arguments, much less Bush's thousand points of light or McCain's sacrifice. He has made America ripe for a terrorist attack, from within and from without.
So, what are we going to do to save ourselves from Putin's puppet come the next election and in the immediate future, our Supreme Court from being taken over by Putin?
12
David, you lack intellectual honesty. While you recognize the existence and progress of tribalism, you fail to make a logical conclusion that tribalism is a result of the failed politics of identity and difference. It has failed because it paternalistic. It has been, with some exception (civil rights), primarily about privilege. Privilege is not about equality; it does not empower those who receive privilege. It is about the domination of those who grant privileges. In this sense, the politics of difference and identity does not empower. That is the principal reason for the failure. We should have a very different policy of universal inclusion and empowerment, not selective privileging.
5
And you fail to mention the biggest problem of all: The racist GOP elected an avowed bigot to the presidency, along with a bunch of the most obviously racist members of Congress ever - so improvement is farther off than ever. That election was evidence of the huge problem you don’t mention: white racism. Your party, the GOP, is THE party of racism and has been for decades, but you never really deal with it. Putting your head in the sand - and blaming the victim - has long been your own scapegoat. You, David Brooks, are the source of the problem. You just never seem to get it.
11
The only bone of contention for me in Mr. Brooks article is to call the demise of "racial progress" in the US "quiet." Many have made as much noise as they can on the issue of racial inequity (and inequality generally). That the mainstream press does not cover it more often speaks volumes.
6
Bold, confident talented black men have the hardest time finding work in this country. It’s a shame.
5
After reading Brooks' op-ed and the comments, I am reminded of two songs from thr late 1960s and early 1970s: "In the Ghetto" by Mac Davis and popularized by Elvis Presley, and "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" by the Temptations. I need not go into details of the lyrics, but it seems to me that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
2
Since when has Brooks cared about evidence? Now with Trump wrecking the country, Brooks is concerned?
He has long supported the GOP that uniquely used racial prejudice to win elections. He ignored that over time, the ground was prepared for Trump with our increased economic downward mobility and insecurity of all groups. Americans have had to fight for the crumbs left over after the 1 percent took their cut of the nation's productivity. Then had their taxes reduced, and govt regulations weakened.
Brooks shilled for the party that has been uniqely dependent on corporate mega donors so that private interests overbalance public good, with racial effects.
That allowed jobs to be shipped abroad, wages to be low, unions destroyed, education underfunded. Health care and college tuition to be big profit centered. And how about a column on the prison industrial complex?
This all affects racial minorities behind economically, to start with, lacking the advantages over generations that whites had in education, job promotions, and home ownership.
Yes, racial progress improved for a while, but then the profit priority took over US politics. It's profit and loss calculation in our politics, the public interest be damned.
Bad for most of us, worse for minorities. Get real Brooks.
16
How about doing something about cheap labor from south of the border? Either integrate Mexico into the US solving the immigration problem and the oil problem and the wage problem at the same time or shut down immigration from low wage countries and send those here illegally back and penalize employers. Then when the jobs they were doing pay well black people will do them just like they have in the past. The problem is that there are no entry level low skilled jobs that pay well with benefits......unions have been broken in the private sector.......blacks are fighting over scraps as are whites.
4
This column should be titled "The quiet death of the illusion of racial progress".
All the videos we've been seeing of racial assaults both verbal and physical, racial profiling and shootings of unarmed black people by police, harassment of minorities just for being where they "don't belong" have been happening for decades. While the election of Cheeto McTweeto has emboldened many bigots, the ability of modern technology to capture these incidents has allowed us to have a front row seat to witness things that we as white suburbanites would like to believe didn't happen anymore. It's like we've ripped the scab off only to find that the wound has festered far worse than we ever thought.
If there is to be a silver lining to all this, it may be the sudden realization by many that the pretense that we'd come a long way in race relations was an overly optimistic point of view at best and allow us to confront our demons honestly.
Unfortunately I don't hold out much hope given the current political and economic environment of an improvement for the better.
11
There’s gambling in the casino!
3
Unfortunately, all the studies we can do using the past's data points are not indicative of America's decline since Trump. People showing up at White Nationalist rallys sans hood are a bad sign. People willing to say things out loud that we had learned to NOT say or even think, that's a bad sign. People willing to yell and scream at complete strangers because they dress differently, or wear a hajib or a Puerto Rico (!) tee shirt, or dare to speak a language other than English, these are bad signs. Trump's reign has allowed the basest human instincts and fears to be normalized. It has made people feel its ok to say and do horrible things, because Trump says it is. And demonstrates that it is. For it to change, he has to go. CONGRESS, DO SOMETHING BEFORE WE ARE NOT AMERICA ANYMORE.
13
Quiet? Backsliding on race is a brass band celebration now, bass drum thumping and dogs barking and cheerleaders tossing ponpons in the air. No doubt Mr. Trump considers them all very fine people. The real America is going to rain on this this disgraceful parade in November.
6
CJ Roberts declared that there is no more racism or need for affirmative action. Today the #PLIC's administration declares there is no more poverty and no need for assistance for the poor.
Data be damned, full speed ahead to the 19th Century when poor houses and work houses put those malicious poor people where they belonged and Jim Crow took care of those bad Blacks.
5
Roberts and Justice Kennedy also believe the segregation we have is “defacto” segregation. Minorities prefer to live apart..... pay no attention tot the fact that developments like Levittown “no sales Blacks” was in the property deeds. Developers wishing to develop integrated communities were refused financing. ( “when affirmative action was white”, Ira Katznelson, the color of law’, Richard Rothstein )
Contrary to popular belief black males have the lowest clearance rate for all crimes except drug related crimes. So in fact they are the least likely to be punished for crime not the most likely. Look at the most violent cities in the USA and analyze by crime and clearance rate and race. Notice the pattern. I am sympathetic to the plight of blacks in USA but we do them no favors by inflating and conflating sentencing for crimes. The larger problem is allowing black crime to go unsolved, thus putting communities at risk and allowing thugs to rule the ghettos.
8
While there hasn't been much change lately, I still find the progress numbers to be a hopeful sign. We are currently living in a renaissance of serious and empowered bigotry and far right ideals from the pre civil rights era, but its hate and ignorance is evenly distributed against blacks, all races and religions not white and Christian, women, liberals and the LBGTQIA . Its the times we are living in and while anti black racism is very vile (and has been since Obama was elected) and well documented these days, people are recording and reporting it, sharing it on social media, and caring about it. I do think specific anti black racism needs to be addressed and eradicated, and everywhere from the removing confederate statues to the support of BLM, to the release of wrongfully jailed blacks I think we are still dedicated, as a society, to these aims.
We are living in a world run by hateful racists and misogynistic voters. But the majority of humanity aren't either, and in life, we have found and still will, that the majority as well as righteousness always wins. I have faith in that, and in the new world I see arising with our children's generations, a rebirth of post racial normalacy and a true accceptance of diversity.
3
The end of racial progress began with Ronald Reagan, a Republican. The death of it will begin with Brett Kavanaugh, a Republican.
When Trump said, "good people on both sides", everyone knew what "side" he was really on. He is a white supremacist, and his own words prove it. His "birther movement" against Obama read as follows:
"He doesn't have a birth certificate. Or, if he does, there's something on that certificate that is very bad for him. Somebody told me that where it says 'religion' it might have 'Muslim'."
"I have people that have been studying Obama's birth certificate and they cannot believe what they're finding. If he wasn't born in this country, which is a real possibility, then he has pulled one of the great cons in the history of politics."
"People do not think it was an authentic certificate. His mother was not in the hospital. There are many other things that came out. And, frankly, if you would report it accurately, I think you'd probably get better ratings than you're getting."
"An 'extremely credible source' told me that the birth certificate is a fraud."
"Amazing. The State Health Director who verified copies of Obama's 'birth certificate' died in a plane crash today. All others lived."
"Who knows about Obama? Who knows, who knows? I have my own theory on Obama."
Ever heard of Joe McCarthy? Another Republican.
The GOP use of racism to fill the voting tent has a long history. And now, it's no longer in private. They scream it from the W.H.
11
President Obama and Michelle Obama followed those bourgeois values and look at the warm welcome that they received from conservatives. Oh, wait.....
12
no kidding Sherlock!
Get radical on both sides, a total Brooks cop-out.
Racism has always been both implicit and gone unacknowledged in Brook's much touted Conservative Republicanism. This is what David needs to get radical about.
4
It is not clear the Mr. Brooks understands that those black men who joined the military or attend church selected themselves into those groups, which tells us something about them. Those joining the military were opting for a life of structure and discipline and probably had no previous criminal record. To find out the effect of the military that is different from the attributes of the individuals, we need to randomly select people (black, while and latino) into the military and observe subsequent behavior; Wait! That's the draft. In any event, selection is not random.
7
Mr. Brooks, great editorial on what's happening relative to racial progress, but no comment regarding why it's happening and what needs to be done to address this issue. I would surmise with Trump and the MAGA campaign that tribalism, nativism, and inequality are on the rise and the expectation would be a decline in racial progress. I don't believe the catalyst or underlying cause for this decline is racism; I am convinced that we're losing our sense of community, caring, and empathy towards people that don't look like us. There were Jim Crow laws and racial discrimination in the 40's, 50's, and 60's, but Congress and Americans were able to express empathy and caring towards black and brown people. What seems to have changed in the 2000's is white Americans now feel as victimized and discriminated as black and brown people and, hence, The Quiet Death of Racial Progress. Jeffrey Kluger wrote in Time Magazine (10/20/2007 issue) " The deepest foundation on which morality is built is the phenomenon of empathy, the understanding that what hurts me would feel the same way to you." When you watch a brown woman from South America weeping and wailing in pain, torment, and desperation because the American government separated her from her child; and the President of the United States of America says indirectly to her that it's her fault because she crossed into our country illegally, then we've lost our moral compass and sense of empathy.
2
Part of the issue is whether to judge equality of opportunity by the results obtained or, put another way, whether to base charges of discriminatory behavior on the outcomes without regard to anyone’s efforts or intent. Discussions of “disparate impact” turn on such issues.
4
Not long ago I watched David Letterman spend an hour talking with Jay-Z, and at one point he noted that if one could have a discussion about whether or not someone was racist, they were racist. He was, of course, referring to the current president...and by definition many, if not most, of his supporters.
This is the state of a nation that started with slavery and in the twenty-first century has angry white citizens openly holding those who are not white in contempt. Let's add in intolerance for female equality and for those who are not heterosexual. So making America great again (an oxymoron) apparently is based on racism, intolerance and hatred.
Republicans and their current version of political party are responsible for backsliding toward inequality. They need to own it. In placing party above country, they have become the problem when it comes to racism. Their president is symbolic of why they do not deserve to govern.
Eclectic Pragmatism — http://eclectic-pragmatist.tumblr.com/
Eclectic Pragmatist — https://medium.com/eclectic-pragmatism
4
The fish rots from the head. Impeach the racist-in-chief.
4
30 years ago an entry-level worker made about 30 times less than the CEO of the company. Today, a line worker makes 300 times less, if not a thousand times less than a CEO.
Add on proven racial bias In the hiring process for mid and upper-level employees-where names that sounded black were called for interviews substantially more often than names that sounded white.
Add on how black people are far more often treated brutally by law-enforcement for crimes of walking while black, barbecuing while black, and driving while black.
Add on a president who calls neo-Nazis "many fine people" - encouraging the worst in our country to come forward and speak their evil freely.
Fix all of that, and then we'll talk about your church attendance notion.
8
"Systems of oppression that pervade society"? Did David Brooks really write that? That leftist pseudo-social scientific claptrap in the mouth of a careful prose stylist like David Brooks? How could it be?
That is not all. Usually Brooks is a meticulous analyst too. Not today. He tells us that "racist attitudes in the workplace make it much harder for African-American men to get jobs."
But whatever the reason for African-American men's problems finding and keeping jobs, it can't be "racist attitudes," at least without major qualification. How do we know? Because Brooks just quoted Chetty's work that shows that African-American WOMEN do just as well in climbing out of poverty as their white counterparts. Presumably "racist attitudes" should affect African-African women as well as African-American men.
My plea to Brooks is: Stop trying to make nice with the left. He will only end up compromising his intellectual integrity. Terms like "structural racism" are just political sticks to bludgeon people with. They have got no relation to the truth and never will.
8
Americans across all racial divides stated to pollsters that we were a much more united country before the sharply ideological Barack Obama was elected president.
He spent his entire time in office teaching racial resentment and outright hate, to the point that several policemen were killed by snipers after Mr. Obama had vented his venom for years.
The greatest blown opportunity in presidential history may well have been the angry Obama raising racial hatreds where he COULD have been the perfect solution to easing them.
Thanks so much to the NY Times for going all out to make sure he not only got elected but then covering for him every hour of every day while he was doing what he did to America's middle and working classes.
9
Disturbing if true, but it ain’t.
2
I wonder how the statistics on minority children Brooks points to are affected by the fact that there are fewer "white" children today than in the past. Saying that "Black and Hispanic children are more likely to be residentially segregated than minority adults" must take into account that for "desegregation" you need a certain number of non-minorities too.
1
David Brooks should just change his name to "False Equivalency." Right-wingers actively oppose progressive attempts to work against structural racism; left-wingers simply note that middle-class social norms can't do the job on their own, and that those norms tend to follow, rather than lead, racial progress in other areas. So, no, once again, it's not as if the two sides need to meet in some shared middle; once again, the radical right is causing the divide, to further the very purposes Brooks pretends to decry.
9
I have no reason to dispute the premise that the military, marriage and "church" have been impactful in moving black men who participate in those institution into the middle class. However, the most significant economic catalyst for black men was unionization. Of course when you depend solely on a report from the rabidly anti-labor AEI for your facts, is it any wonder that collective bargaining doesn't make the cut? This just shows why people like David Brooks remain part of the problem and will never be part of the solution. They only support that which they find acceptable to the detriment of those they claim to want to assist.
2
Pick a state, say Alabama. Now, examine an institution all agree is essential for future success, say education. OK -- in Alabama many white children attend private, economically segregated religious academies. Most African American children attend under-funded public schools. Due to the nature of how our schools are financed, local taxes, predominantly black schools are chronically and significantly underfunded.
The Klan may no longer have a significant presence in Alabama, but their racist attitude certainly does. What other explanation for such gross injustice is there?
4
Its not just the deep South. Substitute "New York City"for "Alabama" and your statement still holds.
1
"The threat of voter disenfranchisement will get worse if Judge Kavanaugh is confirmed to the court." NYT essay today. Mr. Brooks, last column you were singing the praises of a judge that consistently rules against voter rights. Which is the real Mr. Brooks? On the bus or off the bus; no sitting up front with the right kind of people.
3
I've got news for you David -- it ain't quiet! Not with the blowhard tweeting his racist missives in all caps at every opportunity.
9
Quiet? You ain’t been listening!
4
Hispanic and African American unemployment at historic lows. Women far outnumber men in college and law school. Yes, the world is coming to an end.
6
David, you're better than this lazy and disingenuous column. Don't you think that the conservative media, having defined the current political context as between the interests of those in the "heartland" (i.e. whites) and the omnipresent danger of dark-skinned immigrants/ terrorists (no, white school shooters don't count)/ etc has something to do with this? That "Trumpism" is merely thinly veiled (or unveiled) racial resentment, driven by Fox News and the like? It is understandable that you feel some regret for the academic conservative community's complicit role in this, but to pretend that you are stumped by the current stasis in racial progress is intellectually dishonest.
3
Let's do a little historical recapitulation, shall we Mr. Brooks?
Nixon (R): Southern Strategy
Reagan (R): Welfare Queens
Bush Senior (R): Willie Horton
Pat Buchanan (R): Cultural Jihad
Lee Atwater (R): "You start out in 1954 by saying, “N...r, n...r, n...r.” By 1968 you can’t say “n...r”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “N...r, n...r.”
Jesse Helms (R): white hands commercial
Mitt Romney: "There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax.'
Donald Trump: so many, which one to choose? How about this "Dems want immigrants to infest our country."
Do NOT, EVER, talk about racial radicals in the Left, sir.
4
Reagan was more: "States' rights" at Philadelphia, Mississippi. A more cynical campaign opening I cannot imagine.
1
Related story today about the war on poverty has been won...so who needs Medicaid. New Yorkers see the poor every day. But apparently the folks in power in DC never step out of their gated communities nor have a real conversation with the maid, nanny or gardener. Here's the truth from a healthcare professional who worked in health care starting in 1975. The ACA is the best thing that happened to citizen's ability to access healthcare without going bankrupt. If all states had participated in Medicaid expansion even more citizens would have been helped. But Rs in state governments including here in NC, clearly felt letting some of their fellow citizens die was okay if it meant thumbing their noses at Obama. So the idiocy did actually begin long before the Vvery Stable Genius ascended to his Throne.
4
To David and probably the majority of comment writers I recommend before you write anything more about "race" and racial progress, take the time to read the interviews of Adrian Piper carried out by Thomas Chatterton Williams and Lauren O'Neill-Butler a few days ago.
You all seem to believe there is a distinct black race and an equally distinct white race. Read the interview in which Adrian Piper states in plain English that a major reason she fled to Berlin is that she just could not live in American where the government classifies people as belonging to non-existent races. Chatterton Williams is himself in Berlin for the same reason, to write a book making a case against the USCB system and much more in that domain.
Ending the USCB system will not end racism in America but this will give voice to the fact that we all belong to one race, the human, and that means that racial orders like the American racial order have no place in the 21st Century.
American neo-Nazis or alt-Rights if you prefer base their hatred and their violence on the firm belief that they are genetically superior to any other people, and Trump himself expresses that view about himself.
Take that foundation away from them, read Piper and Chatterton Williams and genome research David Reich for starters. Then end your own use of race terminology, a first step being to use ethnicity and eventually SES data to classify us all.
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Citizen US SE
2
Your party David invented the "Southern Strategy" and there is nothing quiet about racism. Black men and women can be driving, walking, eating, swimming, mowing a yard, you name it, and are alive on minute and dead the next. I don't see progress. Where is the progress?
2
So if I’m reading this right, the only actual prescriptions you called for to address problems 100% rooted in structural racism and a history of inequality is for BLACK people to live their lives differently? To join the military, to go to church, to get married?? This sounds like “uplift suasion” suggestions of racist Americans from the antebellum era who argued that black prospects would improve and racism would decrease by living more “upstanding” lives, proving to white society that they could be as white, or “bourgeois” in your version, as “normal” Americans. Back to the drawing board Brooks...
2
“Three institutions do an impressive job of reducing racial disparity: the military, marriage and church.” Here we go again with Brooks’ default solution for every problem in the world including racism: just turn back the hands of time to when family values and religion ruled.
Everybody sing!!
Give me that old time religion,
Give me that old time religion,
Give me that old time religion,
It's good enough for me.
Makes me love ev'ry body,
Makes me love ev'ry body,
Makes me love ev'ry body,
It's good enough for me.
My - isn’t that just wonderful!
Except…it’s not. That old time religion doesn’t “make me love ev'ry body.” Just look around.
We have a government overflowing with Bible-thumping, prayer-meeting, Biblical-justification-for mother-child-separation Christian officials who resign with: “I believe you are serving as President today because of God’s providence. I believe that same providence brought me into your service.”
Yet with all that gushing religious fervor comes a rapacious, naked racism and policies that target minorities either directly (massive incarceration) or through glaring neglect.
The “appalling retrogression on race” is the result of religious hypocrisy and the conservative belief that Providence has provided for a “natural” order among people. In 1630, Christian leader John Winthrop stated the Christian racial-economic creed: “some shall be high and in esteem, some low and in submission.”
That, David, is what “old time religion” will get.
6
Social and cultural anthropologists have pointed to the "desire for change" as a critical feature for the success of social groups being pushed to achieve a specific outcome. Social engineering from "above" and the constant berating of Whites, however noble the aim, would not work unless the African-American communities realize themselves, why they're lagging behind. The truth is Blacks in the US have become pawns in the larger power struggle in the government and academic institutions, hence the perpetuation of their victim status.
1
So blacks also don't choose predominantly other black "friends, neighborhoods, churches, etc."? Your assertion that is only "we white citizens (that) are the problem" is nothing but testament to a racism of lower expectations for blacks, who you clearly do not hold to the same standards of inclusion and responsibility.
2
I’m sorry David, but your columns always equate the two sides, you straddle the reality! The truth is we are moving backwards mainly because of Republicans and the ignorance that has been aroused by most people losing in the last 30 years, wrongly blaming race for their frustrations (whether it brown or black)The main culprit is evil talk radio that incites this madness. Also, the inequality that has come with policies that favor the rich and corporations!
4
David, it is really time to drop this charade and sit down and do an audit on your own party and yourself and tell us how we got into this mess. Then you need to think about how we change the GOP’s negative narrative and bring this country back to being optimistic.
3
David, you are a thoughtful commentator, but I must take exception to your belief that we have been backsliding towards a death at some sort of cliff dividing the races. When in my teens in the 60s, I spent the entire time working and living among black people in Washington.
I do not believe that Trump has in any way aggravated, shredded or otherwise left us in this state you presume we are in now. At 70 I quietly live in the west now ( for 20 years), and it is a pure pleasure to sit in my community church and listen to the gospel preached by all races just like it was in the apostolic churches 45 years ago. I have always loved hearing the Word from men and women who may say it loudly, but I stayed away from the black culture of the 60s. But not the fake culture of the strident humanists like Stokeley Carmichael who belittled MLK ( as I once heard in a room in Anacostia). OH, I followed their evil like a puppy. No more. And yet I fear not any man, black or white, as I finally turned to God and Jesus.
Fear God, sir, with the grace you carry in your pen, and please stop the pretense.
Wait - what?
I don't think one can blame "A culture of individualism " for the lack of racial progress. Rather, I think, it is resurgent white tribalism, sanctioned and abetted by the tribalist in chief, Donald Trump.
1
Two words, MASS INCARCERATION. With over two million individuals housed in private, state and federal correctional facilities in the US, whom might you guess is being incarcerated THE MOST - en mass?
2
"How can we stop backsliding toward inequality?"
IMPEACH THE SO-CALLED PRESIDENT.
3
Brook admits that most of the decline in African American male poverty happened between 1960 and 1975, thus admitting the fallacy of the right wing claim that the War on Poverty was a failure.
5
Mr. Brooks, please stop. We haven't lost our enthusiasm for racial progress "as a nation", unless what you're referring to is the tyranny of the minority, and I don't mean the tyranny of minorities. Congress is ruled -- a word I choose purposely -- by Senators and Congressmen who were elected by a tiny minority of the general populace and a tiny minority of the voters. And that tiny minority, along with the tiny sliver of voters who handed the Presidency to the ignoramus in chief, is responsible for "the nation" turning away from racial progress. They are a mean, angry, selfish mob who choose to point the finger of blame at "others" who manage to achieve through harder work and greater sacrifice, rather than looking inward and reflecting on their own roles in their own failures, relative to these others. They have also been duped by the corporate interests that you and your party embrace, who sacrifice the greater good for another penny in corporate profits to benefit their already wealthy shareholders. And they are in the state they're in because YOUR party, in its infinite wisdom, decided to make government and taxes the evil boogeymen. Taxes pay for education and government jobs that pay well and provide decent benefits and functioning institutions and research that led us to the cutting edge - until now. I'm waiting for the column in which you express your mea culpa, Mr. Brooks. Until then, you are complicit in the demise of this nation, on every front.
2
Would cultural norms include calling the police because a white man was wearing socks in the community pool, or a white child was selling lemonade outside your store, or a white child was pushing a lawnmower door through your neighborhood.........? In my mind there is nothing quiet about this at all. I agree that neither systems nor cultural norms are enough by themselves, in many cases systems can be argued to set the standards by which we are expected to behave, which creates a culture of behavioral norms.
1
So conservatives like to point out that people do better economically when they are more involved with undemocratic, authoritarian, paternalistic organizations like the military, marriage, and church. Figures.
The comments on the recent NYT articles on the proposed change in seating qualifications for the specialized high schools are majority for opening enough seats for all academically qualified, rather than continuing to restrict opportunity for unfavored subgroups. Start there if you want to increase equality. Get rid of the practice of restricting opportunity.
2
"Quiet death..."? This is too funny. Where we you during the Charlotteville's Tiki torch demonstration?
8
And black women--who are the primary or only breadwinners in many families--didn't even make it into a study worthy of being included in this article.
Don't bother explaining. We've heard all the arguments.
5
Has David lost the ability to do logic? On the one hand he bemoans rising inequality, as in the leader for this column. On the other hand he is a Republican. Inequality is religion to Repubs. What does he expect when, by political design, more and more money accrues to those who already have too much?
Doesn't he get it?
3
Apart from acceptance in the military (formal segregation was outlawed there by President Truman, in 1948), the most fruitful route to economic equality for African-Americans was their (eventual) freedom to join civil service unions, whether local, state, or federal.
Anybody who's ever mailed a package, or gotten a driver's license, or signed up for Social Security has seen with her own eyes that those work places are the most integrated in America.
And, as Wisconsin--and other conservative states--are vividly demonstrating, eviscerating civil-service unions is a lifelong obsession for Repoublicans--including President Trump, who has issued innumerable executive orders to cripple the federal (unionized) work force.
Columnists like David Brooks are much more comfortable talking sociology rather than money. But sociology is abstract. Money is real.
In 1954, there was a small but vocal group of African-Americans who predicted that Brown v. Board would be a catastrophe for black children--whites, they said, would either open their own private whites-only schools ("academies") or rezone cities & counties to restore full segregation. Those vocal acitivists said, if you give us the same funding that white schools get so separate but equal truly means equal , you can keep your segregation.
How shrewd they were.
1
I have always wanted to like David Brooks work. But time after time the content has not lived up to the title of the essay. In this case that is certainly true. What a dissapointment it is to hear Brooks equate the "conservative cultural norms" as signs of a way out of racist inequality in our country. Black men attending church has exactly what to do with improving racial progress in our country? Such nonsense here: "black men who served in the military are more likely to be in the middle class than those who did not. Black men who attended religious services are 76 percent more likely to attain at least middle-class status than those who did not". How does any of that have to do with racial equality? Any person who joins the military will likely do better being in the middle class (Unless they are the unlucky ones who die or are wounded. It astounds me how he bends over backwards to praise "radical conservative studies" as helping with an analysis and program toward equality.
3
I don't think that the "left wingers" deny that participation in the military, marriage and church (or other religious institution) helps with economic mobility and stability for black men. Rather I find that it is (mostly) white people, who have benefited for so long from being in a privilege position, do not recognize that race and bias are still very much institutionalized. It is as if, with the election of our first black president, many white folks were able to say that racism was finished and could pretend that we live in a color blind meritocracy, and that anyone who wasn't successful somehow deserved what they got. I know because I am one of those white people. How wrong I was.
2
Thirty-five years ago, when a small office where I worked needed a new front office person the in-charge office person and I interviewed some candidates and picked a most qualified and affable young black woman. She joined us with the hesitant approval of the boss. After a few weeks he called her into his office, told her it wasn’t working out, gave her two weeks pay, and dismissed her as of the end of the day. Not only was she shocked so were we two office workers. My fellow employee asked the boss what the problem was. The problem was that when his friends called or visited the office they saw the new employee was black. They used to kid him about that at the Rotary Club.
Plus ca change, etc.
3
"As the A.E.I. study shows, black men who served in the military are more likely to be in the middle class than those who did not."
This statement and a dozen others within this brief essay reveal that all too common disease of journalist innumeracy and general inability to understand statistical interpretation of data.
Note: I do not disagree with this statement (or many others, per se. Only the incorrect or illusive (delusional?) interpretations and accompanying narrative.
1
It’s often a tough call, maybe not always well thought out, but most Americans prefer personal liberty than waiting on “society” to achieve some ideal.
1
The racism Trump has ridden and spurred on is not a "culture of individualism." Stop trying to work in your Burkean theme as an apology for a Conservatism no longer has any moral or intellectual content, reduced to rampant corporate and privileged class keptocratic greed playing with the fire of white tribalism.
4
This is the same David Brooks who wrote an opinion earlier this week that sickened me as he lauded the system that has created all of the "conservative" judges. How does he think we are going to stop this "retrogression on race" with the lineup of judges the "conservatives" are spewing forth?
4
Quite a few comments on here detailing how racism is really the fault of those who are subjected to it.
Just read them.
One might think that Kanye West was writing them for Donald Trump's consumption.
3
Thank you, Mr. Brooks!
It appears Trump has given racists silent permission to climb out of the dark slime and into the light of public debate.
. . . An American Tragedy.
1
I think there is a general fatigue among many white people who believe in equal opportunity and had believed that anyone given a fair opportunity would manage to improve themselves and their station in life with a little discipline, foresight and hard work. If not immediately for themselves, the thinking went, they should at least be able to guide and encourage their children to do better. It hasn't worked out that way for some people. Unfortunately, rather than try to elevate the conversation and appeal to our better angels, Trump and the GOP have encouraged our darker demons. In so doing, they have made certain prejudices acceptable and degraded our national capacity to move forward. As usual, the situation is more complicated than Trump and his GOP enablers comprehend. There should be no doubt that the damage done by discrimination over many generations must run very deep and has surely left fractured and dysfunctional families and communities it its wake. The absence of those two basic necessities, functional families and communities, leaves too many adrift and lost and ill-equipped to do what is required to thrive. That failure to thrive is the root of our fatigue but also a symptom of something bigger and deeper that will be very hard to repair. We need the right leaders before we can resume national progress on race, and currently we don't have them.
2
If I read you correctly, racism continues because of the failings of the disenfranchised? So, it's "their fault" not our racist society.
Perhaps if those who were subject to racism were "just a little more polite and prepared for school"....
You're is a thinly veiled defense of racism.
Nothing but white-wash hog-wash.
4
Mr Brooks seems to be waking after a 40 + year slumber. Ronald Reagan dog-whistled racists in Philadelphia , MS as the kick off for his 1980 Presidential campaign and like to tell stories about "welfare queens in Cadillacs"and "strapping young bucks" buying T-bone steaks with food stamps. If we are not making racial progress , the blame is to be laid at the feet of the GOP and the enablers of racism like David Brooks.
8
Republicans are responsible for this, plainand simple.
8
The American Enterprise Institute founded in 1938 to oppose the New Deal has been an enabler of the anti civil rights crowd since at least their involvement in Goldwater's presidential campaign in 1964. The Institute under the guise of limited government, individual liberty and responsibility has help create the intellectual rationalizations to reverse both Johnson's Great Society as well as Roosevelt's New Deal. The decline in civil rights advancements coincides with Nixon's second term as he sought to undo much of the gains of the civil rights era and align the Republican party with southern segregationists. This is of a piece, the Republican party and their intellectual enablers at A.E.I. & other think tanks have worked at creating the outcome Mr. Brooks highlights in his column. The citing of questionable research from A.E.I. is disingenuous at best as they neither care for nor are concerned with racial inequality except as a tool of the culture wars. They support the conservative view that the poor are to blame for poverty and if they just follow the example of their betters all would be well. Poverty as a systemic outcome of the predatory form of capitalism advocated by A.E.I coupled with the Republicans alignment with southern white supremacists is the radicalism behind the numbers Mr. Brooks cites. Neither the A.E.I. or the republican party benefit from reversing them. Under Trump republicanism the southern strategy is alive, well and playing at a rally nationwide.
8
President Lyndon B. Johnson once said, "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
It still holds true today. The Republican Party thrives on this division. Nothing will change.
4
Oh David,
Here you go again, ignoring the real issue which is at the heart of the difference between liberals and conservatives. Money. The wealth of white Americans is 10 times greater than that of African Americans. Bourgeois norms are norms for those in the middle class.
The conservative agenda first and foremost eschews the "transfer of wealth". Their faith in "communities" and "families" and "personal responsibility" is a faith in their own ability to provide for themselves and those they care for. They despise the idea of their money being forcefully taken from them (taxed) in order to provide services to people they deem to be the unworthy poor.
I remember an article about a "failed" experiment in which low income people were moved into better housing and better neighborhoods. Both their health and mood improved, but the experiment was considered a failure because their incomes (after something like 10 years) did not.
We know how to address the pathologies of poverty. But it is expensive, and the anti-tax fundamentalism of your movement and antipathy towards anything resembling distribution of wealth aka "socialism" has meant that partial solutions like affirmative action and integration - which don't come directly out of taxpayers pockets - have been embraced instead.
In the last century, local and federal gov't jobs were the tickets out of poverty, for the Irish and Italians. But since Reagan (gov't is the problem, not the solution) those jobs are also being cut.
2
"If you look at poverty data since 1980, there’s been little progress, either in black men moving out of poverty or into the middle class."
Not just poverty, if you look at almost any socio-economic data, ~1980 serves as a wtaershed. I am not going to make the facile connection to Ronald Reagan's presidency. But Reagan does serve as a surrugate for a national change from progressive, liberal attitudes and policies to their right-wing counterparts which has reached its culmination in the Trump presidency. And the socio-economic consequences of that hard right turn is evident to all, although Brooks is still trying to force them into his model of individualism against the
community and church. Even though the latter are often the very agents that foment inequality and racism.
7
Republicans are the ones leading racists, white supremacists, social-authoritarian ideologies such Trump's most recent pardons, evangelical Christians, and incels into an unprecedented era of visibility and open racist acts, violent and non-violent, lethal and non-lethal, that include killing an unarmed immigrant 20 year old in the head and damaging children by forced separations for toddlers, and stalkers and peodiphiles running for Congress. They are not our "we."
Pramila Jayapal, Kamala Harris, Stacey Abrams, Alexandra Ocasio Cortez; London Breed, Keisha Lance Buttoms, Lovely Warren, Annise Parker are not extreme but mainstream—as were the 1000s of women at more than 800 rallies nationwide. They are the middle! What others ridicule as “free,” they see as shared.
5
When the clear biases of poor neighborhoods, four decades of slow economic growth coupled with most of new wealth being concentrated in the most affluent and diminishment of economic equality promoting public fictions, and the biased sampling that leads to stereotyping amongst police and prosecutors there remains a persistent disparity with respect to each that points to a continuing affect due to race that reflects both the continuing effects from long past and affects from attitudes about race today.
When dealing with complex situations with so many things going on, the explanations cannot be put simply and in a manner that can produce any simple and straight forward solution.
When police seem to pick on minorities it’s more likely due to biased sampling, their experiences with people violating laws and reacting to being stopped are seldom recalled rationally but tend to focus on the extremes. Minorities live in places where there are more crimes committed. Police confront more offenders who are minorities and this tends to highlight them in their perceptions. This leads to greater vigilance towards minorities...the effect of stereotyping is to reenforce it. Train police in valid sampling so that they learn not to stereotype.
Assure that all school districts are well funded and are offering equivalent educations according to common standards.
Relieve poverty by eliminating want.
Educate all about the illusion of race and how it has been used to oppress.
1
"...Police confront more offenders who are minorities and this tends to highlight them in their perceptions..."
My point was unclear. Better said,
"...Police confront more offenders who are from the majority but the proportion of those from minority groups is slightly but noticeably higher than their proportion of the general population which tends to highlight them in their perceptions..."
What Mr. Brooks fails to mention in this piece is that many people of color have been blocked from the bourgeois norms provided by participation in the military, marriage and church. Army regulations note that "The military maintains a high "moral" standard for recruits and is the basis for not allowing most felonies." Policies like the one that defined possession of crack/cocaine as a felony sent countless black and brown men and women to jail for years, depriving them of the right to join the military and the right to vote once out of prison. This policy, among many others, deprived countless children of their fathers and neighborhoods of their male presence. Addressing the systemic oppression of mass incarceration will have the trickle down effect of positively impacting the lives of people of color. I'm inclined to believe that increased military enlistments and increased committed relationships and stronger neighborhoods will follow.
3
The conservative correct ideas are based on studies that cannot demonstrate causation. And, in fact, allow for a causal direction than the direction they suggest. This makes the writer’s thesis suspect.
2
Here’s a thought David: how about your party stops promoting a racist agenda and stops supporting racist candidates? That might help.
9
"As their report clearly shows, the vast bulk of that decline happened between 1960 and 1975. If you look at poverty data since 1980, there’s been little progress, either in black men moving out of poverty or into the middle class."
What happened in the 1960s that might have buoyed African Americans? Maybe sweeping civil rights legislation that the nascent conservative movement fought tooth and nail?
And what happened in 1980 that might have shut that progress down? Maybe the ascendancy of said movement on the strength of the "Reagan Revolution"?
Is this an overly simplistic reading of recent history? Sure. But it illustrates an essential truth—that movement conservatism, which still drives whatever part of the Republican Party hasn't been taken over by Trump, has never made racial equality a priority. To the extent that it acknowledges inequality at all, it ignores the lingering systematic discrimination resulting from decades of slavery and Jim Crow (voting rights, "redlining," less access to credit...the list goes on) and basically says it's up to African Americans to make up all that ground on their own. And lord knows the Trump faction of the party won't do anything to remedy the situation; if anything, they revel in it.
So yes, Brooks is right when he says both sides have roles to play in solving this problem. But as long as one side not only shirks its duty, but *actively interferes* with the other side attempting to do theirs, nothing will change.
3
Mr. Brooks what took you so long. I assume you read the paper, the NYT and others. White people call the police on African-Americans for going to the pool, delivering papers, sitting in Starbucks, taking a nap, just to cite a few examples and the police show up:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/12/us/black-man-asked-pool-incident.html...
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-news-ohio-child-police-deliv...
2
Conservatives almost certainly have the causality inverted and therefore have nothing particularly useful to add to the conversation. Namely, those African Americans destined to join or remain in the middle-class are probably more likely to go to Church, get married, or join the military... In other words, they have it backwards.
If you have a strong work ethic and love this country, you may choose to join the military, or you may not. Either way, you are probably going to work reasonably diligently at your job and stay employed. The military, unquestionably, provides experience and job training, but if those same dedicated teenagers didn't go to the military, they would probably go to trade school. Either one would lead to better civilian job offers.
If you are deeply moral you probably aren't going to go to prison, but you may end up going to Church.. your resulting better job prospects due to lack of arrest record probably have more to do with your economic status then whether or not you sat in the pews.
Similarly, if you are the kind of person who is responsible enough to commit to marriage you're probably responsible enough to work diligently at your job.
Why this matters, is that the solution is completely different to a given problem based on the direction of the causation. If Church is the solution to low wages, then encouraging church attendance. That correlated factor, however, clearly doesn't pass the logic test.
2
"The American Middle Class Is Losing Ground"
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/12/09/the-american-middle-class-is-l...
Just in case you didn't know...
The people started to drop out of the "middle-class" by 1970.
What data are you basing the assertion that "the standard of living of the middle class has been declining for decades"? Everything I've read supports a contradictory conclusion.
1
"Though black girls and women face deep inequality on many measures, black and white girls from families with comparable earnings attain similar individual incomes as adults."
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/19/upshot/race-class-white-a...
Thus, in the case of women, there is no economic indication of racism.
As the report noted
"The research makes clear that there is something unique about the obstacles black males face."
What is it ? Start there
1
With respect to the role of the military, marriage and church being markers for eventual middle class status, those are also related to some commitment to a wider community.
In spite of those observations, it is hard to see how any advancement could have taken place without loosening of societal repressions. The black church in the time of slavery was not enough to lift people out of poverty: https://aaregistry.org/story/the-black-church-a-brief-history/ .
Socioeconomic inequality, fostered by the state, is an ongoing legacy of our early history. The military is one societal example where forceful integration (that led to a resurgence in the Ku Klux Klan) took a step towards wider equality. Marriage and the church alone did not have this sort of force. I do not deny that those men in stable marriages or with strong commitments to their church might lead more stable lives, but that is not enough.
Without socioeconomic equality and opportunity, the playing field will never level. Employment discrimination based on skin color is still far too prevalent: https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/9/18/16307782/study-racism-jobs ("Study: anti-black hiring discrimination is as prevalent today as it was in 1989," 18 Sept 2017). That was a 26 year study from multiple international institutions.
I would not argue with observations concerning prevalent congressional logjams. I do not, however, think they are bogus, albeit they should disappear (they won't).
1
Your political party invented the "southern strategy". The G?P actively seeks out Lee Atwaters, Reagan's "young buck" and "welfare mother" crud, Willie Horton ads, Rick Wilson's Obama Jeremiah Wright attack ads, birther-ism, Charlottesville VA and importantly: P. Trumps defense of it? The G?P has set many fires and fanned the flames for every kind of racial and ethnic divide it can find, for 50 years at least... And you have the gall to ask "How can we stop backsliding toward inequality?" This neo-con, (purposeful) waffling nonsense may be the most cancerous for our Democracy. And Mr. Brooks doesn't know a thing about what I'm getting at?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2017/aug/13/fatality-car-attac...
1
Long time resident of Massachusetts here. Just ashamed to hear about a bus driver refusing to board a person just because he is black. That too at Martha's Vineyard, supposedly the summer haven haunted by the progressive elites of this country. Seriously?
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/07/12/martha-vineyard-bus-driver-...
African Americans are disproportionately poor, but in raw numbers there are far more poor whites than poor blacks. The U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent poverty estimate shows that 27 million white and 9 million blacks live below poverty level.
Life isn’t supposed to be a competition between racial and ethnic groups. So, an economic policy of lifting blacks out of poverty is unlikely to gain as much support as a policy of lifting all Americans out of poverty. Such a policy would disproportionately benefit blacks without alienating poor whites.
Source: Income and Poverty in the United States: 2016. Table 3. People in Poverty by Selected Characteristics: 2015 and 2016, page 12
https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2017/demo...
4
Relieve poverty for everybody. There is no scarcity that makes it inevitable that anyone in our country needs to live in want of their basic needs. We entertain the notion that not being poor is a reward for right thinking and hard work. We also pretend that economic growth arises from the efforts of special people who happen to be rich. It’s nonsense but people believe it.
Brooks writes:
"As Chetty’s research shows, the general presence of fathers — not just one’s own — in the community is a powerful determinant of whether young men will be able to rise and thrive."
Well David, there would be a lot fewer single mothers in poor communities if girls and women had easy access to free (preferably) or affordable contraception.
There would also be a lot more fathers around in poorer communities of color if their young men weren't constantly being thrown in jail for non-violent drug offenses that are often committed in white communities with no repercussions - and given disproportionately long sentences compared to white men.
9
The hypocrisy of 'biased, who me?' Democrats and liberals are profound. They should know better because they constantly pat themselves on the back for supposedly being better educated. But, their educational institutions are just as biased too.
http://www.brownpoliticalreview.org/2015/04/the-dangerous-mind-unconscio...
https://www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/integrat...
BROWN AT 62: SCHOOL SEGREGATION BY RACE, POVERTY AND STATE
For many years, the Civil Rights Project has been publishing lists of the states where African American and Latino students have been most severely segregated. We have consistently found New York and Illinois to be at or very near the top of the list, often with Michigan and New Jersey close behind.
The states that have moved into the top of this list include Maryland, where there has been substantial residential resegregation in large parts of suburbia, and California…
Because of the dramatic changes in southern segregation produced by the enforcement of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, none of the 17 states that completely segregated schools by law (e.g., the type of mandatory segregation that was the focus of the Brown decision) have headed this list since l970—in spite of the
What galls me about articles like this one by David Brooks is the typical pundit impertinence that America has all the time in the world to resolve its racial inequality. It wasn't too long ago when the pundits were insisting that Barack Obama's election showed that American racism was over. I knew that was baloney at the time but even I was shocked by the horrors of the conditions blacks had to endure in Ferguson, Missouri, said conditions revealed in numerous studies and reports in the wake of Michael Brown's murder. The DOJ report [https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1681138-ferguson-doj-report.html] stunned me. [It could easily be used as the source for a sci-fi-horror novel/movie about a dystopian society of the future.]
Trump has shown the risks of that mode of thinking. The bulletin of the Atomic Scientists should start to consider another Doomsday Clock. Brooks should have done a favor for all of us concerned about real progress by writing about what's going to America if it can't resolve its racism.
3
Brooks has done a good job of covering the subject. The persistence of attitudes towards race that existed prior to the enacting of Civil Rights laws and court orders to overcome fe facto segregation and the policies of Affirmative Action was astoundingly common in the 1970’s and while less prevalent is still to common, today. Trump used it with his birther effort and it does seem to have contributed to the distain toward Obama during his Presidency. There has been a correlation between educational outcomes and the relative prosperity of residents of school districts for a long time. Schools in less well funded district graduate lower proportions and send lower proportions of students to universities. Our economy ended it’s long continual era of growth in the 1970’s. This meant that opportunities for those living in poverty and with limited resources tended to be less likely to improve their circumstances. While racial bigotry plays some role in racial profiling the bigger cause is perceptions that minorities show a greater likelihood of committing crimes.
We have voices that feel encouraged and embolden to speak in hatred and racism. They will say "Oh I AM NOT RACIST." The new racism where when you speak Spanish and someone threatens to call Ice agents on you for speaking Spanish. You wear a Puerto Rico shirt and a drunk comes up and threatens you and the police do nothing! This is part of the voices that speak and act in hatred. As a country we have gone backwards decades.
1
Most Americans judge themselves and others with their eyes.
120,000 American citizens of Japanese extraction were sent to internment camps after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Because they were not White?
It is not clear why the parents of Dwight Eisenhower were German, yet Dwight Eisenhower became a 5 star general and president of the U.S. while fighting Nazi Germans? It is also not clear why in WWII American citizens of German extraction were also not sent to interment camps like the Japanese. Because they were White?
It is also not clear why the all wise constitutional framers wrote that "all men are created equal" when Blacks were brought from Africa and made slaves. Blacks were not considered sanctioned beings, instead they were considered property. Because they were Black?
For 8 yrs Black U.S. President Obama sat in the oval office and failed with the welfare, protection, and advancement of minorities, people of color, even his own people. So 8 yrs were not enough, maybe 20, 30, or 50 years more might work?
1
When economic disparity is rapidly increasing for everyone, it should be considered in any discussion of progress for anyone.
Because of our hype, pop culture sensibility and monstrous corporate power, worker rights, low wages, and loss of our healthy middle class years ago get zero weekly coverage in any major media.
David also prefers to squelch it in all the years I've seen him on the PBS Newshour and here at the Times.
Note that we have zillions of business pages in print and vast coverage elsewhere, but since days of yore None Exist for the Worker!! Its one the intentional and one of the thoughtless failures of representation producing American's woes.
Its one of the blindnesses missed as cruel dismissive capitalism is about to be taking body blows.
Brooks makes it sound as if marriage, the church and the military were institutions created by white people and which black men in particular seem resistant to taking advantage of. The bubble remains mighty thick.
3
Community, community, community. So important.
1
Perhaps the death of racial progress is quiet in the world of middle- and upper-class whites.
However, it's ear-splittingly loud if one is driving-while, walking-while, selling-lemonade-while, sleeping-in-a-college-common-area-while, shopping- while, walking-down-the-street-whie, etcetera-while black.
It's life-threateningly loud if one lives on most Indian reservations.
It's deafening if one is of Hispanic/Latino origin.
Recent reviews of the Kerner Commission Report of 1968 show that the pervasive poverty and racism of that milestone year of riots not only haven't improved, but have worsened in some areas.
Mr. Brooks is a little late to the table and a little benign in his sorrow.
But I suppose any conversation is better than silence.
6
Point of order: how do we define "black" these days? Does this include huge numbers of "blacks" from Caribbean, Africa, other nations? First generation immigrants, second generation? There are vast differences within this (literally) global term "black."
1
Fear not. We are resting. We will begin pushing the fallen logs uphill again, soon.
"As their report clearly shows, the vast bulk of that decline happened between 1960 and 1975. If you look at poverty data since 1980, there’s been little progress..."
So the liberal War on Poverty actually worked.
1
If you want to see middle-class black economic equality, find a black graduate of an HBCU, or a black military officer. Look also outside of Brooks’ institutional relationships to a black family owned small business or a black professional. In comparing black and white economic status, tease out the stats for “Hispanic” and other recent immigrant communities for the past 2 generations, which show slower assimilation into integrated communities because of their non-English language and cultural affinities. The black-Hispanic category confuses two distinct communities as non-whites, another meaningless scientific category.
There are tremendous efforts to undermine government support for HBCUs by both Republican and Democratic Education Secretaries, just as there is pressure by white Christian controlled religious denominations to absorb historically led black churches and denominations. Not surprisingly, such efforts are as misguided as they are resisted, because black churches and HBCUs have better served the historical interests of blacks than their white counterparts.
Black progress contrasts with the opposite historical fate of our Native tribal reservations, where the choice for tribal members has been either no institutional support through assimilation off the reserves or life choices on the reserves crippled by treaty strangulation of all but symbolic sovereignty.
1
If the piece will be only about black Americans and of course their relationship with white Americans, the headline should be more specific. There are other races in America.
1
It's entirely possible, of course, that the "cultural norms" connection is the opposite of what Brooks posits. That is, middle class status is responsible for black male attendance at religious services and higher rates of marriage, not the other way around. If so, it's even more distressing that the government that should be working to make it easier for blacks to attain such status is doing everything it can to make it harder. Case in point, a conservative Supreme Court majority that is now poised to outlaw affirmative action and an administration is egging them on.
1
The Republican "southern strategy" might be something Mr. Brooks should critique.
2
Brooks is echoing the dilution and distraction of his party’s imperial leader who, after the racial violence in Charlottesville, said: "I think there is blame on both sides."
Brooks’ logic gets tangled up in a “bogus logjam” when it inadvertently encounters the truth as seen here in what looks like a Freudian slip: “A culture of individualism has led people to focus more on individual outcomes and less on the components of each community. We have settled into a reality that is separate and unequal, and we seem not too alarmed about that.”
In these two sentences Brooks ironically describes the “problem,” but also a cause - because each describes a pillar of conservatism.
The “problem” stated in the first sentence “a culture of individualism,” is also a description of the conservative embrace of self-reliance, or as Brooks put it elsewhere: “the idea that people know best how to run their own lives.” It’s an anti-government, anti- collective position in which everyone fends for themselves: a conservative law of the jungle where the cultural group in power (whites) rig the game in their favor and resist giving help to non-white groups.
The second sentence referring to the problem of a “separate and unequal reality,” when flipped over, reflects the conservative belief in a natural order of classes, “differences in material condition, and many sorts of inequality” per the father of modern conservatism, Russell Kirk.
The real problem: you can’t have it both ways, David.
5
So how do you get radical on both ends? I hope your next column will provide solutions instead of just hand-wringing.
1
Most people are average.
And those average people will rise to the level of their environment.
Conservatives say poor people need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
Liberals say we need to improve the environment of poor people, get them good schools and educated.
Plus we get the advantage of people working and paying taxes instead of paying for welfare and prison.
And while conservatives talk a good game of pull yourself up, when they have children, they move to the best school district they can afford.
1
A reparations program is absolutely necessary, but the reality is that no program targeted specifically and in isolation at Black American citizens can work. Racial tolerance and true equality can only come about as part of a program to create economic and social justice for all Americans.
There is no question that the left is suspicious of certain institutions... it is troubled by hyper nationalism, religious fanaticism, and the exclusivity of certain institutions, like marriage. Consider our history on interracial marriage. Consider that one party has, by no accident, claimed ownership of patriotism. I think the left would be far less suspicious of certain institutions were they not to be closed off to us. And those on the right with voices -- if you truly do believe in these institutions -- can and should do a better job of advocating for inclusion instead of... well... instead of what we've got going on right now.
1
"There is still a strong, steady societal wind pushing against African-American men."
Maybe where you grew up.
In my racially-mixed changing neighborhood, it was not uncommon to have a black family with one boy going to college, and the other going to jail. The biggest factor was "personal choices," or what we used to call "taking responsibility."
I dislike your column's reduction of personal experience and responsibility to grand statements of "societal winds" and citations to a study or two.
Many of the black men I admire today faced difficult odds and persevered. Just like lower class white men, without affirmative action.
I remember one kid in my class who was always "playin'" the white teacher with the racial card, and laughing about it, cause it was so easy. Till another kid told him to shut up, sit
down, and let those who want to get out of the neighborhood get ahead. When the first kid accused him of "acting white," the second kid told him he'd do whatever it took.
That kid graduated.
3
Racial progress has died not because Americans as a whole object to it, but because the means for achieving it are often distasteful and unfair. Affirmative action, for example, within the zero sum game of university admittance, excludes children for no other reason than their race, even though those children have nothing to do with "systems of oppression" and just worked hard to achieve their own dreams. Bussing, or for that matter forced changes to zoning laws, likewise, and rightly, infuriate people who have worked hard and paid taxes to live in a low crime neighborhood with their kids going to the good schools that they moved into the neighborhood to access. Things like Pell Grants, which don't directly harm other people, other than with respect to some incremental redistribution, are far more popular and accepted.
If you want to revive racial progress, try to do it in a way that doesn't so blatantly run against common notions of fair play and you may have more success.
3
A large part of this nation was founded on slavery. The Constitution was written to "paper over" the conflict between free and slave states. The Civil War was fought over slavery. Reconstruction ended after 10 years as the public was tired of policing the South. Jim Crow lasted until the 1960s, and when it ended in the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, the GOP under Nixon adopted the "Southern Strategy" to have the Dixiecrat wing of the Democrats switch to the GOP. For the last 50 years the GOP has quietly flamed racism through constant attacks on voting rights, school desegregation and other initiatives intended to reduce racism.
Obama infuriated the GOP. His election galvanized the GOP into more explicit racism.
Where we are now is an outgrowth of our history and ingrained racism in our Constitution, our institutions and too many of our souls.
3
Brooks' obsession with "balance" leads him to undercut his own argument here. In arguing for the "conservative" emphasis on military, marriage, and church, Brooks neglects to acknowledge how these and other positive institutions are placed out of reach by the systems of oppression emphasized by the "left wingers." For example, he cites Chetty's findings that "the general presence of fathers... in the community is a powerful determinant of" young men's success. Brooks' unspoken implication - often made explicit by conservatives and openly racist people - is that the missing fathers are purposefully choosing to be absent. Yet in the previous paragraph, Brooks descries "the prejudices... that make it much more likely that African-American males will be punished, incarcerated, and marginalized," which is the very reason for the absence of fathers. "Bourgeois norms" can help ease the depth and despair of America's poverty trap, but reforming our oppressive institutions - including a reversal of disenfranchisement, which Brooks neglects to mention - is the only way to eliminate inequality.
3
The government can do things about systems of oppression, but Mr. Brooks seems more interested in cultural norms which are beyond the reach of political means. The lack of racial progress since 1980 is due to Republicans dismissal of the government as a means of redress.
3
I worked in corrections for 31 years. During the years following the Great Recession, we saw a surge in young white incarcerates. Many of them had church going parents, parents in the military, and men in their community. Most of them were unmarried, had children out of wedlock and did not attend church. Low and behold, they were exhibiting the same "character flaws" that had typically been cited by whites to explain the poverty of African Americans. David has it backwards. Inequality, whether driven by racism or the wealth addiction of the plutocracy, breaks down social capital which in turn worsens inequality even more. Reduce inequality and social capital will increase.
And btw, social capital doesn't have to be measured by the extent of religiosity, marriage and militarism. There are plenty of happy, prosperous, high social trust, low crime, and peaceful countries with low rates in the three areas you cite as indicators of societal health. And the one thing they all have in common? Very low rates of inequality.
11
So how do you fix the problem?
How do we break the cycle?
All I get from conservatives is that people need to change.
But if a child is brought up in chaos, they will continue the chaos as adults and pass it on when they have children.
We need to change the behavior of people. Telling them they need to change themselves will not do it.
It takes a lot of work and nobody is willing to pay for it much less do the hard work.
On the other hand, we continue spending money on welfare and prison.
2
I would encourage Mr. Brooks to adjust his thinking by considering my construct of the very same statistics. First I'll add some overlooked facts. 1790, the very first US Census, conducted of course for one reason only, to figure out how to apportion representation in Congress........75% of Americans were classified as white....the other 25% was broken down into "other".....non citizens......foreigners, indians, and, infamously, 3/5ths of all slaves(ie...blacks, except for that tiny minority of freed blacks who show up over there in the so-called "white" citizen column)......
Fast forward to 2010.........throw out the ridiculous, misleading "hispanic" classification....since all so-called "hispanics" are either white, black, or indin(native).......Once again the US Census breaks down to 75% "white" and 25% other(foreigners, asians(another bogus category), blacks, indins(native))....
In other words, USA remains as it always has been.......land of the free, home of the brave....E Pluribus Unum(out of many ONE)......White is not a color, but in reality a combination of all the other colors........and Rainbows DIVIDE colors. You cant solve racism by continuing to classify people by Race.
That's right Dave, we all need to go to church. That'll fix 'er right up.
2
Love the premise of the article and the sentiment. But......Perhaps rather than try to steer folks into the old (“tried and true”) precincts of Anglo-American culture—the church and marriage!— we can locate the places where black males congregate and try to embrace these. Whoa! You say: what a disruptive notion. And yet, with relatively few Frenchman, say, flocking to the backward Christian church, they appear to be doing just fine. Marriage! Are you crazy: how many white heterosexuals are abandoning that trap/canard? Millions. Brooks, go to sleep and just dream about the time that never was. Leave the rest of us to our dreams.
3
Wake up David our country continues to be racist just as it has since the beginning of the first Pilgrims arrival.
2
There are just three things any person of any color has to do to have a very good chance of being middle class. First, finish high school. Second, don't have a child out of wedlock. Third, get married after age 21.
That's it. It's easier than unpacking squishy "structural racism" that no one can point to but is sure is there, sort of like Lowell's canals on Mars, or "bourgeois norms" that turn off people who don't like the word bourgeois even if they can't spell it. It's why the poverty rate for two-parent African-American families is 7%, and the rate for white folks in single-parent homes is 22%.
Finish high school. Stay celibate or use birth control. Get married after age 21. Your color is as irrelevant for this as your blood type.
5
So how do you fix the problem?
How do we break the cycle?
All I get from conservatives is that people need to change.
But if a child is brought up in chaos, they will continue the chaos as adults and pass it on when they have children.
We need to change the behavior of people. Telling them they need to change themselves will not do it.
It takes a lot of work and nobody is willing to pay for it much less do the hard work.
On the other hand, we continue spending money on welfare and prison.
No. We do not need to change the behavior of people. We can lead by example, we can influence in our communities and community organizations. But ultimately, any psychologist will tell you that for a person to change, the person has to want to do something differently.
1
AMEN!! I’ve been singing this song since I was a teen. My friends and relatives who follow this formula are not only middle class but some even higher. Instead of wasting time trying to change the hearts and minds of white people, save yourself by following these three dictums (education, delayed parenthood and marriage) and we can worry about fixing white people some other time. The number of people that can ball, rap, or sing their way to income security is very small.
3
Whenever I recite the pledge of allegiance I always end it with 'liberty and justice for some'. There simply is no liberty and justice for all. From crooked judges, corrupt law enforcement officials, the wealthy affording the finest in defense lawyers, the systematic disparagement of people of color by the racist republican party, the divisiveness of our embarrassing malicious baby inhuman president, this list goes on and on. Vote in November with your hearts and souls to rid our country of those who would tear our country asunder.
7
How to stop backsliding toward inequality? We can start by getting the bigot out of the Oval Office. The fish rots from the head down, in this case.
12
You lost me when you started quoting Trumponomics firm the American Enterprise Institute
David: Maybe you need to get your hearing checked. Quiet? It's been pretty deafening!
4
"The QUIET Death of Racial Progress," Mr. Brooks?
How about "The VIolent Murder of Racial Progress," Mr. Brooks.
At the hands of a Republican Congress, a "Conservative" dominated Supreme Court, a vilely racist Republican "President."
The only think "quiet" about the Death of Racial Progress, Mr. Brooks, is your tsk, tsking, and your tut, tutting.
6
Brooks really does get it right here. Black inequality in America is a classic example of a chicken and egg problem. Structural racism and a problematic culture feed on and reinforce each other hampering progress, equality and integration of blacks in America. And what is truly amazing is that the Left only addresses structural racism and the Right keeps harping on the failure of black American culture. In this regard the N.Y. Times runs a daily article on a white racist insulting a black person (lately this occurs at swimming pools in apartment complexes. I expect that Right wing news outlets post a daily black murder or other inner city mayhem. And the Religion of Peace website tallies Muslim terrorist incidents. Structural racism exists; American black culture needs some changes; Islam is not such a great ideology. All are true. Let’s have some honesty and maybe we’ll make some progress.
1
Ridiculous!!!!!!!
It is all about class and a hollowed out middle-class that no longer has the strength to determine social and ethical norms.
The GOP war on the middle-class has destroyed the country.
You are Russia. Reagan's victory is complete instead of two United States of America we have two Russias to deal with.
3
Brooks, don't stop there: racial gerrymandering, voter I.D. laws, Swimming while Black, Mowing while Black, Campaigning while Black, Farming while Black, Delivering newspapers while Black, Breathing while Black, all are a major part of White America's denial of what James Baldwin described in "The Fire Next Time."
David, you need to watch the Youtube of Baldwin's complete undressing of your hero Buckley at the 1960's debate in England. How anyone could view Buckley as nothing but a white, privileged, bigot after viewing Baldwin's take-down is mind-numbing.
3
SATSQ: Stop voting for Republicans.
1
What is race? What is racial progress?
There is only one multicolored multiethnic multifaith multi national origin biological DNA genetic evolutionary fit human race species that began in Africa 300, 000 years ago.
What we call race aka color is an evolutionary fit pigmented response to varying levels of solar radiation at altitudes and latitudes related to the production of Vitamin D and protecting genes from damaging mutations.
What we call race aka color is a malign socioeconomic political educational historical white supremacist American myth meant to legally and morally justify inhumane black African enslavement and evil hypocritical separate and unequal black African Jim Crow.
I am the heir of enslaved and free black Africans in America and their white masters and owners which makes me only black. My two grandsons and their peers accept and have known a black President of the United States. "We ain't where we oughta be. We ain't where we gonna be. But thank God we ain't where we was " attributed to a blsck country preacher by Dr. King.
See " The Emperors New Clothes : Biological Theories of Race at the Millennium" ; "The Race Myth: Why We Pretend Race Exists in America " Joseph L. Graves; "Who We Are and How We Got Here" David Reich; "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in an Age of Colorblindness " Michelle Alexander; "Dog-Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class " Ian Haney Lopez
8
It is difficult to agree that pointing out various areas in which black Americans are outliers from a “cultural norm” determined by a conservative think tank meets the moral responsibility of all Americans – including conservatives – to reduce racial inequality.
It is even more difficult to accept that black people ought to be blamed equally with white conservatives for suffering expected and unsurprising ill effects from discrimination and segregation in a power structure controlled largely by white men.
The conversation which David Brooks seeks to encourage is a non-starter. It is time for conservatives to stop dodging the issue of culpability.
3
No, I disagree with the equivalence you're making. Obviously people that conform more closely to a society's preconceived notions do better in that society... it doesn't mean those notions are somehow universal, it just means that there is a bias in their favor and that's really just another aspect of prejudice.
We should focus on fixing the system's active negatives, (oppression) through policies focused on concrete things like housing, education and employment. What you're talking about is presuming to look into people's characters, judging them and then attempting to impose arbitrary "bourgeois" norms on them (how does that square with the idea of limited government anyway?) and that's just the same old story of blaming the poor for being poor.
5
This column illustrates Mr. Brooks's understanding of the truth that liberals and conservatives both have valid concerns and good ideas. There is much that is admirable in the long intellectual traditions of both liberalism and conservatism, though, of course, there is much that is not admirable in the actions of some of their practitioners. There needn't be absolute antagonism between them; there can be symbiosis. The key is to recognize and bring together the best liberal thinking and the best conservative thinking to address the concerns of both and to find the best and most durable solutions to our problems. Unfortunately, among our political leaders, with rare exceptions, the inclination, skill, and wisdom needed to do this are lacking. Viewing the current political scene, one begins to wonder whether in our democracy it will ever be possible to select leaders with these qualities. Voters seem to admire other qualities more.
1
When I started Mr. Brooks' article I thought "at last a conservative who changes his mind when confronted with facts that contradict his preconceptions." But then I got to his solution, if it deserves the name (not to speak of the characterization of radical) army, church and family.
What are we to do, create incentives for black men to enlist and risk their lives for the rest of us? Create incentives for blacks to embrace dogma to get them into one church or another, possible abandoning in the process the separation of church and state, as Betsy DeVos would have us do?
As for getting black fathers to live with their children, what's needed for that is more income which introduces circularity into the formula and in any case is the solution already favored by many liberals.
I find it hard to believe that Mr. Brooks doesn't care more about selling conservative values than solving the problems of black poverty and racial injustice. I'm not buying.
8
The general purpose of multiple regression ( a research statistical analysis) is to learn more about the relationship between several independent or predictor variables and a dependent or criterion variable.
If multiple regression where to be applied to the factors Mr. Brooks identifies as conditions that the progressives and conservatives argue adversely effect African Americans, I believe the evidence would demonstrate that "significance" for negative effects are mostly based on cultural factors: break down of the family, absent fathers, single mothers early pregnancies from multiple fathers, youth who over identify with the Rap cultures and entertainers who promote materialism, interest in academics becomes translated in being "white", welfare dependence etc.
The terror, racism and discrimination that Blacks endured during Reconstruction and Jim Crow are real. The resilience, bravery and industriousness of Black people who weathered this horror was evidenced by the hero's of the civil rights movement embodied by Martin Luther King. This spirit was epitomized with the dignity and magnanimity of the members of the Emmanuel African American Church in Charlotte who re-experienced the terror of the past. Values emanated by these people is unfortunately absent from the current "Black Narrative. Most invidious is that to disagree with progressive's perspective reflexively makes one "other" a racist.
I am so tired of the hand-wringing from the George Wills and the David Brooks of the world, who have spent years supporting and defending the conservative agenda and turning a blind eye to the horrific behavior that has come with it (and that they were happy to ignore in service to their conservative agenda).
As the store signs say, "you break, you buy." Maybe the first step in addressing the problem is to acknowledge your part in enabling it?
10
"...But conservatives are right to point to the importance of bourgeois norms. Three institutions do an impressive job of reducing racial disparity: the military, marriage and church...."
It is not the institution per se (particularly church, that in many denominations is as corrupt as politics) that help incorporate those people in society. It is the act of "conforming" to certain "approved" behaviors that allow those people to be part of the fabric of society.
To make it easy to understand what I mean: this is like drinking and smoking. If you smoke, you are demonized, you "kill people with the smoke", and you are shunned. If you drink, you are OK, even when drunk driving kill way more people than secondary smoking. That's all.
Black women as a group earn more than white women because they took advantages of the opportunities that decades of affirmative action hiring practices offered them. Black men as a group did not take advantage of the same opportunities.
African Americans are disproportionately poor, but in raw numbers there are far more poor whites than poor blacks. The U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent poverty estimate shows that 27 million white and 9 million blacks live below poverty level. Life isn’t supposed to be a competition between racial and ethnic groups. So, an economic policy of lifting blacks out of poverty is unlikely to gain as much support as a policy of lifting all Americans out of poverty. Such a policy would disproportionately benefit blacks without alienating poor whites.
6
Obama never delivered for a number of reasons; some within, many beyond his control, but he knew what the downtrodden needed most: HOPE
1
I encourage, no, I implore, Mr. Brooks to read Stamped From the Beginning, American University professor Ibrim X. Kendi’s National Book Award-winning history of racist ideas in the U.S. In a nutshell, Kendi argues that self-interest (initially economic) fuels discriminatory policies that are then justified by racism and ultimately lead to ignorance and hatred. Racial disparities result from whites and/or privileged groups viewing their self-interest as being at odds with black existence (as neighbors, classmates for their children, co-workers, employees, etc.). The key is to recognize that it is in our intelligent self-interest to stop consuming racist ideas and electing people committed to anti racist policies. Now, writing a column about that would be good news.
2
Joining the military and or a congregation helps to lift ALL people up from being poor, not just blacks alone.
So the left wing explanations demonstrate causality, while the right wing explanations are just correlations.
1
Leadership matters, and the bigotry emanating from the White House is causing a parallel rise in bigotry in our communities.
Especially concerning is the push to defund public schools to promote school choice. The school choice movement is really just a backdoor way to resegregate schools.
This racial narcissism can only hamstring the nation's ability to compete in the global market. Why would any nation choose to hinder the talents and upward mobility of much its people? It is like trying run a race with one leg in a cast. If we prevent black and Hispanic upward mobility, we won't be able to continue to dominate the world stage. Perhaps for the isolationists that would be okay.
1
If you have the right to vote, there is NO BACKSLIDING! Do what is right to the people you meet. THAT'S IT!
Too bad not all of us are born as white middle class Americans, especially those who think they are. Rude awakening. Rude President.
1
Another attempt at false equivalency, David?
While I am sure there are plenty of "both side" arguments, the fact remains that racial progress will be stymied as long as large numbers of people from one race simply refuse to see members of other races as full human beings entitled to the same rights and privileges they themselves claim, and have the power to continue to enforce that viewpoint.
And that's it in a nutshell.
4
"If you look at poverty data since 1980, there’s been little progress, either in black men moving out of poverty or into the middle class."
Brooks doesn't address that pivotal year....why not?
Hmmm...what happened in 1980.....let's see....perhaps its was the election of Reagan (and maybe via a stolen election, BTW) and the slow rightward tsunami that has ensued since then. To name the most salient: the rise of Fox & Co. and the rightward march of the press and coarsening of civil discourse; monitization of everything and allowing near monopolization of medicine, finance, food and communications; dismantling of New Deal, Fair Deal, Great Society policies and institutions (SS & Medicare is next on the GOP's list) followed by Gingrich & his Contract with (on) America; withering of voting rights, Gerrymandering, Citizens United decision and on and on. And the main reason we are here is because the Right (including now all of the GOP and often Brooks) have seized and championed the AEI narrative since 1980. Now the narrative is directed by powers beyond our borders - by the global oligarchs. I doubt Brooks will ever directly address and confront these issues.
5
To suggest current racial conflicts and problems are caused by racism as it did historically deflects form realistic assessment of causal factors. Blaming the victim, white privilege , micro aggressions are examples of externalizations that breeds and legitimatizes alienation and self righteous indignation. Here endorsing victimization rationalizes becoming an aggressor.
Trans-generational trauma, a cultural phenomenon where one generation passes on to the next the wounds of the past is also a significant factor in instilling racial tension, anger and at times hatred. Unlike Nelson Mandela and Bishop Tutu who brought peace and reconciliation to a people torn apart by brutality and endemic racism.
It would be helpful if those who purport that people are being hurt by 'structural racism' can point out those companies, for example, where a white person is being hired over an equally qualified African-American, so that I can paint and pick up my picket sign of protest. Or, a bank that will not give a loan to an African-American but will offer one to a white person with the same qualifications. Or, where an orchestra will hire a white musician but not a black one. Or, where a sports team takes a white athlete over an African-American. Or, a restaurant that as a de facto policy will not hire blacks. Because those of us who doubt that structural racism is a big thing have our picket signs and Magic Markers ready, and we'll be right out there on the sidewalk with you. In fact, we may beat you there.
3
Without a doubt, people are less racist than when I was a child. On the other hand, the country is even more neoliberal than when I was a child. Neoliberal means run from the investors point of view.
This is the reason for the inequality and lack of progress in economic matters. Corporations are naturally conservative, and likely to hire someone that looks and more importantly thinks like they do.
3
Yes Mr. Brooks, the African American have progressed from the days of slavery. Thanks to MLK and other civil right leaders, Abraham Lincoln, JFK, LBJ and civil right leaders, we have progressed but very slow pace. The whole world is progressing forward from China to Saudi Arabia, Uganda to Russia . But America is going backward since Trump occupied the White House. Now the racist, KKK, extreme right wing and white supremacists are having upper hand. Most of us are good people but silent. Unfortunately, when our president is behaving like a racist and encouraging the polarization, we will be in very bad shape before the pendulum swings to middle or left.
4
Eliminating the military draft removed a very positive mechanism that contributed to racial equality. When we were drafted we were all treated harshly. We were forced to live together, work together, have fun together and support one another. There was simply no time or reason to see the person next to you as anything but a fellow soldier. In my platoon there were seven of us with the same surname and only two of us white. It didn't matter. The drill instructors were just about every ethnicity you could think of. It didn't matter. This was in the 1960s, a time most would say the country was highly segregated. I believe one of the reasons it worked so well is because it wasn't about race. It wasn't some government program designed to make all equal. It's curious Nixon stopped the draft and Johnson introduced the Great Society. In my opinion both huge mistakes.
1
I think it's not "Three institutions" which "do an impressive job of reducing racial disparity: the military, marriage and church.". It all comes to one issue- sense of discipline imparted by a mentor while growing up. Lack of family stability, unstable marriage, lack of role models in the community and, lastly, lack of quality public education (free from religious over tone) are the main culprits here- in short lack of proper mentor (in form of either formal or informal education) that makes most minorities vulnerable and that seems to be well planned systematic racism among many states and policy makers.
I think American society has become more multi-cultural wherein people of all cultures interact more often and more comfortable. Not everywhere, but overall the trend is positive. So socially, we still maintain a good trend, especially among the younger generations.
It is the economic disparity that continues, despite some signs of progress. David Brooks is right to point out the economic lagging, bias, and opportunity inequality. The economic disparity grows even within the white society as is so often discussed about the growing inequality between rich and everyone else. When it comes to the primitive instinct of survival, there is sadly little charity found in humanity. Those with economic power try to keep the power, and those without the power must work extra hard, and pray for good fortune to help them. It is the same in America, as it is in every society, and throughout human history. I wish it were not the case, but human nature, as it is, remains a hard hurdle get past. Compassion, and desire to relieve suffering take second place to one's own survival instinct. Philosophical and religious teachings, provide some encouragement in the right direction.
2
In John Lennon's soulful song "Imagine" he calls himself a dreamer, imagining that the world will live as one, a brotherhood of all the people sharing all the world. His beautiful message cries out to be heard again as a beacon leading us out of the gathering darkness.
Considering all the lovely things you yourself have written in the last decade David Brooks, I'm surprised you even noticed. There's more than just racial segregation going on or coming back. There's an ugliness in America that is returning that used to be less obvious. The followers of Trump, the GOP, the likes of the Koch Brothers, feel free to push an agenda that is racist, sexist, and, to use the GOPs favorite hot button word, elitist. What they forget is that their ancestors were subjected to the kind of racism that kept them down. "No Irish need apply" comes to mind. The distrust of Catholics because of the Pope. (And Kennedy, were he running today, would never say what he said then.)
Other countries whose populations are less religious than ours, have as many single parents as we do, and have prejudices every bit as strong as ours, still do a better job taking care of their citizens than America. In America it's not about inalienable rights. It's about money, money, money. If you have it great. If you don't, you can forget about having a decent life no matter what color, sex, religion, or ethnicity you are. And the GOP stands by that. It's why they push the idea that spending money on the social safety net is dangerous unless you have plenty of money. It's ironic that our government gives handouts to the rich while denying the rest of us any help we need on the grounds that it makes us dependent. Being rich and white in America pays more than hard work.
9
I call false equivalence.
This article does not address the effect that oppression has on blowing apart cultural norms.
It does not address who and what is responsible for that oppression, which is not random, but deliberate in its focus on protecting white privilege and denying African-Americans (and others) equality.
So much progress before the "Reagan Revolution," and so much backsliding after it.
It is no concidence that the (not so) quiet death of racial progress has coincided with the movement to move America to the right, a movement that has turned the Republican Party into an extreme right wing party and the Democratic Party into a center-right party.
And now we have Trump and his "populists" more overtly following a racist agenda than any president and his supporters in my lifetime.
Cultural norms cannot be promoted with any consistency in a society that systematically practices oppression.
And ours systematically practices oppression.
Buying into it, denying it, making excuses for it, refusing to acknowledge its devastating effects, including on cultural norms, will continue to make moderate conservatives (and progressives for that matter) complicit in the oppression more openly advocated and promoted by their more extreme fellows on the right.
5
The simple answer to Brooks' question is for Republicans to stop being Republicans and start being good Americans and human beings. Schools are increasingly re-segregated not because minority students want it that way, but because the white right has recreated white school districts. Institutional racism has also been supported by Republicans, based on their fear of any change and all things, and people, different. And as for Brooks' claims about the effects of marriage, military and church, he either ignorantly or knowingly confuses correlation with causation in the service of his usual simplistic argument.
2
I agree with the column's sentiment and overall direction, but shrug off the talk of bourgeois norms. Thomas Edsall had some graphs, yesterday, that capture the state of events: It's white men vs the rest. White men have been, as a group, becoming ever more conservative Trump followers. Racial/hate-based assaults are on the rise. Immigrants, primarily Hispanic, are targeted, and simply being black is clearly a cause of insult and fear to many white folks.
To be clear, this is about trends capturing the dynamics of the majority, not individuals, but the majority's narrative is that of white men who are increasingly illiberal, intolerant, who disdain knowledge, expertise, and nuance. They are liberated by Trump and find their voice in him.
Are we going to let them bring the country down?
What should sane conservative people (like, say, Brooks himself) do? I suggest, at minimum use their public voice to shame and corner Republican politicians to stop enabling Trump, while some may still have the courage to do it. At this point, generally directed indignation and analyzing "bourgeois norms" feels like discussing the finish of wines while Rome is burning.
1
Until we all understand that the root cause of racism is evolutionary, progress will be painfully slow. We all inherited fear in our DNA from long ago. It is a survival mechanism and since we were born this way, it results in
unconscious, automatic "thinking". We are literally predisposed to be racists, because we fear those around us who are not us. This fear is on a continuum, we have different amounts of the stuff. You cannot change the way people were born, we are all basically flawed this way. But until we recognize this basic truth, we should expect progress to be almost non-existent. This basic fact of evolution should be taught every year in school until it becomes common knowledge.
Like many white people, Brooks keeps insisting that blacks would be better off if they would "just act more like us."
Brooks has written many columns focusing on the social sciences, but has never learned one of their most basic principles: correlation is not the same as causation. He insists that black men who join the military or attend religious services are more likely to do well in life. Is this correlation or causation? Perhaps black men fortunate enough to grow up in strong families are more likely to serve in the military or to attend a church and in any case to do well in life. If so, it doesn't follow that black men who aren't so fortunate can improve their lives by enlisting or going to church.
Brooks' false equivalence cannot change the fact that conservatives in this country backed racial segregation and opposed civil rights. Nothing black folks have done or failed to do can possibly justify that.
6
we live in a racist nation. so when we talk about the structures from the conservative perspective that can increase prosperity for black men, we act as if our culture does not lead to these ends. we are currently seeing how in the rust belt the lack of good jobs leads to (is not caused by) births out of wed lock, opiate abuse, etc... It is the lack of hope that leads to these problems (whether that lack of hope is accurate or not). White America has left the black population with a deficiency of hope over these past 50 ( 400?) years. So while the cultural norms cited do have a common effect on the population, they are not the answer as much as a listing of some of the ladders out of the hopelessness. While it is all well and good for us to support these institutions, I know I wouldn't want my success to require worshiping in a church, or risking my life to join an army. We need to provide the black population (and our own white "working class" )with good opportunities and real hope (which they had in the70s after the civil rights successes).
6
The Republican Party which voted in the majority for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 started almost immediately to undermine it in 1968 with the Southern Strategy employed by Nixon and Goldwater. The white vote in the south became eagerly sought after and veiled racism was the weapon used to garner votes. That strategy has continued to this day, made worse with the election of President Obama, when outright racism was seen on the floor of Congress when "you lie" rang out in a national address by the President. The Republicans have chosen racism as a vehicle to keep this country divided. It has been very much on overt display with Trump who has encouraged it openly at every opportunity. Where I once saw progress between Black and White relationships, I now see the ugly cancer of white nationalism invading boardrooms and political discourse. When you have a sitting president encouraging this type of evil, it is difficult to move forward against the racial divide. Racism is becoming more entrenched as a consequence of the election of Trump, but it has been heading that way, with Republicans spearheading that racial divide since 1968.
Democrats in the South have been Democrats for the most part in name only, and not committed to Civil Rights, as their counterparts in the North have been, and thus a part of the problem.
I am a white female raised with white privilege in 1950's Alabama and sickened to see that we are moving back to the ugly era of blatant racial discrimination.
1
Your view’s much too “pessimistic.” The stalled racial integration equality you find since the great black economic progress 1960-1975 was the era when most legal racial segregation ended. Hence the racial income gap was larger because of the segregation barriers.
Although the institutions related to black economic status advancement are, as you note, careers in the military, church worship, you overlook other institutions, such as black owned businesses, highly related to black middle-class status, two-parent families and church attendance.
Also, many radical racial integrationists, alarmed even by voluntary black racial associations, see no value in education at so-called “historic”black colleges and universities (HBCUs). It’s puzzling, to say the least, because black higher education institutions also have had the strongest historical relationship to black middle-class status and, quiet as its kept, racial income equality.
By conflating racial integration of both Hispanics and other non-white immigrants, with slower English language acquisition, in former black communities, you necessarily see slower secondary school racial integration for the combined black-Hispanic results. And you miss that the other institutional engines of black progress continue at the same rapid rate, with military careers tied to our national defense demands second only to HBCU graduates.
We will not be marching forward towards meaningful racial equality any time soon, especially with a right-wing Supreme Court which will impact decisions for a generation or more. Affirmative action programs will be struck down, voter rights' laws will be eroded as well as women's reproductive rights and those of all minority groups. We are marching backwards.
As a life-long Long Islander, considered one of the third most segregated areas in the country, all you have to do is google top Long Island school districts to see segregation at work. Top Districts: Jericho, Great Neck, Syosset, East Williston, Herricks, Manhasset. The poorest schools have the highest percentage of LEPS - Limited English Proficiency Students and the achievement gap widens as the students get older. I work in a school in Nassau County that is over 60% Hispanic and it is considered a low-functioning district. The wealthiest districts have the most resources, the poorest districts - the least resources. It is a vicious cycle. For those with money, whites and Asians, they google and buy homes in the highly-touted districts. For those without money, their children are relegated to "high-needs" districts.
A study found that to achieve racial equality in Long Island schools, 74% of blacks would have to move. Let us keep in mind that in the original Levittown deeds, one of the first communities built post-WWII, they forbade occupancy by persons not of the Caucasian race. Separate and unequal is alive.
1
David at the risk of playing psychoanalyst I think that you have been trying to comfort yourself with your columns as of late. Conservatives have gone out of their way to find the silver lining in the trump fiasco. As to racism they have their southern strategy, Obama obstruction to the point of freezing him out from appointing a Supreme Court Justice, voter suppression, gerrymandering and white supremacists. Stop comforting yourself, do something positive, denounce the dark side, Republican conservatism is a failure. Vote Democratic.
4
Is there a place in the world where blacks do not disproportionately occupy the bottom rungs of society? Is the disparity significantly less elsewhere than it is here? My sense is ‘no.’ Which argues against it being the fault of this or that policy.
I have read that Nigerians are the most successful immigrant group in the U.S. Which argues against the notion that the problem is the “racism “ of others.
1
You don't see a problem with the idea that people of color have to join the military to gain some slight possibility of economic security?
It sounds like you're touting that as a positive.
1
So Brooks, just start up mandatory school prayer and that, along with more tax cuts for the wealthy will solve everything.
Did you stop and consider the habits of church going, etc., are merely those of people who made it and not requirements for doing so?
No wonder you struggled with writing this. You read like a version of someone lost in the wilderness.
2
The three institutional factors cited as societal balms , military , church , and traditional fatherhood are all in the decline as a percentage of the total population. The glaring omission of the disproportinate rate of incarceration highlights the issue as even worse.
Kudos for a non puff presentation , the utter lack of a mention of the role of the Bully pulpit and the moral vacuum from the GOP in all matters race leaves your point hollow. The GOP must to keep its soul primary in 2020 for the presidency if it is to survive as a relevant force . The alternative is a descent into the Lester Maddox purgatory of calculated institutional party endorsed racism. Party of Lincoln indeed....Lincoln Rockwell
Not mentioned: GOP exploitation of institutional racism, voter suppression, mass incarceration, starve the beast disembowelment of public education, healthcare, and planned assault on SS, Medicare, Medicaid, and misogyny. Like any butcher dripping with carnage Brooks points in every direction but just can't see his Party and his rationale as the cause of our National decline. Even with the would be dictator in the WH and the spectacle of pillorying Strzok by dedicated Republican Inquisitors, all our allies aghast, and Putin licking his chops, Brooks directs us anywhere else. Why? It's all he knows or can do.
1
Universal pre-school is a cost-efficient solution to what is best conceived as an economic inequality as opposed to racial issue.
4
But conservatives are right to point to the importance of bourgeois norms. Three institutions do an impressive job of reducing racial disparity: the military, marriage and church. As the A.E.I. study shows, black men who served in the military are more likely to be in the middle class than those who did not. Black men who attended religious services are 76 percent more likely to attain at least middle-class status than those who did not. As Chetty’s research shows, the general presence of fathers — not just one’s own — in the community is a powerful determinant of whether young men will be able to rise and thrive.
---------
The first two factors will diminish in importance with time. The third one - the presence of fathers - is not measured by the number of marriages. It does take a village...
Brooks's concern for growing racial inequality seems genuine; he is a decent human being. However, the article reads non-urgently, more a hand wringing shrug, albeit a sad one, than a call to immediate remediation.
Why? Maybe because a monied white man has no skin (pardon me) in the game. He's writing about the plight of other people. We don't know if Brooks wants his own neighborhood more integrated or is mortified that it is not. We don't know the degree of racial diversity in his own family or whether it causes him grief or relief.
When writing about a topic like this, one that investigates our own communities, neighborhoods, families, and the attitudes and prejudices therein, Brooks should place his own circumstances into the picture, humbly and, yes, courageously examine his own attitudes, so as to write an honest piece, not a recitation of statistics and theoretical cures.
When he writes of the conservative movement of the 1970's and '80's, his columns always take on a personal, heartfelt tone. He was proudly there, learning from mentors flecked with greatness, and this personal accompaniment always attends his words.
Well, the columnist is here, too, living in the resegregating world of which he writes, being helped or hindered by a workplace rife with inequality. He belongs in the mix.
1
David Brooks does a fine job of selectively highlighting some of the underlying ethnic dynamics with regard to economic inequality as it is experienced in 21st century United States.
What is missing is recognition and ownership of institutionalized structural racism exercised by american institutions and agencies throughout the history of the United States and the impact that dynamic has on today's economic and social conditions.
African Americans were engineered into poverty and second-class citizenship; white americans were engineered into the middle-class and provided catalysts to accumulate family wealth.
Ignoring these facts enable white americans to continue to claim we live in a merit-based society and that African Americans need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps (where as the reality is that they don't have any boots...by plan).
Given the changing ethnic composition of the U.S. population (white people becoming an ethnic minority by 2030-2040), it appears the U.S. is on its way to creating a future apartheid society.
There is only one race...the human race (homo sapiens); genetically, there is no difference between/among humans. America's future is being engineered by the Republican party and the economic elite; the american people need to decide whether to accept this future or reject it...and act accordingly.
4
The Republican Party has had everything to do with bolstering institutional racism hand in hand with its media outlet (Faux News) white washing of white tribal minds to create the current degradation of progress on racial equality, Trump. et. al. of which you write in this column. David Brooks, why are you still a Republican?
With Republican government's institutional oppression of blacks, you believe black socio-economic salvation lies in conscripting their bodies to the military (fodder), or giving their souls over to religious institutions. Leaving no choice for the "non-believer" pacifist who would seek advancement through the "freedom & liberty" that our country is supposedly founded on.....Mr. Brooks, again please, why are you still a Republican?
The Emancipation Proclamation was progressively radical; indeed a duly evolved adaptability to change. Honoring those that fought against it was radically reactionary; indeed counterproductive because if the fittest survive, they'd have won, right?
Therefore, just as soon as white privilege can come to terms that accountability's been skewed from the get-go (insofar as Reparations have never positively served blacks to overcome having enriched whites for nothing), no military, marriage, or church (all bent on reactionary absolutes) will ever provide the requisite relativity if our collective culture is to truly sustain race sans the mutual exclusivity of progress and conservatism.
Can anyone explain how racism can explain how it only affects African American males, not African American females, and not Africans or Carribean islanders?
2
Be careful when you credit the military, marriage and church for lifting African Americans out of poverty. Robert Reich pointed out years ago that women rarely marry poor men--so what you are seeing is that men with money join the military, get married and go to church. The institutions didn't, for the most part, lift anyone out of poverty.
2
You know when the president says, "you'd be so surprised, but most people never knew, two plus two equals four?" Congratulations, Mr. Brooks, on your great Donald Trump imitation!
"We have settled into a reality that is separate and unequal, and we seem not too alarmed about that." No, sir. That would be you.
Those stats, this column, hide so much.
To me, what is most baldly neglected in them, is the extreme suffering of those who do not make it. The masses of perfectly intelligent black youth, who leave school, functionally and culturally illiterate? There's your Conservative cultural norm.
Opportunities for black people is discrimination!
And the pit , is so awful and hopeless. Street life, addiction, prostitution, mass incarceration. Draconian sentences for teenagers. The idiot War on Drugs.The lack of opportunities to reform or self educate while locked up. Solitary confinement. After 25 years, dumped to the streets, $50, clothes on their back, homeless.
The Conservative, Jeff Sessions, ordered, without regard to circumstance or context, that prosecutors press for the most extreme punishment available under the law, in every case. He has donors who run for-profit prisons.
You do not get to say there are two sides.
Democrats care about and work hard on this.
Republicans and Conservatives officially oppose them.
They got their trickle up.
Paid for by a permanent American underclass of deep, generational, black poverty.
3
Au Contraire; the Death of racial progress isn't quiet; it rages and sounds like a Sonic Boom.
We had an African American president and first lady for 8 years. How many columns were written about backsliding on racial progress? I just find it odd--now that we have a White president--everything has become very racialized.
1
Racism starts with Donald Trump. His awful response to the disaster in Puerto Rico after hurricane Maria shows how deeply hateful he is. So many of his supporters cheer his racism. Donald Trump must be removed from office and put in prison.
1
Duh...if you had stepped away from the Republican fairy tales, and opened your eyes, you would have seen reality. The best neighborhoods, are tightly segregated, in ANY town: North, South, East and West. Corporate America is a virtual plantation, where, mainly white males occupy the real money making jobs, and everyone else works in support to push the money upwards to them. White males are now controlling almost all key policy making positions in the political realm, and the Supreme Court is a white male perpetual power machine. The inequality in this country, directly reflects the will of white males to hoard money and power, by all means necessary.
2
"the prejudices — in the schools, in the streets and in the judicial system — that make it much more likely that African-American males will be punished, incarcerated and marginalized". I will also add "killed"
1
leave it to the cheerful Mr. Brooks to agree Blacks and Latinix have it bad without mentioning one of the mast devastating problems facing their communities: the incarceration of their men. A 12 year old white kid does something wrong, and he has problems, a 12-year old with dark skin goes into a data base as a gang member and starts acquiring the record that will justify 5, 10, 15 years sentences before he is 30.
2
The civil rights legislation was forced on whites with extensive experience with blacks by whites with little experience.
Affluent whites usually know few blacks. Those few tend to be exceptional, or they occupy subordinate positions without resentment.
In order to learn what most blacks are really like it is often necessary to see them up close every day on terms of approximate equality in an environment where they are in the majority.
"Don't worry." say evangelical Christians. "This is just part of God's Plan."
1
As the Republican administration goes after colleges for anything meant to help with racial disparities in education, it is interesting to note Mr Brooks inability to really call out racism in the Republican Party.
Mr Brooks writes without actually addressing the problem. Further does it bother Mr Brooks that the lower ranks of the military has a higher level of minorities than the officer cadre? Does it bother him that the right has a history of exclusion when it comes to political representation?
He says there is a problem, but can’t address the elephant in the room. By not addressing that this is systemic oppression by the right that is based on four decades of Southern Strategy racism makes Mr Brooks blind to the problems that to be oppressed there is an oppressor.
Mr Brooks in unable to fight for equality. Because he is unable to challenge the good Nazis of the Republican Party. (And when Nazis are on the republican line in Illinois it is a fair claim.)
1
Mr. Brooks, is it a failure of racial progress if the African-Americans in my neighborhood all sold to Asian-Americans and moved to more predominantly black neighborhoods in Charlotte, Atlanta and DC? Is the ability to live where we like inherently bad?
1
I’m confused by your honesty.
All that education: The Grace Church School; Radnor High School; the University of Chicago. And still David Brooks struggles with the most basic of reasoning skills: Mistaking correlation for causation. "Three institutions do an impressive job of reducing racial disparity: the military, marriage and church." No, no and no, Mr. Brooks. Despite White Americans' treatment of Black Men and Women, some of them manage to suck it up and defend this country. Despite White Americans' destruction of Black families, some Black Men and Women manage to keep their families whole. Despite White Americans' destruction of Black Peoples' spirits, some Black Men and Women manage to hold onto their Faith. The institutions of military, marriage and church to NOT do an impressive job of reducing racial disparities, Mr. Brooks. Black Men and Women do a heroic job of reducing racial disparities by managing to service in the military, maintain marriages, maintain faith. All that education, Mr. Brooks. You're 56 years old. It's way past time to conclude that all the institutions that have been at your disposal have failed. You're clearly uneducable, Mr. Brooks.
1
David, if you are going to blame a "culture of individualism" on the left as a cause of slippage on racial equality in the USA, you could at least mention that your political party has incubated a white suprematist president unafraid to legislate based on his basest prejudices.
1
Mr. Brooks has his party to blame. Donald Trump, who supports white supremacists and frequently attacks black people such as Rep. Waters as having a low IQ. is their leader. And guess what, 90% of GOP support him. They are the reason blacks, women and minorities are oppressed. They believe in white privilege. Maybe, more minorities will show up and vote against the GOP party of oppression and racism.
1
The death of racial progress isn't quiet anymore. It's overt and loud and wears swastikas and hooded robes. It's cheered on by a racist narcissist who calls himself President. You wouldn't be surprised to see cross burning at his so-called rallies.
The creep who calls himself President stocked his cabinet with other racists who have taken away more safeguards in 18 months than were achieved in decades.
And all the while a Republican Senate and Congress sits by, some gleeful and most of them too cowardly to do anything.
3
We had a bi-racial President for eight years. Ironically, things grew demonstrably worse during this time. It could have been his greatest legacy, yet he did not lift a finger nor take any risks to improve race relations. His legacy instead is identity policies and victimhood.
1
It is simple David. Never vote for another Republican in your life. Everything will get better. The Republican Party has become the reservoir for everything toxic in American culture - racism, misogyny, ignorance, greed.
It isn’t complicated. If people who should know better stopped allowing themselves to be used by the American oligarchs (yes, look in the mirror David) and refused to lend their vote and their voice to the Grand Old Party of hatred and betrayal of American values ... then we would not be bothered by the 20% of unredermable Americans whose numbers shrink every year due to natural attrition (look again in the mirror, old white man).
2
Quiet? OMG! Please! And it's not a backsliding. It's a juggernaut.
1
From the day the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, the focus has been on integrating without actually integrating. White Americans want to make it look like they are doing something about racism....without doing something. In order for equality to become ingrained, those on one side need to gain and those on the other have to lose. And whites have come to recognize they have to give up something. An employer only has an infinite amount of money to pay employees. If minorities and women make more, someone else makes less. And once we "close"our southern border,the problem still exists. So what comes next? Blame those beneath you on the ladder. Like the guy who demanded the Puerto Rican woman not wear a Puerto Rican shirt. Next thing you know, if you go to visit relatives in Des Moines, better leave your BOSTON shirt back at home. Don't forget to pat yourself on the back when you go to a party and proclaim "I have a Black friend". There. Problem solved.
"Progress" is always measured by the rapidity in which White people are replaced and/or dispossession of our civilization.
Funny how that works...
Racism is core to America, there can only be rich white winners. Look at the swamp which is the current administration of rich white men behaving out of the norm. Look at corporate America, you can look at the corporate board structure .Everywhere there are white people in charge. No matter how brilliant anyone else is, the white person gets the opportunity. Look how the Trump administration by lying about the previous administration, why do they lie? because a brilliant minority and his administration showed the world what America could be.
Why are minorities filling the for profit prisons, have terrible schools, never get the opportunities as whites. When white people want to take over zip codes they force minorities out and then call the police when they don't feel comfortable. White people don't feel comfortable with a little girl selling water without a permit, white kids can do it and they get on the news being cute but a black child does it? its a problem.
I am tired of the hand wringing especially by writers like you Mr. Brooks who have no idea what it is like to be a minority in this country.
Nothing is ever going to change because we cant vote CEO's out of office. We cant force CEO's o hire SVP's minorities in their circles. The President sets the ignorant tone and when the NFL takes a knee in a few weeks it is he and he alone who is the biggest racist in the world.
2
David Brooks, you’ve evaded description of what a return to community, conservative cultural norms, would look like. Is it actually a return and not the conservatism we see today in the form of tribalism, more segregated communities, nationalism? Nonetheless, you are to be commended for not having written that comforting piece and for defining a conversation that has not yet begun. How do we bridge globalism and tribalism, how do we extend care for each other— beyond borders, beyond neighborhood, geographical community, country, beyond families, our religions, races, and ethnicities—with the need for that evasive form of community that provides security needed for children to thrive? Maybe it does take a village in a global and local sense. But that moves us far away from the conservatism that has eroded racial progress and brought us to where we are today. We don’t need radical conservatism if by that you mean continued adherence to tribal cultural norms. Your logic fails there.
Brooks avoided the one solution to reverse the stagnation of racial progress: to vote Democratic this November, and in the presidential election in 2020. Just look: the gutting of the Civil Rights Act; the probable gutting of affirmation action; wage stagnation despite the so-called wonderful tax bill the GOP rammed through; the appointing of truly, radical right-wing Supreme Court justices beholden to a clique of radical right wing lawyers who title them the Federalist Society and claim to be for constitutional "originalism". Voting Democrat is the only way to truly bring all Americans back on track.
In Shaw’s play “Pygmalion,” Alfred Doolittle complains quite eloquently that charity is only for those who confirm to the bourgeois norms of late Victorian England.
I would argue that in modern-day America limited integration and racial equality are for those who conform to the bourgeois norms of church, marriage, and military. (Wealth and celebrity also help, but are limited to a select few.)
Conforming may raise one’s status, but is hardly any solution at all, as the inequality is built right in and is self-perpetuating.
Education, inclusion, diversity initiatives, civil rights advancement are the only way to fix this.
Unmarried atheists who do not serve in the military, indeed all those who do not conform, deserve equality.
The individualism of economically and socially privileged people leads often to an unwillingness to sacrifice more than trivially for those who could benefit from a hand up. This is indeed a discouraging problem in the United States, even within the left. There is a lot of not walking the talk. There are many words of caring alongside sending ones own children to segregated schools or schools that may appear integrated but in fact consist almost entirely of children of great privilege.
1
Imagine. It really does take a village. Would that we would stop shouting and denigrating for half a second and build some. I never fit into church (trust me, I tried). I think communities can be more flexible and less rigid than David Brooks does. We can create communities in our work (I had a group of mostly laid-off students in community college for retraining who created one in an English composition class in the spring), in arts organizations, in civic clubs for those who go in for that sort of thing. But we also have to change the mindset that raising the options of one group lowers the options of another or that we have to insist that somehow poor white people are privileged because the one issue they don't have to face is barriers because of race. We have to educate without accusation and be educated without being defensive. I don't know when this country became poor and demoralized. We are already great, but we have taken to fighting among ourselves over scraps. And Donald Trump is the ultimate individualist who wants to withdraw us from our community of nations. I keep hoping his election will be the two steps back before we begin to make progress again. I keep hoping. I encourage Americans who think our allies ungrateful to visit the American Memorial Chapel in St. Paul's Cathedral--virtually if necessary--and think about what really made us great: our ideals and not our money.
"A culture of individualism has led people to focus more on individual outcomes and less on the components of each community." This statement by Mr. Brooks encapsulates what's behind the opposition to taxation in any form, the demise of unions among private sector workers, the fraying of the safety net, the boarding up of Main Streets because of cheaper prices at the big box built on what used to be farmland outside town...all logical conclusions of the neoliberalism championed by both mainstream Democrats and Republicans that fetishized the 'free' market. This situation represents a great opportunity to ask, "who has benefitted?"
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this one out, Mr. Brooks:
The gains you cite all occurred (roughly) before 1980; the losses you lament all occurred (roughly) after 1980.
What other than the ascendance of the modern Republican Party with the election of Ronald Reagen could explain this?
"Personal liberty", "religious freedom", "states' rights", and "the free market" are all ways in which the white majority disguise their rejection of the fact that the country needs to do something about ending structural racism and providing its victims with the tools and resources to get themselves onto a level playing field. In the end a more equitable society will be better for all of us, in the short-term whites will see losses of power, prestige, and economic strength. And they don't want that.
The nation is sorely in need of progressive leadership on this issue....
1
Military, marriage and church indicate that a lot of what happens in society depends on who you associate with and not necessarily the strengths of those institutions. Some things don't change much. Society and economics work out for people who make themselves likable. Merit is less of a factor.One of the reasons why African-Americans linger behind is that they are still seen as members of a group and a group that doesn't completely fit into larger society's expectations and standards. We look to reward normal people, with normal beliefs, that we can feel comfortable with. While we are entertained by transgressive behavior we do not necessarily want it in our actual living rooms. There is also a question as to how much we should really value the norms of society. The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit and all that. It might actually be boring and bankrupt.There are still people who don't aspire to that.
Some random thoughts:
As a white, married, non-religious woman in my 60s who never had any desire to serve in the military (even if I was a young person today, I’d not be drawn to that opportunity), I’m dismayed that black men to get ahead, do better if married, attend church or join the military. I’m glad I’m married, but I feel guilty that I had choices to remain single, not attend church and not join the military and still have a successful and happy life.
Most white men I have known in my life have not had to choose church or the military to achieve success. (Marriage likely did enrich their lives if they chose it.) It’s unfortunate and unfair that black men have to be boxed in to those three specific choices to have a better shot at a successful life.
2
The AEI report says, "Black men who frequently attended church services at a young age are also more likely to reach the middle class or higher when they are in their fifties: 53% of those men who attended church as young men made it, compared to 43% who did not."
It's an obvious question, but what should we infer about causation? Isn't it probable that whoever makes the son go to church also makes them get to school on time and do their homework?
I have to take issue with your use of the AEI study on the roles of the military, church and marriage of reducing racial disparity. While the study may show that these institution help blacks, it is rather beside the point in terms of racial disparity as you do not cite how these institution affect whites, so there is way that the study actually addresses racial disparity between blacks and whites. Do white males need to join the military, attend church, or marry to get into the middle class? Of course not! That means that other factors must play a bigger role for differences between white and black attainment of middle-class status.
1
Mr. Brooks, you worked very hard to tell us what any American with common sense has known for a long time. Of course, the cause of inequality or poverty are family life and government policies, added by racial attitude. However, it takes millions of moderate citizens, and hundreds of honest and courageous politicians to do anything about it. When do you think that's going to happen?
The Republican party, starting w/ Reagan has led us to where we have pretty much created Victorian England in the U.S. today. The simplest way to start reversing the process is to bring back the draft. It would bring the classes together, and have everyone potentially w/ skin in the game.
There you go, Americans of African Descent of the male persuasion, problem solved. Join the military, get married, and go to church, end segregation and racism and find your niche in the middle class. Why did this ever seem like such a recalcitrant situation. What we need to change is human perception and the human heart rather than create a nostalgic set of circumstances that racists will find more acceptable than our current reality. Good data in this discussion, but the conclusions reached are overly simplistic and very Brookian.
2
There is a simple metric and answer why we don’t make progress in racial divide and discrimination:
“African Americans own approximately one-tenth of the wealth of white Americans. In 2016, the median wealth for nonretired black households 25 years old and older was less than one-tenth that of similarly situated white households.”
These are staggering numbers. African Americans were never compensated for their exploitation during slavery and since then have been systematically hindered to gain wealth.
Opportunity, education and prosperity go hand in hand, you can’t have one of it without having all.
Right now many whites fear for their privilege of being the dominant class and this fear drives implicitly and explicitly every policy decision. We are going backwards because we defend white supremacy. Simple as that. It’s a crime.
2
"Conservatives emphasize cultural norms" at the same time that they engage in segregation (white flight, redlineing, "school choice"). Somehow black people are expected to become part of the culture while being excluded from the communities. Republicans in state legislatures are still coming up ways to prevent blacks from voting.
1
Very simple: stop backsliding on racial equality by making it impossible for Donald Trump to ever speak again, by defeating every Republican in public office and hounding the GOP to death as the destructive vehicle for hate and corruption that it is.
1
Interracial marriages, specifically between "blacks" and "whites", are not a good statistic of progress of racial equality. Children born of such marriages are considered Afro-American.
I applaud Mr. Brooks for using the no longer politically correct term "race": despite the efforts of the militant leftist radical Democrats, the term clearly designates the differences in visual appearance of various ethnic groups.
1
"How can we stop backsliding toward inequality?"
Easy. Stop electing Republicans.
2
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has declared the war on poverty over and largely successful. That's about as much as you need to know about the top today.
With the disproportionate unbalance between the top 1% or 9% and the rest of the citizens, with salaries and wages being flat for most Americans for many years , this has become a war among poor people and race has entered this battle .
When President Obama was in the Oval Office the GOP continuously reminded Americans that he was black , even denying his rightful American birth place .
Republicans brought race again into the political battlefield , scaring white people into thinking that their economic status was being jeopardized by people of color , Latinos included .
The actual president has magnified and glorified this grotesque historic mistake .
trump is using the weakness of the poor , uneducated and ignorant who voted for him , to carry on his slanted , right leaning program against race , poverty, senior citizens, education, healthcare etc , to hand over the country to the top 1% - 9%..
Slavery is back , this time more pervasive .
Don’t forget to vote this November.
2
Mr. Brooks writes with the assumption that USA remains static, confined to a 1968 Civil Rights Era frame of reference. This is a mistake. The USA consciously, pre-meditatedly pushed itself into a Wilderness for 40 years....a biblical two generations required to remove the memory of our great sin, slavery/segregation.....If we count from 1965, forty years, two generations....we arrive at approximately the present day. We cannot force people to alter their free thinking, their prejudices, their personal conclusions........We MUST obey the law..........which simply says that no one can be denied the OPPORTUNITIES of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness(job, education, health, welfare) based on the assumption of race, sex, religion, national origin. And if we view USA from that perspective.......things have never been better for ALL americans....in spite of our refusal to move forward into the 21st Century
It still blows my mind how 99% of Republican voters vote for a party that has policies that don't help them. Until those repubs figure things out we as a country will go nowhere but backwards.
Also, Reverse Citizens United now. Get big money out of government.
2
Everything in this article is absolutely true, but sadly David Brooks is wring same after looking through a high powered microscope. NOT TO DEMEAN THE IMPORTANCE OF RACE ISSUES, what about LGBT rights, what about women's rights, what about Trump's putrid attitude toward Hispanic people? As we used to march in early Gay Pride marches, "same victims, same fight." Do you know that the Trump White House has refused to acknowledge Gay Pride month two years running? At the head of the Republican Party is a man who is a bigot and that bigotry is directed to all who are not him. Its much worse than you have portrayed and the party is following him. If they themselves are not mostly the deplorables that Mrs. Clinton said they were, then they have to get away from him, lest the stench overtake them completely.
2
No one wants to hear this anymore. It's become unfashionable to accept responsibility for the choices a person makes in life. It's far too easy to claim that "other people" put you where you are in your life.
3
Part of the problem with the USA is that inequality is only looked at from a skin color perspective. Poor white people are also disadvantaged by many of the same factors that effect poor blacks: broken families, low income, inferior education, etc. Societal solutions to inequality have to help every group that needs help to gain broad political support.
Dear Mr. Brooks,
While the various statics you referenced regarding the “gradual progress against racism and racial disparities” shows a marginal improvement in this country, the underlying fuel of bigotry and hatred is what’s at the heart of racism. The problem is that this evil and poisonous attitude no longer affects just African-American communities. This destructive and unacceptable mindset has spread and continues to spread at alarming rates to other “minorities”, albeit members of the LGBT communities, immigrants and their children, just for openers. There seems to be more things wrong in this country than right and one of the root causes is an intolerant and hateful attitude.
I do applaud your efforts in attempting to demonstrate the meager progress in various areas regarding African-Americans when it comes to higher high school completion rates, lower unemployment rates, and higher family income. But in the end, African-Americans are still on the losing end of everything in this country because they are viewed by so many as “minorities” rather than equals or simply fellow human beings. Until such vile prejudices no longer take root in people’s hearts and minds and hate is allowed to flourish and blossom through various words and actions of others, then I view essays such as yours Mr. Brooks as effective as using a pair of water pistols to combat raging and uncontrollable brush fires in the Southwest in summer.
2
More false equivalence from Mr. Brooks. If Americans want to do something about racial inquality they can start by refusing to elect GOP majorities.
2
This is a sensible, bipartisan critique of the last 40 years of stagnation in race relations. It is also not the column I expected to read. Good job, David!
1
Oh no. We are losing Brooks to the collectivists! In the opinion piece he states that segregation is on the rise, and a bunch of other seemingly grim statistics, but he does not even attempt to make a causal link between these things, like segregation, and racism (the left's favorite target when not harping on income inequality). He doesn't remotely admit to the possibility of choice and free will. If we are calling things racism that very well can be based on individual willingly-made decisions by groups that are the usual designated victims, then you're about to start another wild goose chase. I like what Ben Shapiro says about structural racism. He basically says that the assertion presupposes that it's in the ether, that everyone would have to breathe it, and there is overwhelming evidence that that is not the case. He says, as do most people on the right, "Find me the individual cases of racism, and we'll fight them together." But when you go blaming society as a whole, there is nothing productive that can come out of that. And any attempts to remedy the idea that racism generally pervades society, will undoubtedly cause more problems than it fixes. So, no David, you are wrong. And more people should stand up against what I see as very dangerous and incorrect rhetoric.
"We’ve fallen into a bogus logjam in which progressives emphasize systems of oppression and conservatives emphasize cultural norms." I think it is inaccurate and unfair to imply that progressives emphasize systems of oppression without giving weight to cultural norms. We do not. These ideas do coexist. The difference is that those in power, both in government and business, prefer to use the cultural norms argument as a means to deny social justice and to blame minorities for the abuse that they have suffered. They seek to preserve and expand their wealth and privilege.
1
Colored people includes whites. Don't count people by their race. Count them by their accomplishments. Leave skin color counting back in the last century where it belongs. Dignity matters. The norm is, a person, no matter the color of their skin, who tries and makes trying a habit in this country tends to be better off than those who don't.
Its that simple.
As America slowly sinks in status and stature I fear the fear politicians will inflame. Blaming "the other" to distract from the looting of our public coffers and stealing from the rest of us will be played out by those seeking re-election. Understanding and awareness will have to be repressed even more than today.
@Jim
The "forced integration" was in compliance with the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.
1
"As a nation we seem to have lost all enthusiasm for racial integration."
This may be an apt description of the nation in which the GOP resides, but it isn't for those of us who live in progressive and integrated counties. And while there may be fewer progressive counties than segregated, conservative ones, the former are still more heavily populated than the latter.
The two approaches you identify are not mutually exclusive as your opposite ends characterization implies. While those on the left can readily embrace the benefits of church, military and marriage, I would be hard pressed to identify any so-called conservatives that would even acknowledge to problem of systemic institutionalized racism, much less recongizing the need for governments to take steps to combat it.
2
Until two facts are embraced, there is scarcely any hope for Mr. Brooks or his successors to pen a more optimistic assessment on the status of race in America.
The first is to stop presenting integration as if it is some new conundrum of American society; America has been integrated from its inception. Without the contributions by men and women of African descent, this nation could not conceivably have ascended so quickly to its economic power in the 19th century and, therefore, to the position it enjoys in the world today. The conundrum has been acknowledging the sanctioned brutality inflicted upon--and the justice denied for--generations of Black and Hispanic people whose economic franchise and social title to the American Dream was withheld even though they were builders of this nation as much as anyone who can make that claim.
The second fact that must be embraced is the fallacious construct of race: a pernicious myth that has desperately grasped at everything from religion to Darwinism to justify itself and, by extension, its use for political and social oppression. Recognition of this fallacy demands achieving the equity denied to entire groups of Americans since the country's founding.
Until America tosses the concoction of race onto the trash heap of flat earths, medicinal leeches, and other discredited beliefs, we will never be able get out of our own way long enough to achieve the society that Mr. Brooks had hoped to chronicle.
1
David, while I appreciate that your column today provides documentation of the lack of progress or even reversal of progress in recent years on racial integration, it seems to me that you decided, consciously, to omit politics as a factor. Substantial political force has been wielded to marginalize, exclude, and prevent minorities from becoming mainstreamed into the economic and social prosperity that whites can access without racial barriers.
Health care, the SNAP program, diversity, tax policy, voter ID rules, and blatant gerrymandering are all political decisions aimed at obvious or dog-whistle discrimination. Your column describes the results of discrimination, but not many of the major causes. It is decades of politically motivated action by the Republican Party that has marginalized minorities, culminated by the overtly racist attitudes and actions of our current President. Ignoring the literal and symbolic elephant in the room seems impossible, but you did it.
7
Mr. Brooks is able to hold two conflicting ideas in his head at the same time and that's to his credit. Trump's sole virtue- completely unintended- is to make structural inequality and everyday racism more visible than ever- bigots feel more empowered than at any time since the civil rights struggles of the 1950's. As the same time, Brooks is right to stress cultural accountability. Buying into the victim narrative is the way that oppressed groups contribute to their own oppression. Let's out every institution and person that excludes or disentitles people because of their color- but let's never excuse any one for failing as a parent or a spouse or a human being because they were failed by their parents or their community. The choice shouldn't be one or the other.
5
In my life, this regression does not apply. My son just married a lovely African American woman and now we are part of her large family. All the adults in her family are college graduates and live comfortable lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. They are charming people and we all get along very well. My daughter-in-law is an accomplished business woman with a good job. I think there are millions of African Americans who are educated and financially secure. We never hear about them in the newspapers though.
4
It's fascinating, isn't it, that almost all of our nation's success in moving blacks into the middle class occurred from 1960-1975. Mr. Brooks cites the statistic, but then blithely moves on to his next point without any further examination.
Is it just a coincidence that this era was defined by the federal government's support for civil rights and voting rights? Or that President Johnson spoke with conviction about what civil rights would mean, not just for blacks, but for all Americans? And is it just a coincidence that this era was a time of strength for organized labor, a movement that enabled men and women with limited education to lead middle-class lives? And how can we fail to mention that this era was also the heyday of the Warren Court, when our nation's approach to criminal justice was based not on vengeance, but on fairness and the possibility of rehabilitation.
Sadly, since that era ended, Mr. Brooks's Republican Party has done everything it could possibly do to destroy these pillars of fairness and good governance. The Republican's Southern strategy, the rise of mass incarceration, voter suppression, the willful and intentional destruction of organized labor, and of course, our current President's overt racism. If we want to really examine the failure of racial progress, Mr. Brooks, let's begin with the political party whose foundation was built on racism and division.
5
Excellent. Real history; real information!
No school can reverse what a dysfunctional family does to a child, regardless of the child's race. Opioids kill people regardless of race. Defunct economic activity clusters strand left behind working families in collapsed neighborhoods regardless of race. While race is a significant problem in America, it isn't the only prism through which one can view the larger set of American problems. In a Venn diagram "Race" may be a subset, but often race appears to be the most visible one. Mr.Trump is not good at articulating ideas, but I think his supporters may feel overlooked when discussions seem to be more race based than economically disadvantaged based and that makes it easier for Mr. Trump & his ilk to divide us along racial lines, let's not do the work for him. Remember the poor of all races. Just a thought.
137
When I, a black American and a Democrat, lived in Virginia, one of my senators was Jim Webb, a man for whom I have the utmost respect. When he ran for President in 2016, I was very hopeful that he would win the Democratic nomination. Unfortunately, his campaign failed. He spoke to the problems of the poor and working class of all races. He is not perfect (who is?) but would have been a far superior president in all respects to the Great Divider, and in many respects to Hillary Clinton (whom I voted for). I say this because of his understanding of the problems of a broader swath of Americans than Hilary, his ability to speak to to those problems in a language most people are comfortable with, and his undoubtable patriotism and devotion to the idea of the United States as a credal, not "blood and soil" nation.
He does remember the poor of all races.
Leadership matters in major social transformations of societies. US leadership on transforming African Americans from marginalized and oppressed people to people afforded the same opportunities as European or Asian Americans is missing.
Republican leadership on this issue has been evil. There's just no other way to describe republican policies on race beginning with Reagan. Fanning racial antagonism has been key to republican political ambition.
Democratic leadership since LBJ and Thurgood Marshall created the legal and moral high ground of the Civil Rights movement has been banal and ineffective. Drinking the kool-aid of their identity politics strategy, augmented by their myth of pervasive white privilege and pervasive white accountability for racism, they have alienated the people needed to advance racial harmony in our country.
Without any data, I suspect that most whites are just tired of the subject. "Most" whites believe that African Americans have squandered the gains of the Civil Rights movement noting the escalating dysfunction of black urban communities and the disintegration of black family structure predicted by Moynihan. As demands for school busing became the norm, as black gang violence escalated, and as black urban governance largely failed, "most" whites seem to have decided, "enough, time for blacks to fix some of their own problems."
Brooks is right that we need a new effort encompassing both individual accountability and political leadership.
2
Brooks' conclusions appear to be common sense, requiring recognition of truth where it resides on both the right and the left. As the House Committees of Oversight and the Judiciary shamefully demonstrated under GOP leadership yesterday, the chance of that happening in the current American political climate is nil. When is the mutual blame game going to end? Does it require turfing out both major parties and the entire political establishment? The responsible members of the committee couldn't keep the chair and Gowdy in simple compliance with the rules most of the time -- a disgraceful spectacle. Racism is the least of our problems; our political institutions haven't been in such bad shape since the run-up to the CXivil War.
The modern day Republican Party was based on racism. Reagen and the "Southern Strategy" was launched to take advantage of White anger at the forced desegregation demanded by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. At least that was a bit subtle.
Then came Trump who made verbal and active racism acceptable. It is no accident that today people who see Black people going about the daily living that all of us do are are perfectly willing to call the police on them. Trump made that acceptable and perhaps even laudable.
To say we are "backsliding toward inequality" implies we once had equality. It's all folly and always has been. Powerful words and committed names on a scroll is not equality for all. It's only a dream. It's death here on our continent is hardly quiet. Millions of us are demanding equal treatment and equal resources, no matter how malicious their actions or work ethic. Here in our fair burg police are no longer arresting those who sell drugs on the street because 26 out of 27 arrested were non-white. This makes such arrests racist. I don't know what racial progress is, but I do know what's racist: treating others differently solely because of their race.
1
Please tell me why a black child would do worse going to a school full of black students, teachers and administrators. Don’t give me the line about under funded schools. Every child in America has more technology in their classroom than I did. I only had air conditioning for 3 years of school of K-12. I’m 57 with a bachelors and law degree from a Big Ten school.
4
Everyone should be concerned about the backsliding we've already done as a nation in terms of inequality but not just for minorities. The US is still about 72% white. 87% of blacks voted for Clinton in 2016. First and foremost, if we are really serious about reversing our countries backside, the current Republican administration must be removed from office as a starting point. To do that, the Democrats must find a more compelling message that resonates with those white voters that have backslide over the past decade.
Disproportional focus on minority politics might feel good but also alienates are large swath of the electorate as they say, "What about me?" Trump is happy to oblige.
2
Pardon me, it was a liberal idea that gave rise to equality for blacks in the military (Truman). Why is church only a bastion of the conservative? Pretty sure the Evangelicals were not the clergy marching with MLK or against the recent child snatching by the Trump administration. And, of course, responsible men who hold jobs are good role models. But that is a function of economy not race. The bogus logjam is conservatives ranting that liberals are somehow ready to throw democracy under the bus for equal rights. It is the conservatives that are willing to throw democracy under the bus for white supremacy. And it looks like it is working.
2
I to thought that we had turned a corner with the election of Barack Obama. I was wrong and the retreat has been extremely disheartening. I used to be a proponent of political correctness but now I just see it as a cover-up. When folks feel comfortable expressing their prejudices it is easier to see whom you really want to remain friends with. I should add, I left the south because of the dog whistles that were oh so obvious and did not sit well with my experiences in the minority community.
1
The reversals of progress in rights and equal possibilities for people of color has been anything but “quiet.” What does Mr. Brooks thing Black Lives Matter is all about? Why does he not cite the years’ long loud campaign of “birtherism” for enabling bigotry to gain elected office? How about the closings of schools serving black students, as has happened in Chicago to great protest ( note that education is not one of the pillars into the middle class he promotes), or the imposition of hurdles to black voters, which Democrats have fought but the GOP keeps raising? How about NOT claiming that “our country” has given up on civil rights progress, and identifying the miscreants: leaders, funders, courts and sheep of the increasingly empowered white wing?
Racial equality can not be determined simply on the basis of dollars and cents. The increase in the percentage of interracial marriages is very encouraging because when the divisions between the races become less distinct, so too will the economic differences. Thank God that love is colorblind.
1
If Trumpism doesn't prove to you that racism *is* a conservative cultural norm, then you will never be able to be part of a solution. In America racism and conservatism cannot be separated.
3
For Trump and his audience, his mantra is either win or lose, no such thig as win-win. His audience sees that if the blacks are doing better, then the whites MUST be losing. It is especially so for those who had decent jobs without much higher education.
Another factor is the TV Nesws no not the FOX but just the local news. I am an Indian immigrant, in the US for 59 years and consider myself as middle class (no, I am not a dctor of medicine, just a doctor of engineering and chose to have a steady job). The local news reports criminal cactivities, especially the shocking ones ad overwhelmingly we see the black "criminal" and that creates the strong image that yes, the blacks are not good people, notwithstanding that the victims are also black. And this reinforces the anti-black image. Most of the white criminals are white collar and well dressed and well spoken and do nt appear to be threatening.
How do you change this? David's information is good, but that is not in the NEWS only the bad news is.
Why no talk of gender justice when so few men go to college compared to women? Is gender justice going be like racism? It can only go one direction? If so, count me out.
1
In an exchange with a passing acquaintance, she mentions that her son is now living in Alabama with his wife, a teacher and there are few whites. Poverty is there to stay, and memory lane returns to Paris in 1965.
Mr. and Mrs. Parker, an American couple, take me with them for an evening out to the opening of 'Mahoganny', and seated in the middle, I watch a story unravel far different from Racine or Corneille.
Hobos arrive in the dark of the night, and a woman starts signing 'O Moon of Alabama'. Lotte Lenya is her name and she asks for whisky or 'We shall die'. While I do not understand the message, I decide once again that when I grow up, I plan to be rich.
'How can we stop backsliding toward inequality', asks David Brooks. We can start caring and help African-Americans by not treating them like second-class citizens. For historical reasons, injustice and tragedies, we appear frightened of each other.
'We have blacks in our community', earlier from a decent staunch republican. True, we have at last counting two, and they are rare birds. When asked by an African friend or another from the Islands, they wonder if they would be welcome.
Their children born in America have been to college on scholarship and now grown, some are engineers. A nearly Young one from Jamaica is researching at Yale the cause of white substance abusers.
Let's uproot rotten 'Pappy' in the South. Alabama will take place, when an African friend on mission in the Sudan takes my hand.
David’s analyses always manage to miss (or is it to avoid seeing?) the obvious facts that contradict his conservative philosophy.
Here he points out that most of the reduction in poverty among African American males happened between 1960 and 1975. But does not mention and therefore avoids having to explain away any correlation to the bad, big government programs of the War on Poverty.
The accumulation of small omissions, correlations not addressed, and bits of ideology passed as fact are what made possible the emergence of the Liar in Chief from among Republicans.
1
Bogus logjams are everywhere.
Immigration is either deport everybody you possibly can, including members of the military or abolish ICE.
Climate change is either deny it exists or create onerous regulations, where a carbon tax would probably be more effective.
Abortion is either complete freedom even for late term abortions or never allow abortions even for rape.
We cannot have a rational discussion about any issue anymore. Trump is only making this problem so much worse.
"As the A.E.I. study shows, black men who served in the military are more likely to be in the middle class than those who did not. Black men who attended religious services are 76 percent more likely to attain at least middle-class status than those who did not."
I'd venture a guess to say that the same applies to Whites and Latinos too. The institutions cited above have the ability to move people up the totem pole regardless of their race. And while these black fathers have moved into the middle class, they still have to have "the talk" with their sons. The racism remains.
This is a typical DB column, in wanting to have his cake and eat it too. DB should ask himself why these bourgeois norms of which he speaks are less influential in other countries. Sweden and Iceland have high rates of out of wedlock birth and yet better upward mobility (intergenerational income elasticity)like than the US as well as most other indicators. They are also secular. And increasingly their fertility rates are closer to replacement level than the US. Perhaps it's time to trash this bourgeois "respectability" model that DB is so keen on.
And perhaps it's time Brooks acknowledged that the stagnation and reversal that have occurred on many fronts in the last 60 years owe to policies and strategies pursued by the Republican party.
I'll tell you how we "stop backsliding toward inequality." we stop passing massive tax cuts for the rich; we stop the president from race-baiting; we stop law enforcement from racial profiling and bias against non-whites; we stand up for the rule of law and do not accept the massive law-breaking and corruption from the president right on down. We take back our country from the 30%.
Vote!!! That's the only way things will change. If progressives can't control the legislative branches we are hopeless and helpless.
Brooks laments the "quiet death of racial progress," yet says not one word about the persistent racism at the heart of the GOP. Brooks mentions the lack of progress for African-Americans since 1980, yet omits the racist policies of Ronald Reagan, who kicked off his presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the site of the KKK murders of civil rights workers.
He fails to mention Trump, and his vendetta against anyone who is not white. Not a word about his "deportation force," not a word about his deliberate terrorist campaign to rip children from the arms of immigrant parents, not a word about his cancellation of the immigrant status of black Haitians, who after seventeen years he is forcing back to Haiti.
No, Mr. Brooks, attending church and signing up for the Army will not restart racial progress. Voting out Republicans will.
2
We only hear about the overt racism. Most of the racism today is in private with no one to complain. "the house has been sold" "The apartment has been rented." We just hired someone else." All of these are "white lies". Without any way to check their validity, racism will continue unabated - and those who want "less government" are the most flagrant violators.
As long as our crimes against humanity war on drugs exist we as a nation will remain in the past and give up facts for hate.
Should we perhaps be concentrating more on economic class than race alone?
1
I’ve read quite a few articles over the years which state that positive social and economic changes in this country mysteriously stalled or were reversed since 1980. If factors as disparate as income inequality and school resegregation started at the same time, why not stop making up opaque causations based on the rise of individuality and the decline of cultural norms? What happened in 1980 that caused it all was the final fracturing of the New Deal coalition and the rise of white identity politics, or what we more politely called “The Reagan Revolution.”
5
When a man with a partner, a child, a job, and a legally-obtained concealed weapon permit ends up dead during a traffic stop -- and the video shows he did nothing wrong -- that's proof that the conservative "solution" for improving the lot of African-American men is not a solution.
The solution is for white people to acknowledge and root out their deep-seated racism against people of other races.
2
“As Chetty’s research shows, the general presence of fathers — not just one’s own — in the community is a powerful determinant of whether young men will be able to rise and thrive.”
How nice.
And what about young women, Mr. Brooks? Have you ever heard reports or read research indicating that women do much of the work raising and educating children and maintaining families? Do you ever consider women fully human or do they always appear sort of foggy to you? Are you ever slightly curious about their achievements and accomplishments?
You are truly Republican.
It seems you do not understand what Brooks was getting at. I'm pretty sure his point was that, no matter how hard (often poor, uneducated, single) mothers may work in raising their children, the lack of a father who is present in the childrens' lives is generally a detriment to the children. Women need to take who they pair-up with, even for a night or a few years, far, far more seriously. For too many women are pairing-up with men that everyone else knew from the get-go, was an outright loser. These same women then seem 'surprised' when the man doesn't step up to the plate once she learns she's pregnant. This same scenario plays out time and again, yet some women simply don't want to see what's right in front of their faces.
When we read stories in the news about young black men who committed a crime, 9 times out of 10 there is a mother mentioned in the story, but no father. I think that fact right there just proves Brooks' point. Bearing children is not a 'right' but a massive responsibility, and I tire of hearing of so many children suffering for the irresponsible, selfish behaviors of their mothers. It's one thing to get 'accidentally' pregnant once. But two, three, four times, and often by different 'loser' men?
Yes, we need to do better for black men. They need more job opportunities, better access to education, and we need to stop locking them up needlessly. But in the meantime, some women need to act more responsibly themselves.
"How can we stop backsliding toward inequality?"
Voting all Republicans out of office in November would be a good start. And then removing the racist and bigoted avatars from the White House. Another tidy column of false equivalency from Mr. Brooks. This from a member of a party that uses the southern strategy and voter suppression in order to gain votes and win elections--talk about that sometime Mr. Brooks and tell us all how morally wrong that is. But until then what I recall is "its textbook racism but I'll be able to get my agenda through."
1
If the same immigration policies were aimed at Native American reservations or Liberia you would call those promoting it monsters.
You'd be correct.
People have a right to simply exist, free from invasion & ethnic displacement. ALL PEOPLE.
2
Black men are in jail or prison. Are they counted as unemployed or just not counted? Does this increase their chance of inequality?
We are living in a time when unarmed black men are routinely shot by police, when police are called because a black child is mowing the lawn next to a white home, when a black woman tries to use a community pool for which she has privileges, when a black womani falls adleep in a Yale dorm lounge. Why? Because a major American political party and its leaders have let the dogs out. Bigotry and racism have become weapons of the G.O.P. used to inflame a disaffected white base.
Nowhere in Mr. Brooks’s piece can I find a mention of the Republican Party. He continues to try to dance around the issue by talking about “conservatives” as though conservatives know no party, as though the Rrpublican Party has no part in all the damage it’s csused, no responsibility for the racism it fosters. Mr. Brooks, it’s ok to use the R word. In the end you can’t be a Republican today without accepting the the complicity that entails.
2
When the party and "movement" you support, after all of the regular hair-slitting and big idea fondling is presented, and its all-too high Court, overturns Brown vs. Board of Education, as well as all forms of attention to racial power realities, we'll see how far we can quickly sink from here. Then there can be one of those "How did that happen?" columns.
The term "left-winger" - that term seems dated and disrespectful.
Also, talk more about women, why the focus on men?
The regression in racial attitudes is disappointing but not surprising. The progressive movement incessantly argues that Democrats should give up on middle class whites and allow changing racial demographics to sweep them into power. And, more dangerously, they assert that progressive rule will mean radical wealth redistribution, the imposition of culture war identity-based policies, mandatory political correctness and anti-growth economic policy. Is it any wonder that we as Black Americans are facing a backlash?
More troubling still, in order to incite their base, progressives portray minorities as childlike, helpless pawns who cannot care for our families, become educated, register to vote or even avoid incarceration without some paternalistic government program created by well-meaning white intellectuals.
Unfortunately, all of this represents a failure of true leadership in the Black community. Rather than working internally to strengthen our people to thrive in the American economy, so-called Black leaders have thrown in with the Democrat party. They deliver our votes in exchange for elective office, senior positions in government, corporate board seats and other perks. Then, while moving to white neighborhoods and sending their kids to private schools, they tell us to be patient, while the Democrat party focuses on gay and women's rights and the environment.
Blacks are taking all the heat and getting nothing for it. It's all quite a con job.
3
Blacks recognize that they have been little more than a prop for the Democrats that they whip out every couple years.
The big surprise of the next election will be the lack of Black support for Democrats. Trump is gaining significant support in the awoke Black community.
Once Blacks realize that they can be so much more than a prop and are welcomed into the Republican Party, perhaps the incessant race baiting, which seems to be the only electoral strategy Democrats know, will subside.
2
Absolutely true. Unfortunately it's not just the Republicans - welfare reform and the Bill Clinton crime bill are evidence that Democrats play this game, too. Obama was much better, but I worry what we'll all think of his unfortunate immigration policies in ten or twenty years. In my lifetime, I have not seen a president of either party who has not played this game to some degree.
I appreciate this column's willingness to acknowledge that the left has a point. That is far too rare on the right (or even center).
But, of course it doesn't go far enough. Do white men need to rely on the military or church for their economic well-being? Or is that only necessary for black men? Why?
The presence of fathers is also miscategorized here - it's not primarily an individual responsibility thing. When black men are disproportionately and unjustly incarcerated, it takes them away from their communities. The ensuing impossibility of getting a legitimate job post-conviction ensures they never fully return. This is on all of us.
.
Every individual can develop abilities, skills and knowledge (ASK) and take those to the marketplace. Capitalism rewards ownership, so start a business.
Remember that virtue, joy in life, creativity and relationships are just as important as smarts.
Having an attitude of resentment because of challenges/obstacles -- real or imagined -- is an impediment to progress.
Now go exercise your freedom in this gymnasium of liberty.
1
@avoice4US:
What you say is theoretically true.
However you seem to gloss over that there are specific social structures put in place to keep Blacks and others in a subordinate position relative to Whites.
Even during the Post WW II boom, Black veterans were excluded from the FHA Housing Loan Program which provided low-interest loans to millions of White families who otherwise could never have qualified for a mortgage, in effect the government bankrolling homeownership for Whites which is and remains a crucial component in amassing some sort of wealth and passing it on to their progeny.
The GI Bill was also restricted. "Big Government" was not an issue as long as it benefitted Whites who always claim they did everything on their own.
Toss in the banking industry, the education system, the medical establishment, (remember the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments), and undue control by law enforcement that is now to the point that one cannot eat, wait, golf, drive, and swim without White people calling the cops.
It's all very well to say we all have talents and abilities etc., but one cannot deny the social structures that have been are STILL in place to advantage one group of people and in its equal and opposite consequence, disadvantage another.
Coming from a background of what are now euphemistically called "working class whites," as well as a deeply evangelical family and service in the USMC (a lot like JD Vance), I suggest that it's not only black men who attain greater success when religion and military service are part of the picture. But that is a correlation and not necessarily causation. The relevant factor is not race but a lack of viable options. Once beyond the "working class," neither military service nor religion are probable preconditions to a fulfilling, ethical, and productive life. Once one is beyond the lower socio-economic ranks in our country, alcohol and opioid abuse are not likely alternatives to the military and/or religion, either.
Regarding David's last sentence, to "do something" about retrogression on race, we absolutely do not need to be "radical." Instead, we need to be thoughtful, serious, sane, and determined, both in everyday life and in the voting booth.
4
While we're discussing minorities, let's remind ourselves that our current president was elected by a minority of voters through an antiquated system (the electoral college) and most likely with an assist from Russia. The majority must turn out for all future elections if we want to get back on the road to racial, financial, and educational reform.
4
Well, it looks like the progressives are probably right. Brooks would love this to be about discipline (military and church), but it's probably not. The military provides training and a number of benefits (college, for one) that people can't get on the outside. A college degree is necessary these days--and the costs are astronomical. The church is an interesting factor, but there is an economic argument there too--the church provides networks for employment etc. It has nothing to do with "grit" or discipline. So maybe Brooks might want to look at the structural impediments that are clearly there, rather than peering into the hears of people he clearly doesn't understand. (For him--a non-Christian--church is a social abstraction, not a scene of faith.)
At a minimum, Mr. Brooks comments begin a needed discussion and that's always promising. Race in our country continues to be a tool for politicians to exploit. The subject of race almost instantly provokes division and raw emotions. The path towards understanding may have gotten a little easier, but each day we seem tormented by racially charged news reports, horrible comments by public figures and anger from those who are offended.
Answers? That's what we need but there seems to be no real push to seek them.
1
Racial progress was real but it never reached vibrant adolescence never mind full maturity. And while I concur that Trump and the GOP need to be rejected, I have to point out that they do not rule Hungary, Poland, Turkey or any of the lands where xenophobia is on the rise. The world of liberal democracy seems to have hit a barrier to progress. Maybe it's a new revolution. In America, what we call the Revolution changed much for some but little for others. Now, it may be that democracy sweeps aside its posh uncle "liberal democracy." America was always racist. White Protestants always wanted to rule, whether in America's South, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, or Northern Ireland. We're in the midst of an earthquake. Is it the big one or just a warning temblor?
1
Glib, wrong, and bordering on absurd. Church, family, and yes, the military, provide safety nets. Inequality and negative trends on race have grown since 1975 because Reagan and his disciples punched hole after hole after hole in the public safety net. There is no reason women or children should be dependent on men, or citizens should pray to the sky, or risk their lives in war to have basic economic security. The Great Society offered it and Republicans ripped it away. It's not complicated.
8
Conservatives refuse to believe that "systems" control our behavior much more than individual values and beliefs.
A racist legal system is going to result in racist outcomes regardless of the moral beliefs and values of the individual people working in that system. A corrupt political system is going to result in corrupt political decisions regardless of the values and beliefs of individual politicians.
We can't change behavior by changing hearts and minds. We only change behavior and social outcomes by changing our systems.
We will never make any progress on racism, political corruption; or, any of our other social problems until and unless we fix our broken systems.
Since Martin Luther King the nation make strides in reducing racial disparity. Unfortunately, these changes were legal (affirmative action, voting rights, etc.), not social or moral. Racism remained as pervasive as ever, just thinly hidden because of political correctness attitudes. We have limited affordable housing because of racism. We have segregated schools because of racism. We have a lopsided percentage of black males in prisons because of racism. We have the worst President in the history of the country because of racism. Racism, more than any other factor, influences economic, social and political life in America. We must recognize the problem and address it, somehow, or face dire consequences.
1
The same prejudices are apparent with the disabled and the elderly. The latest work requirement for Medicaid is clear and flagrant evidence.
I am not sure that encouraging black men to serve in the military and go to church will solve the problem of racism in this country. This seems to me oversimplified at best, and pointless at worst.
Mr. Brooks continuously puts a lot of faith in the steadying influence (or not) of family and religion, and much less or none on the importance of economic well-being and equal opportunity in schooling. I somehow don’t believe that the study from A.I.E. compares on equal footing with the study from Raj Chetty and his group.
1
It's obvious that the Republican party has used racism as a tool to gain votes and win elections. However I'd prefer to comment on the enormous amount of closet racism that exists in a place like Brooklyn where I reside. When you look closely, everything from residential neighborhoods, religious congregations, and,most heart breakingingly, our schools are harshly segregated as we represent ourselves as being so enlightened. Let's stop lecturing the rest of the country on it's racial attitudes and start cleaning up the mess in our own backyards especially when it comes to the schools. Mayor DiBlasio's proposal to send the top 7 percent of each middle school to specialized elite high schools, do away with that silly compromised test and effectively force parents to look for less popular middle schools is a brilliant way to break down these segrationist patterns. But look at the pushback. This is racism in it's purest form right here in NYC. Stop the self righteous hypocrisy. Let's become real leaders in the battle for fairness and equality.
The specialized schools entrance exam is an example of pure merit based admissions yet you refer to it as “racism in it's purest form”.
That radical leftism prevents the positive Democrat party platforms from winning elections.
Martin Luther King, Jr., came to realize that racial and social justice, and I'll add gender justice too, would not be effectively achievable without economic justice. It's as much or more a matter of class as race and gender, and economic justice has been deteriorating as strongly since 1970 as any of the racial aspects cited here.
Since before the full onslaught of the Reagan Restoration, but strongly since then, wages are stagnant, incomes for the lower 90% are stagnant, yet wealth and income of the top 10% and especially the top 1% have skyrocketed. We cannot achieve the American Dream, or even hold onto the American Experiment, if the United States is the exclusive playground of an oligarchy or even just an accelerating wealthy class.
We need a compelling new rallying cry: It's the Economic Justice, Stupid!
8
A "bogus logjam"? No, I think it is a real logjam created and reinforced by the highest levels of our government.
Thank you Mr Brooks for another column of false equivalency. Both sides are equally right and wrong. The best part of the column is that it offers no suggested solution or path forward to make things better.
Those pesky democrats and those stick in the mud republicans just can't sort it.
Who would have thought race relations would be so difficult.
Already mentioned in the comments, but not by you, David, as Tom says:
"Fish stink from the head. Clean heads at least controlled the stink and decay of racism. Now, Trump is prepared to unleash hatreds as a means of staying in power."
I copy and paste this because it bears repeating over and over again.
It was standard procedure for modern leaders to condemn racism. It quelled the natural tribal forces that will always be at work. Fear and hate of the "other" will always exist. It is our leader's responsibility to counter that by being a representative of ALL of us. Trump is beyond failing at this. He is inspiring racism. He is fanning the flames of hate. He is spawning immitators. He is breeding bigotry.
On a constructive note, I must again beat the drum for education reform. Fund PUBLIC education on a statewide level. Do not fund religious or private schools with taxpayer's money. Require states to fund education with exactly the same dollars per student. Set statewide standards.
Remove funding and ciriculum control from towns and counties. Funding education via real estate taxes is one of the great monsters at work in perpetuating racial inequality and inter-generational poverty.
7
David
“If we’re going to do something about this appalling retrogression on race, we probably need to be radical on both ends.” One problem is that we are far more radical on the GOP side in a counter productive manner.
A party that believes racial problems can be ameliorated by limiting voting rights, reducing access to food for the hungry, stripping hard working people of meaningful medical insurance can hardly be said to be interested in doing “..something about this appalling retrogression on race...”
There is going to come a time when we will fairly face the fact that some problems are not caused equally by both parties. We will someday recognize that as imperfectly as their efforts may have been, only one party has tried at least to make improvements and the other has, through demagoguery legislation and benign neglect failed to contribute.
. Brooks seems to have it right to me. Racism exists in the US. Conservatives can not. Deny it. While smug NYT readers probably assume it is all Trump supporters they ought to look in theiir own liberal enclaves like the upper west side which is probably more segregated than anyplace other than San Francisco or Malibu.
White society has problems with racism and black society h cultural norms that perpetuate poverty and a large underclass.
3
"It is difficult for a man to understand something when his salary (or campaign contributions) depend on his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair
My problem with this column and subsequent comments are that it places race at the center of the conversation. Instead, I see the vast majority of evidence - both academically and anecdotally pointing to upbringing and family wealth, rather than race, as the primary factors for inequality.
I completely acknowledge that race is still a large issue in the US. There are unconscious biases from all institutions that provide a struggle, and from the justice system to job applications, African americans are disadvantaged.
That being said, in my life I grew up middle class and knew plenty of middle classes African american kids. The vast majority - more than their white peers - who had good upbringings, ended up in college and are now doing well. The poorer kids are all backgrounds struggled on a much higher level.
Many of the white kids have gotten into drugs, some of the poor African Americans have had children far to early or became friends with the wrong people. but in almost all instances it was the upbringing and family poverty that caused the divide. I didn't see race as a factor, except that a higher percentage of African Americans are poor, therefore more are struggling.
Let's focus on economic inequality instead of putting the primary emphasis on racism and "civil war never ended rhetoric". At the end of the day I find that history only accounts for a fraction of the total reason why this inequality exists.
5
How to stop backsliding toward racial inequality? You have to ask? Don't vote for Republicans!
4
Brooks notes, "As their report clearly shows, the vast bulk of that decline happened between 1960 and 1975. If you look at poverty data since 1980, there’s been little progress, either in black men moving out of poverty or into the middle class."
It seems that is generally applicable across the whole economy, as the inequality gap between the 1% and everybody else has grown wider and wider. Granted, some groups of people may be more affected than others, but this is a real problem that affects most people. I would think that less economic viability means that people are going to be more defensive, less apt to move around, leaving whatever segregation that exists more firmly in place. A turnover of people would allow for more change in the dynamics of neighborhoods and possibly more integration.
Only a white person could create such a tone deaf title. Racism is never "quiet" to those who are oppressed and it has become down-right deafening of late, thanks in large part to our president.
3
This from a guy whose favorite president, in the very first speech of his first presidential campaign, delivered in Philadelphia, Mississippi, said “I believe in states’ rights.”
3
"The mind is everything. What you think you become" Buddha.
Let's mull this over. It ain't "comforting"...
1
This is not an issue that can be blamed on Trump, though he reflects his base and fosters racism. The people of the USA are racist and have demonstrated this for years.
I had a friend from Maine who when he visited us in Canada was disgusted by mixed racial couples eating in a restaurant.
Over the years he changed and accepted his black neighbours but he poisoned his children who today live his old racist views.
Brooks again seems to have emigrated to another planet where no borders exist.
The term "racial progress" used by a fan of Reagan/Bush family is like sending "thoughts and prayers" to the dead.
David must have missed Nixon's "southern strategy" too, or maybe he simply likes whistling past the GOP racial grave yard?
3
And even with a African American President for 8 years, it seems little progress can be made. And I can’t figure out why.
2
For 30 years I've worked with disadvantaged people, the great majority of those have been black or Latino, and many have been caught up in the criminal justice system. (If you think it's hard to get a job because you're black, just try adding a felony conviction). I long ago stopped trying to say and do the right things--they weren't really helping--and have gotten very pragmatic. You're looking for a job and your address is obviously in the hood? Use your aunt's address on your application. Your name is Darnell Christopher Jones? Style your resume as D. Christopher Jones. Ebonics may be a bona fide cultural dialect, but don't use it outside your home. I can't waste any more time trying to get the larger non-minority society to open the gates of their own free will. Experience tells me the only way people really get out of poverty now is 1) education 2) an unusual talent a la Tyler Perry and Jennifer Lopez, or 3) marry (not cohabitate) up.
8
“Three institutions do an impressive job of reducing racial disparity: the military, marriage and church”
What church are you talking about? Churches are the most segreated places in America!
1
He is not saying that the churches themselves are integrated; Brooks' point is that attending church makes it more likely that African-Americans will attain middle-class status. He is talking about social stability leading to financial stability.
1
It would help if the media would stop promoting tribalism and identity politics.
3
Bingo. Why do they do this?
Come on folks - this isn’t that complicated.
To stop discrimination based on race, stop discriminating based on race.
Unfortunately for those who love to wrap themselves and their failure in the cloak of “victimhood” , this requires they accept responsibility for their own poor choices.
Create a culture that devalues education education, self-discipline, achievement, and personal responsibility.
Add a dash of refusal to delay gratification, (for instance having kids you can’t afford to raise).
Then top off with assuring fathers are unable or unwilling to parent the children.
Inevitably, your economic circumstances will plummet.
Shocking how that happens - but no worry - just blame those horrible privileged white males.
9
It’s simple. Pandering to racist whites has been a path to power for Republicans. It is impossible to imagine the Republican party becoming principled, and eschewing racism. Because with racism, they’re winning.
3
From here in Quebec I see little difference between GOP America and Russian Orthodox Russia. Women's rights are under attack and in Russia where abortion rights are limited Putin wishes to make abortion illegal. While Trump and the GOP cater to the Christian Right Vladimir Putin is a card carrying member of the Christian Right. On racism the Putin Government is overt in its racism while the GOP sticks to dog whistles.
The USA is not backsliding it has hollowed out the middle-class where social norms and human progress are constructed by an educated "elite". Much of the USA and Russia has entered the "dark ages" where myth and superstition reign supreme. Even as Russian Orthodox is the official state religion in Russia America has its American Orthodox religious traditions in American Protestantism, Inquisition Catholicism, Modern Orthodox Judaism and Mormonism.
The Nixon Administration practiced what was called "benign neglect" toward race. The GOP's been on the wrong side of seeking equality since Nixon's rise. Given the Southern Strategy, no real surprise, eh?
3
Brooks writes,
"We’ve fallen into a bogus logjam in which progressives emphasize systems of oppression and conservatives emphasize cultural norms. Both critiques are correct. If we’re going to do something about this appalling retrogression on race, we probably need to be radical on both ends."
It might be nice if Mr. Brooks had acknowledged that virtually every African American leader from W.E.B. DuBois to Thurgood Marshall to Martin Luther King to Jesse Jackson to Barack Obama has been saying exactly the same thing. Maybe Mr. Brooks just wasn't listening.
3
You forget that Obama identified a key problem early in his presidency in 2008 at a Father's Day Service:
"They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. We know the statistics — that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison"
I wonder if Mr. Brooks left his scholastic credentials at the partisan door. Bradford Wilcox of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) seems scholarly; but AEI is non-partisan in name only, it doesn’t equate to scholastic. Raj Chetty is a distinguished professor of economics at Harvard; but he is a disciple of Martin Feldstein whose name is very familiar to those of us who watch the failure of Regan's tenant that a rising tide lifts all boats (supply side economics). I am grateful that Mr. Brooks is aware of the change in direction of racial progress since 1980; but concerned that in his effort to reverse this change, he has failed in his duty to define the cause objectively.
5
Not one word about the persistence, if not growth, of outward and blatant manifestations of racism.The kind that increasingly places a psycjic burden on blacks and other minorities. While there are surely racists on the left and the right, we know the vast majority make their home in Mr. Brooks's Republican party. We will never beat down the structures that hold down blacks until there are enough Republicans willing to disavow the racists in their house.
2
Mr. Brooks, what you write is nonsense. It gives me no pleasure to say it but it's just so obvious. We have time to look at only one example, let's look at the one lone Forbes article you cited as evidence that workplaces are less racially integrated than they used to be. What is that article in the face of the fact that America will be a white-minority nation by 2040? Not black-white as you may imagine it, but white / Hispanic / Asian / Afircan American and a thousand more. What about the always-rising rate of interracial marriages, relationships, and KIDS? A huge number of people today are "mixed race". You really believe that was happening the same way in the 1970s or 80s or even 90s?
No, demographics are not on your side, Mr. Brooks. All your futile cherry-picking arguments are as nothing in the face of the reality of the world and the future you don't want to admit. I wish you would stop pretending it doesn't exist and and start dealing with it.
2
...this appalling retrogression on race" has been in America's DNA since before the Civil War.
Recent Republican presidents, Mr. Brooks, and the not-so-recent (Eisenhower and Nixon and Reagan) have done more to ensure that the races remain separate and unequal.
Eisenhower, embittered by Brown vs. Topeka (1954) was very slow to enforce the anti-segregation laws when he took his time, in 1957, as the crucible of hate was firing up in Little Rock, when nine black children sought to integrate the school system.
Nixon sent out a memo to his highest administration staffers that his philosophy about blacks in America was to ignore them with "benign neglect."
Reagan, of course, burst forth fully blown, like AIDS, with states' rights and anti-affirmative action reassurance to whites. He was the first president in several decades to openly court the votes of white separatists. H.W. and W. were Reagan-lite and fed off the "Contract With America," Newt Gingrich's takeover of the House in 1994 with its specific, pointed racism.
And now, following the tiger cage match that President Barack Obama fought daily with the Republicans on Capitol Hill, "very fine people" have infiltrated the highest levels of government.
Mr. Brooks, you were complicit while all this was going on. Now you shed crocodile tears when you, from your ivory tower, gaze upon an America that's essentially divided in two.
For black Americans, it's always been a half step ahead, and two back.
We are unwanted.
4
Did people suddenly become more racist after1975? I don’t think so. If the rate of progress had stayed the same it would be very different now. So what changed?
"We’ve fallen into a bogus logjam in which progressives emphasize systems of oppression and conservatives emphasize cultural norms."
I'm curious Mr. Brooks, what cultural norms do you think conservatives were emphasizing when they voted for en masse for Donald Trump? Bullying? Lying? Grifting? Serial adultery? Trump's affection for murdering authoritarians?
What "bourgeois norms" did Barack Obama break the caused so many conservative to hate him with such a passion? That despite all evidence cause many to STILL believe he was a secret Muslim intent on destroying America.
Cultural norms may be a factor, but a much bigger factor is old fashion racism and the Republican party and much of the right wing media that profit from keeping hate alive.
There is no more hiding behind "cultural norms" when 87% of Republicans support an openly racist President who has broken virtually every norm that "Values Voters" supposedly held dear. Except the most important one: White Christian supremacy.
16
Brooks points out that minorities did better from the mid 1960s through the 1970s, but their prospects have stagnated since the 1980s. Hmmm, what happened in 1980? Oh yeah, Ronald Reagan was elected, and the Republican war on affirmative action and the social safety net began.
Talking about cultural norms is just a sophisticated way of doing what the right has been doing for decades now: implying that minorities fall behind because their culture or morals are inferior. If only minorities went to church, joined the military, or avoided having children out of wedlock their plight would be better. No, that's not the real problem. The real problem is that just when minorities began to advance, Ronald Reagan and a parade of Republicans after him found it politically expedient to stoke white resentment and hostility toward minorities with tales of welfare queens, unemployed young bucks, Willie Hortons, Mexican rapists, or whatever other black or brown person could be portrayed as promiscuous, lazy, violent, or freeloading.
This had its effect. Programs that helped minorities were cut. Republican-stacked courts limited affirmative action. Ever more minorities were incarcerated. It's a tribute to the resilience of minority communities—of their cultural norms—that they've done so well. The cultural norm that actually harms minorities is the obvious one that Brooks fails to mention: racism. It's still far too prevalent in our society. And the GOP has a lot to do with that.
10
The conclusion is a bit confusing. The left want to do more, while the right think the traditional American culture and institutions already offer enough help to the black. The right solution is not to go radical on both ends but to emphasize on the middle ground: i.e., the black community should put more pressure on their children to succeed in schools.
3
Deep racism is being outed.
Brooks points out that the great improvements came between 1960 and 1975. Those were the years of civil rights legislation and the Great Society programs. They gave the poor and minorities an important boost. But they also led to the outing of deep American racism. And this is found in the church, in schools, in the military, in work, in neighborhoods -- all those institutions that Brooks wants African-Americans to rely on. And this racism continues to be supported by the policies and attitudes of Republicans and Conservatives. No?
6
It’s very simple. Stop voting for GOP candidates. The dog whistles have become Tornado Sirens, and I have one of those next to my house. If you want progress in any form, vote for Democrats. If you want the Kansas disaster nationwide, keep voting for the GOP. It’s really NOT rocket surgery.
7
A good, but frustratingly incomplete column.
Mr. Brooks writes: "Black and Hispanic children are more likely to be residentially segregated than minority adults." Isn't this due in large part to the number of out-of-wedlock children born to black, and especially Hispanic, people? (In contrast to whites, and especially Asians, who now have the highest earning rates in the US.)
And then he writes: "Big companies are still reasonably integrated, but newer, smaller businesses are more segregated, often largely white, black or Hispanic." I guess those big companies are not tech companies in California, nor start-up in Silicon Valley.
There is an excellent book by Patrick Deneen called "Why Liberalism Failed". (And by "Liberalism" he does not mean Democratic Party.) In that book there is a chapter called, "The New Aristocracy", which masterfully explains the philosophical and cultural factors for what Mr. Brooks describe.
This column would have been so much stronger if Mr. Brooks, like much of the intelligentsia, would discuss that much of what passes as racial issues today are in fact class issues. But that the elite, both left and right, don't want to be implicated via class, so race it is.
3
What one expects when the GOP is taken over by unreformed Dixiecrats. The Party of Lincoln has degenerated into the Party of Trump. Mr Brooks this didn't happen overnight. Where were you when FOX ran a 24/7 tirade against Obama the man.
5
We have traveled far as a nation when it comes to racial equality. But the journey isn't over by a long shot. We have a government led by a white nationalist who is hostile to minorities, natural born or otherwise. Even in 2018 we have African Americans who get arrested or have the police called upon them just for being black in a public space, from Starbucks to little a black girl whom sold water on the sidewalk. We have white supremacists marching in broad daylight looking to roll the clock back to an era where people of color don't have voice in the halls of power or shaping their own destiny. If left unchecked the racial progress that was made in the last 50 years will be dismantled by those who fears a country that belongs to all its citizens regardless of race.
2
I think that conservatives have stopped emphasizing cultural norms except in relation to African-Americans. White America isn't going to church as much and is divorcing or not marrying at high rates creating the same set of conditions but different results. Mr. Brooks, as usual is completely blind to his own prejudices.
3
A key figure never cited is the number of siblings within a family. It stands to reason that the fewer the number of children within a family the more the parent(s) will be able to provide the children.
I am always bothered by the number of headline grabbing incidents, most notably, a typical clash between the police and a young black person which leads to the death of the young black person. The newspapers will report on the family of the ‘victim’ and typically it will be four or more siblings. What bothers me is the failure to connect the number of dependencies and the ultimate tragedy.
It took 50,000 years for different races to evolve and it is non scientific to think that you can simply compel people to overlook race. It is happening by degrees. In the meantime white society makes a tremendous sacrifice in doing what it can to help black society and other minority groups. We can begin with the 250,000 soldiers lost fighting for the North in the civil war.
The biggest offenders are those who extol victim-hood, and make us into enemies. Smaller families would help a lot – at least keep family to the size you can afford to raise - and a lot more expression of gratitude for the sacrifices made by white society to help other groups would be constructive.
3
Or you could be ignoring all evidence to the contrary. High out of wedlock rates happen in times of high inequality...just saying.
Alas, the findings of Gunnar Myrdal are as true today as they were in the 1940s. Whites (many, and yes many fewer than in the 1940s) are biased and bigoted against Blacks and other non-Whites. Yes we can offset those biases with laws and regulations. But when bigots take over the executive branch that remedy all but disappears. Racism was often contained somewhat by laws and regulations. But Trump has signaled that those breaks are a thing of the past. It started with his use of "the Blacks" during the campaign.
Seriously, look for pardons for civil rights criminals who murdered Blacks in the sixties. Trump will no doubt say he is following Nelson Mandella's reconciliation movement.
Fish stink from the head. Clean heads at least controlled the stink and decay of racism. Now, Trump is prepared to unleash hatreds as a means of staying in power.
6
The death of racial progress has been loud recently. Donald Trump holds the megaphone. His horrid example has enabled people to overtly discriminate, ridicule, provoke. A day does not go by where the news has some example of someone calling the police because a black man is sleeping on the grass, or someone is speaking a different language and gets called out by a racist, or ... just check your news feed. The overt racism is relentless and loud and it stems from Donald Trump's example. He has given the ok in his rallies. And people follow his disturbing equivocations to the extreme. Don't dance around the cause; blame Donald Trump for some of the recent surge in deplorable behavior.
6
Institutional racism is alive and well within the Republican Party and Supreme Court. One only has to look at the systematic dismantling of voter’s rights, the increase in police brutality towards those especially men of color or the demonization of the peaceful protests of African American Football players to begin to understand how systematically the ability to work hard, improve educationally and economically is distrusted by those with white privelege.
7
A spectre is haunting America – the spectre of political cynicism.
Many "progressives" and Democrats have promoted racial divisiveness as a political tactic to "turn out" the black vote. This may occasionally have short term political benefits but ultimately damages all Americans but especially black Americans.
Highlighting the high rates of incarceration and single parent families and the low levels of educational and work skills as evidence of racial injustice and victimization of blacks, strengthens a damaging stereotype.
The goal should be to view blacks, as a group, as Americans like all other Americans.
Portraying black Americans, as a group, as separate and different than other Americans exacerbates the problem and is not the solution.
4
I'm a white man who's been married 27 years to a black woman. I have a black family and black friends, and we even had a winter home in Southern Mississippi where her family comes from. I've made a few keen observations, and one of them is that nothing holds people down (black or white) more than religion. There's this lack of will and acceptance of negative situations because rather than work toward solutions they let "God sort it out." If I've heard that once I've heard it a thousand times. But god doesn't solve the problems because there is no god. It's a convenient excuse to do nothing and just "see what happens," as our president is fond of saying. If people need to believe in mythology in order to succeed, if they need the help of fables to act right, they're not going to make in the final analysis because their motivation is not genuine.
3
So, what you're saying Mr. Brooks is that everything looked rosy until you actually considered the reality. Reality can be a little jarring but you'll acclimate.
2
The enthusiasm for racial progress ended when LBJ pushed through the Voting Rights and Civil rights acts.
Suddenly, Confederates form the Slave States of the South (Solid South Democrats then, Conservative Republican Evangelicals now) wandered into the wilderness they only finally after Reagan and Lee Atwater, Gingrich and finally, Trump.
David Brooks needs to wake up not to racism, but the Southern Slaves States of the Confederacy.
They are America's original sin. Anyone who tolerates the stars and bars is a traitor.
Just say it.
2
The Civil War in America never ended and is being resurrected by Trump and the Republicans. 85% of Republicans support their openly racist President. He is far worse than Geoge Wallace ever was. Wallace acknowledged the errors of his way at the end of his life. A majority of white men and women voted for Trump for President. Outright racism is back and a huge swath of white Americans feel emboldened to express their true hatred of racial minorities. We can all watch virtually every single day in this new age of hatred a horrific video of something you might have expected to see 50 years ago in America. Witness the stripping of Hispanic children from their parents and incarcerating them in cages at our border.
I have resolutely come to believe only in the last couple of years that there is no hope for a unified America to ever achieve the promise of "all men are created equal." While that part of our founders' vision was so essentially true, much of the founding documents of this country are inherently and openly racist and codify the opposite of this sentiment.
It is time for the more enlightened states to form a new, more perfect union, write a new Constitution shredding the antiquated elements of hatred in the old and move on in order to finally overcome the racial divide and reach the promised land. And let Trump and the tattered red state America build a wall between New America and themselves to keep their bigotry and evil all to themselves.
8
There is nothing new about making scapegoats out of immigrants and people of color. There is nothing quiet about the racists now inspired by Trump who are attacking Afro-Americans, Mexican immigrants, and Puerto Rican and Muslims citizens of the US across the land.
Trump has a lifelong history of overt racism and bigotry. Trump built his career on Birtherism, racial hatred personified. Hatred is the foundation of the Trump voter base. Trump was the next step after decades of Republican racist practices going back to the Southern Strategy of Richard Nixon.
President Obama courageously bore the heavy burden of being the first black president in America. Race was a key factor when the GOP enacted total obstructionism with a blood oath the day President Obama was elected to block every move he would try to make. Republican racism created Trump. Trump is disgracing our nation daily and he is the face of the Republican Party
It will take public protests similar to those to we experienced during the Civil Rights and Vietnam War Eras to mobilize an anti-Trump/GOP movement. The corrupt electoral processes that allowed Trump to occupy the Oval Office demand a massive voter response against the virulent minority who have been empowered by corrupt GOP gerrymandering and systematic voter suppression bought and paid for by the billionaire owners of the Republican Party.
Get out the Vote. Say No! to hatred and ignorance.
7
It's not necessary to dig into surveys and studies. America is rotten with racism. To write of controlling for parental income (a phrase that made me shudder) is a very bad joke. Brooks points out that Trump is "doing his best to inflame racial division," and at this time, he's abroad insulting allies, spreading lies about NATO, destabilizing the government of the UK, and heading off to meet Putin for his end of term assessment. Trump told us he would "ask" Putin about election meddling. ASK??? And Trump knows that the majority party in the US House of Representatives just reached a new low. No honour. No honesty. No probity. No shame. And
in the midst of that and on the heels of Charlottesville and much else, Brooks wanted to write something pleasant? The reality is that liberal democracies are being deconstructed by primitive, tribal forces. Churches and parliaments are agents of this attack.
2
I'm surprised that there was no mention of the recent surge in (almost daily) news reports of white people challenging black and/or latino folk, for simply going about their business (Starbucks, Pool Patrol Paula, Barbecue Betty...or whatever all their names were).
What I find most disturbing about all these stories is not so much the perpetrators, or the stories, or the seeming increase in such episodes (due perhaps to certain racists feeling emboldened in the Trump era?). No, what bothers me the most is the manner in which even newspapers such as the NYT are reporting the stories. They are not written in any kind of cohesive manner, nor are they examined as part of a larger problem, but rather they are reported in a sensational, almost tabloid manner.
I feel that this in turn is further widening the chasm between whites and blacks in general. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if, due to the rash of such stories, that more and more black folk aren't thinking that maybe they should not bother with white folk at all...even white folk they previously thought to be their 'friends'. The flurry of these stories is such that, some may be thinking that deep down, most white people are truly this way. And this greatly saddens me...to feel that this is how things might be churning.
The real question then becomes, why isn't the NYT and other news media trying to dig deeper on this new 'trend' of racism? What can we do to stem it...to lessen the ignorance?
3
I seem to recall a final Death Valley scene in an old western where after one man is mortally shot by the other, the injured and dying man manages to handcuff himself to the one who shot him. Sealing their fates. There is nothing pretty about the checkered history of this country, but one thing is sure, if there can be no quarter, no forgiveness, no unity of purpose. Then the choice to focus on grievance and difference will sink all ships. People have to stop being so afraid and suspicious of each other. Sure things need to get better, but let the better more even handed minds of all races work for unity again. It is the only way.
1
Mr. Brooks, if you look at the poverty data since 1980, you surely must consider the stagnation of real income since 1980. It has increased the economic insecurity of both minority and majority adults.
If you consider the year, 1980, you of all people ought to know how the conservative movement consolidated its control of the Republican Party and elected Reagan in 1980. I was shocked when he kicked off his campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi. The theme of the Reagan campaign was, you can feel comfortable with your prejudice, we Republicans respect both you and your prejudice.
Since 1980 conservatives have dominated politics and government. They have appointed a conservative majority to the Supreme Court. Chief Justice John Roberts worked in the Reagan administration. The opinion in Shelby v. Holder, reflects the views Roberts expressed in his work for the Reagan administration. We now have a Supreme Court that cannot look around as you do and find the effects of racial discrimination. They can only see racial discrimination through the rearview mirror.
When I compare this column and your recent column on the Kavanaugh nomination, I wonder whether you are capable of objective analysis of the corrosive effect the Republican Party and the conservative movement has had on racial and economic equality.
12
"he vast bulk of that decline happened between 1960 and 1975.... since 1980, there’s been little progress, either in black men moving out of poverty or into the middle class."
That's true for the entire society. The mid-20th century was a period of high economic growth, declining income inequality AND civil rights ("racial") progress. It was not mere coincidence.
History has been running backwards since 1980: slow growth (compared to mid-20th century); increasing income inequality; civil rights stasis or regress. That's not mere coincidence.
Conservatism/rightism is not just about "family values." It also about preserving entrenched social hierarchies. Liberalism/leftism is not just about "civil or individual rights." It is also about removing or reforming entrenched social hierarchies.
The last 30-40 years have led many Americans to expect the worse. We live in an age of "diminished expectations," thus "right wing populism" that seeks to salvage whatever it can for the "common man" by making the rich richer.
It has never worked in the long run and it won't this time.
What has worked (and will again) is increased investment in people (education, health care) and infrastructure funded by more progressive taxation than we have now. "Civil" or "individual" rights are not enough. The two go hand-in-hand and those in the Democratic Party who see them as mutually exclusive have lost their way.
1
the talk is, like coats of paint over a rotting house, a cover for the denial of the effect of racism and a lack of appetite for remedy.
no amount of cover will change the underlying cause of "racial disparities" (a soft term, like "inner city" that reduces the problem to a level of grasp that suggests "conversation" rather than action).
in sum, also reductive, alas, the problem is lack of opportunity, but, hooray, the remedy requires action.
first, those most affected by home grown historical racism are 1. the native tribes, nearly exterminated, cheated of their lands, betrayed by broken treaties and promises, still being cheated of their compensation for the use of what's left and kept on reservations that are disgraceful (now that border kids have us talking about "humanity," we should take another look at our treatment of the survivors of our founding genocide), and 2. africans, kidnapped, bought and sold, and their descendants concentrated, if you will, in blighted areas within cities that also hold the most brilliant examples of american achievement and, yes, opportunity.
the fix for both requires nothing short of invasion, educators, builders, health care professionals, etc., and battalions of americans in national service (yes, that's part of the fix) to aid residents given the resources to clear up their streets, upgrade their schools (the key to opportunity) and oversee the rehabilitation of the human spirit crushed by the fallout from slaughter and slavery.
3
When David refers to religion and middle class norms (But conservatives are right to point to the importance of bourgeois norms. Three institutions do an impressive job of reducing racial disparity: the military, marriage and church.) The proper question is which comes first. I come from a middle class family and the results were marvelous - my 40 year old son and his cousins all reflect a good start. But we see family disintegration among formerly middle class whites who are mired in the lousy jobs left after automation and offshoring. The live in once thriving working class towns (like those in the Dayton Ohio area. Yes, some folks raised even in squalor thrive but hopelessness seems to trump everything else for most people, so that religion and norms come with and not before prosperity.
2
'When it comes to segregation, the story is even worse....
American neighborhoods are desegregating slightly, but the situation is worse for children. Black and Hispanic children are more likely to be residentially segregated than minority adults."
At least according to the linked study (figure 3) in his piece, segregation of hispanics declined 6+% and African-Americans 4+% over a decade. I don't know whether that is or is not "slight." For a large population, it seems like some progress. Whatever the correct characterization is, when Brooks then complains that minority children are "more likely" to be residentially segregated than minority children that is true by the exact same margin that he just characterized as "slight." You can't have it both ways. Also, the biggest reduction in segregation over the decade is among hispanic children at 7+%.
The overall numbers are not good but the picture Brooks wants to paint about the directional trend is not well supported by his data.
1
Apologies for the typo. The above should read: "when Brooks then complains that minority children are 'more likely' to be residentially segregated than minority ADULTS that is true by the exact same margin that he just characterized as 'slight.'"
David.
You skip one obvious 'solution': voting out a President and Republican party that holds power largely because they stoke fears and hatred daily to their dwindling white base.
No statistic or analysis of numbers or trends is necessary to reach that obvious conclusion.
168
I appreciate the ability to see both the individual and cultural factors that lead to wealth or poverty, as well as the systemic, legal, and societal factors.
I would like to add that systemic racism is highly useful to the ruling class.
If people are too busy bashing black people for kneeling during a football game or brown people for seeking to live and work peacefully in a country that allows them to do so, then they will not have the resources to notice let alone combat that they are being robbed blind by:
1.) inaccessible for-profit healthcare in the 21st century
2.) tax heists for oligarchs
3.) unaffordable housing due to global money laundering
4.) an insane drug war empowering cartels south of our border
5.) rule by the absolutely corrupt for their own enrichment
and so on.
Slaves were kept ignorant and illiterate for hundreds of years in order to maintain the institutions of slavery.
Likewise, in modern times, the ruling elite keeps the masses of people distracted with racism, xenophobia, and unnecessary poverty in order to maintain their relative position and hoard the fruits of American lives, labor, and technology all for themselves.
Racism isn't just unfortunate for black people and brown people, it is also highly useful to the ruling elite.
147
America's economic success and many of it's wealthiest citizens was facilitated in large part by the violent exploitation of generations, denied life liberty and the pursuit of happiness while forced to serve the general interests of the white majority. Acknowledging this has always led to a push for more equality. Lets now acknowledge that our democracy today seems critically threatened by this same old white male supremacy sentiment.
14
"As their report clearly shows, the vast bulk of that decline happened between 1960 and 1975. If you look at poverty data since 1980, there’s been little progress, either in black men moving out of poverty or into the middle class."
Hmmm, declines in poverty stopped around 1980. Remind me again, what President was elected in 1980? The one that talked about"welfare queens driving Cadillacs"?
28
‘How can we stop backsliding?’ Come now, Mr. Brooks, surely you know the answer to that question. The Republican Party, a/k/a The Rebranded Dixiecrats, need to be dealt a stinging, brutal defeat. Trump, Sessions, Miller and the rest of their demented entourage need to be run out of Washington on a rail, and the GOP needs to be swept out of Congress.
Otherwise, it’s Welcome to Reconstruction, 21st century style.
68
Thank you Mr. Brooks for acknowledging we're losing ground - but there's nothing quiet about the death of Racial Progress for a black person in the wrong place at the wrong time.
21
You almost had me until this little gem... "But Conservatives are right to point to the importance of bourgeois norms."
Bourgeois "norms" meaning the xenophobic sensibilities of the incumbent bourgeois class?
Mr. Brooks, you just quoted a major government talking point prevalent in Apartheid-era South Africa.
Do those stats you researched explain the fact that by significant margins, middle class African Americans commit less crime, consume less drugs, and adhere to the "norms" promoted by institutions like churches and the military far more than their white bourgeois peers?
When you're black, you have to be a better citizen than average just to endure the level of racial hostility we have today.
Maybe those norms need a little fixin', and conservatives fear the change for their own reasons?
67
"When your black, you have to be a better citizen than average" and a black president has to be better than any white, just to get elected and endure daily challenges from the privileged white in Congress who can't believe a white man can do the job. YET, for these same privileged whites, a rich, white man can be elected president and continue to be the most divisive, angry, hating president in history and can get away with it, just because he is white. There is absolutely no way any other president could have fueled this kind of fear and barbarism to fellow Americans without being censored.
The whole "fathers" thing coming from the right is sadly mistaken. The problem in many families is the failure of a child's parents to maintain themselves as a couple. The connection between the child and each parent -- mother and father -- remains viable, but the connection between the parents never coalesces into being "family".
Turns out there's pretty good data about this, but the right seems to be stuck in trying to prove African American men as worthless to their children. Turns out not to be the case. Again, let's not allow reality interfere with our strange racial beliefs.
5
The idea of equality itself is a myth, it has never existed which is why it continues to fail.
We are all different, as such, we have different strengths and weaknesses. Some are taller, some better at algebra etc.
Add to that our economic system of capitalism. It favors the smart, quick risk takers.
We are NOT all the same and we are certainly not equal. Any attempt to make it so is folly.
13
What we can be, and the intent of being created equal, is that we are all equal before the law. I believe even Christianity teaches we are all God's children, equal in His eye.
Where we have seen this promise fall apart is that we can see we aren't equal not because of biological differences, but due to monetary differences where the wealthy are more equal in our courts and some even feel some above the law.
5
I must quibble with the title of this piece (which I understand may not be the work of Mr. Brooks). The Quiet Death of Racial Progress? From where I (a 58 year-old white woman) sit, there's nothing quiet about it. The only people who can call it quiet are the socio-politically hearing-impaired. Or they haven't been paying attention.
20
Sorry David, but the world is changing as we write.
I couldn't attach a picture of my son at his "White Coat Ceremony". This is done when a person begins their first medical residency. There are 13 new residents in his program. He was the only Caucasian.
There were two "Black" MDs. The rest were east and west Asian.
Yes, he's engaged to a Korean Pathologist he met in medical school.
I can elucidate and elaborate for a long time, but I'll leave that up to you. There should be another column I hope you write.
16
" the vast bulk of that decline happened between 1960 and 1975
You mean before the welfare state became entrenched in the culture?
3
Mr. Brooks: please take a look at Ta-Nehisi Coates's 2013 blog pieces on the Moynihan report of the 1960s. The gist: Moynihan warned that if we didn't create a jobs program that would empower African-American men to earn enough to support families, we'd see the widespread disintegration of the African-American family. We didn't create the jobs program, and events proved Moynihan right. And not just about the families of African-Americans. The economic pressures faced by African-Americans in the 1960s spread in the next few decades to all segments of American society, and with them came family disintegration. In the last 3 years, life expectancy of white males has been falling, and it's largely due to deaths of despair--alcoholism, drug overdoses, suicides. Despair largely over being poverty-stricken, lonely, and seeing decades of the same ahead. Coates: "There's no real political cost to telling people to get married. (Everyone loves a wedding.) Telling them that there should be a jobs program that makes more men marriage-material is different." https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/06/revisiting-the-moyn...
20
I have been a school counselor in Georgia for the past 24 years. I think race relations have improved greatly over that time. However, the students by far still sit together according to their ethnicity. And I agree that over the past 10 years of so progress has stagnated somewhat.
With regards to black males making up a disproportionate part of the prison population, the implication usually seems to be that this group of the population is no more prone to criminal activity than other groups. The assumption being they are targeted by the police. My observation has been that the police do stereotype and target black males. However, I think that black males are more inclined to commit crimes than other subgroups. If I had to guess why I would say the absence of a father has much to do with this.
The absence of the father also seems to be seen as the result of societal prejudice. I'm not sure I see that connection. My strong observation as a counselor was that African American women are very reliable and dedicated mothers- perhaps even more so than any other ethnicity. Many times I observed black mothers registering their out of control male, fatherless son, seeking out the best education possible for their children. More often than not these mothers and grandmothers were very poor. But they simply would not give up on her children. Did society cause this too?
My point is we need to pull things apart when looking at statistics. And we need to get racism out of politics.
27
Actually, I think the criminal class in the US is mainly white men, but they tend to get away with their crimes, including petty theft, animal abuse, violence, sexual abuse, tax evasion, embezzlement, breaking labor laws, and major crimes like torture and war crimes. And the police get away with murder every day.
An African-American friend of mine was handcuffed and had her license suspended for months because she swerved to avoid something in the road. Would that have happened to a white woman?
1
We adopted British divide and conquer tactics back in the 1690s with the infamous black codes, but we've done very little to counter this in 300 years of our history. The point of divide and conquer is so that rich whites can keep all working class people down by using skin color to pit them against each other. What's amazing is that so many poor and working class whites haven't caught on after all these years.
Mr. Johnson, you live in London, so you don't know firsthand how the US has been steadily stealing the assets of middle and working class Americans of all races, but among racial minorities, this is accompanied with daily violence and harassment. Factory jobs have been outsourced, gov't jobs have had steady and large pay cuts, minority neighborhoods have been invaded, destroyed and "gentrified" by white yuppies. It is much harder to live one's daily life and pay one's bills than it was years ago, and I get pestered by cops more - I'm not even African-American, but some English people would call me a "wog." I didn't mind being segregated in this neighborhood, but white people are making it more and more unpleasant to live in my own country. As for flying...haven't been on a plane in 9 years, and dread the thought of dealing with it. In every way in this country, the strong steady wind has been blowing against us. The US is a much worse place for minorities than it was a generation ago.
David,
All those statistics are well and good; I envy your strength and diversity in discussing so many varying factors. But I believe people need an understanding in how they mentally and behaviorally structure their world, their reality upon which they make next decisions in life.
They do not get that; thus, they developmentally float every which way from Sunday onward. They flounder with their life, year after year. What is a practical basic structure? Groups vs. the individual serves me well, two opposing and fundamental threads of learning. We flip-flop between the two, trying to compare back and forth for best results in any moment of time.
Groups (with self in tow as an innocent clone) evolve into ever more refined hierarchic quality, ever more powerful -- and increasingly distorted -- through lack of opposing reality checks. The need is balance for self's budding capability.
Part from groups; value silence and questioning; equality now opposes hierarchy; support/polish those threads of learning. Competence evolves; self becomes a different person thru reality checks/comparisons.
Think about those two fundamental processes of valuing for one's life: resolve to quit the simple floating. Practice at guiding yourself.
Support groups on one hand; support self on the other hand. Not rocket science. The hard part is putting a stop to knee-jerk reacting, copying others. Think for yourself as an individual. Note where commentators are destructive and constructive.
1
"As the A.E.I. study shows, black men who served in the military are more likely to be in the middle class than those who did not. Black men who attended religious services are 76 percent more likely to attain at least middle-class status than those who did not..."
This is a classical example of the difference between correlation and causation. Service in the military does NOT make somebody middle class; other factors (e.g., education) do. Neither does church attendance propel one to middle class status. The conclusions of this A.E.I. study, I am afraid, are not valid. Please don't fall for this kind of "research".
7
Correlation is not causality, but it makes sense that the norms of behavior--self discipline, delayed gratification, controlling one's temper, working as a team, etc.--that one learns (and must practice) in the military leads to better life outcomes. Likewise, church attendance is strongly correlated with a whole host of psychologocial social benefits. I wouldn't dismiss these conclusions.
12
In addition, the military itself delivers a great education in certain areas of knowledge. I know people who first discovered that they could learn through their military service.
2
The military is an institution that, unlike civilian society, leans towards diversity, provides opportunities and training to men and women of all colors, is built on service, enforces codes of behavior that limit expressions of bigotry, provides health care and education benefits, and so on. Could it be that recruits from all walks of life benefit from these social supports not found in civilian life so that they can build solid lives?
1
David, of your comment to the effect that both sides
are right. THINK again. A German philosopher cautioned: Tragedies occur, not in the collision of
right and wrong, but between justifiable causes. None justified.
2
"an attitude ... you might call left on structural racism and right on cultural accountability."
Yes. There are ideas that have merit regardless of who speaks them. In a meritocracy we go with what works best.
We've ended up in a winner-take-all two-choice political environment, and realistically we must concede to this truth in election strategy.
But we must not confuse this as a requirement to accept wholesale one platform or the other. We thinking individuals may accept or reject any single plank on its own merits.
Thanks to Mr. Brooks for reminding that there are enlightened thoughts to be found on both sides near the center.
2
John,
Brooks ends with "If we’re going to do something about this appalling retrogression on race, we probably need to be radical on both ends."
Seems Brooks doesn't think "centrists" are working.
2
As one of those left progressives, I've never seen a contradiction between fighting against structural racism and for individual responsibility.
There have always been variations to this theme within the black community. Whether one looks at the Garvey movement, the anti-lynching campaign, the struggle to overturn Plessy and integrate schools, the Black Muslim movement, the revolutionary nationalists, the reparations movement, the mainstream civil rights movement, and the list goes on and on.
A feature common to each despite their differences was their demand for systemic change and their demand that African Americans be ready for the responsibility that would come with real freedom and agency over our own lives and communities.
The "either-or" approach to the struggle for racial progress was more a feature of how we were seen from the outside rather than a serious internal dichotomy.
The ideological shift to neoliberalism in America always emphasizes the individual and never the system, even while neoliberalism is failing all around us and systemic oppressions seem to increase every day.
Segregation was never a natural phenomenon of individual choice. It was structurally created at every point in our history.
But through a series of decisions, SCOTUS has stripped the nation of the tools to socially engineer integration even though segregation was socially created
Therein lies the real deception of the conservatives. To them "freedom" meant free to do little or nothing
24
Bill Richardson, who identifies as Hispanic or Latinx, was a candidate in 2008.
In an age when people are literally marching in the streets to declare that their lives matter and that social structures are disadvantaging them to the point of being lethal, its amazing to me that one could describe this as a "quiet death."
22
I thought- for once, Mr. Brooks had finally conceded defeat on a matter so entrenched- he would not attempt to lend succor with a palliative approach. Yet, there in the last paragraphs, were the typical Brooks application; Church, the Military and Marriage; the holy trinity (for Brooks) for riding racism- the theory being that entrance into the mythical Middle-Class is the cure-all.
"As a nation we seem to have lost all enthusiasm for racial integration... We have settled into a reality that is separate and unequal, and we seem not too alarmed about that."
If Mr. Brooks had stopped there- he would have sounded brilliant.
34
The bipolar model of black v. white (right v. left for that matter) doesn't work anymore, Mr Brooks.
Case in point, Rodolfo Rodriguez, the 91 year old U.S. permanent resident, visiting his U.S, citizen children in LA on the 4th of July, was allegedly beaten with a brick by Laquisha Jones, while her child was with her at the time. The victim is hispanic and the aggressor black.
There are more traditional racism, like white x calling on black y, too numerous to enumerate of course. But fear, anger and envy can make things really murky at times. Like the Asian students complaining unfair admission practices, never mind if their representation is still quite disproportional. And of course, you can bet there are equal resentment among non Asian against Asian.
In a bizarre manner, being an older generation, me and my peers have always known life is unfair. Those families who could afford their children to go to prestigious schools would always get a leg up. Public schools were just fine for the rest of us. The smart or studious ones would get into great schools and the others would be fine with state schools. But now, everyone is vying for the best of the best. And their parents too, for fear their children being left behind.
Perhaps knowing your place in the universe without wanting too much may not be a bad thing. But it is definitely not the contemporary American thing. Neither progressives nor conservatives would want that, for both want more for their groups.
8
@Bos: Citing one example of a crazed black individual brutally attacking an elderly Hispanic male for "bumping" into her toddler- does not change the polarity of entrenched black/white racial dynamics of this nation. Good try though.
The racism Brooks attempts to broach is far more entrenched.
The daily existence of waking up black is a potential trek through terrain littered with IED's. Never knowing when the mundane will become the horrific:
Finding out your water supplies have been contaminated for decades and your children now have chronic health issues.
Learning you neighborhood will play host to a putrid rendering plant.
Learning that the Fire House in your neighborhood will never reopen because another is being built in a more affluent part of the city.
Realizing your home equity loan costs more than your neighbor's even though your income and FICA score is superior; driving "to good" of a car...
Lastly, "knowing your place" (as assigned by others) is always the unseen but starkly-felt position of entrenched racism. And...it is a bad thing.
1
@Candlewick, I wish you were right. But the crazed single black person is not unique is you know the redneck phenomenon in the South. Or the power struggle between the black and the jewish members of NAACP back half a century ago.
United we stand; divided we fall. That is a truism dated back to Sun Tzu and before. People like Trump and Scott Walker have split the dems unity. It has been a huge success for the reactionary forces. But the dems are dividing themselves.
I wish my observations were incorrect. Alas, maybe it is human nature that prisoner's dilemma is preferred to Nash's equilibrium.
Still not convinced? How about the black guy named Bruce Carter? Who started out supporting Bernie Sanders but quickly went to the Trump camp. He is out in the cold now though
@Bos: You're up to two and one half examples. But, I digress; I live the experience- come walk with me. You can remain "right" and I'll continue to trudge through the mine fields.
It's more than sad when a person's only ways out of poverty are the military, becoming religious, and getting married. It's outrageous.
Disparities in income and wealth must be primary. Equality can never be achieved until minorities are fairly represented in the economic structure.
To get there education must be improved, secure food supply and health care availability are essential, job training and job opportunities must be on offer.
A comprehensive, aggressive, long-term, well-funded program is necessary. Racial problems cannot be put behind us until minorities are integrated into the economic structure at fair levels,
Next year it will be 400 years since the first slave ships arrived in Jamestown. Isn't it about time?
52
I found Mr Brook's piece to be mostly thoughtful with one exception. He calls upon the radicals of both the Left and the Right (conservatives) to solve the problems of growing racial inequality. The problem of asking radical conservatives is that, in my opinion, their ideology is incompatable with the ideas of integration, stopping police shootings of innocent black people, supporting "safety net" programs and policies, and improving the socio-economic status of minorities.
37
If America wants progress on integration, it needs to make progress on socioeconomic discrimination with a progressive taxation system, socialized medicine, affordable childcare, a real justice system and living wages, and the Greed Over People party will never stand for that kind of human decency, Christian good will or common sense.
This country has a rich 400-year-long laundry list of socioeconomic discrimination against non-whites which can be demonstrated 1000 different ways.
Let's just take one way, the systematic jailing of millions of black and Latino Americans for the invented crime of marijuana possession, a policy invented in the 1930's by the nation's first drug czar, Harry Anslinger, which has been discriminately used to destroy minority families for a good 80 years while largely giving whites a pass.
As if the preceding centuries of slavery, segregation and systematic discrimination of non-whites wasn't devastating enough, America added reefer madness to its sick breadbasket of white supremacy, minority injustice and white privilege.
More recently, there have been many confrontations between obnoxious white people and black people who were simply engaging in everyday activities such as swimming at pools, using outdoor barbecues and 'living while black'.
This country has a white supremacy and white privilege problem, not to mention a White-Spiter-in-Chief.
As a white guy myself, I'm appalled.
America owes its non-whites a few million sincere apologies.
411
I'm right with ya on all points, the only exception being the reference to 'white privilege'.
Here's why I take exception to that term... When we talk of 'white privilege', what scenarios might one imagine?.... a white person's not having to work twice as hard, to prove to their office colleagues that they didn't get their promotion simply because of their race? Is it white privilege that a white person can drive into a gated community without the cops immediately being called about a 'suspicious person' in the area? Is it white privilege to go into a Gucci store and not be constantly followed and repeatedly asked 'how can I help you?'
I think we are looking about this all wrong. To me, it is not a 'privilege'...it is not 'special treatment'... for your job promotion to not be question.... to be able to drive into a gated community without immediately raising suspicion.... to be able to shop at any store without the staff assuming you are there to steal. None of this should be considered 'privileges' or special treatment.
Rather, this should be how ALL are treated, and all the time.
So the real question should not be 'why do white folk get treated 'special'?" but rather, why are all people not treated with the same basic level of respect?
Lisa, your point is well taken and the term privilege often angers many whites. However, another way of looking at it is, you have the privilege of not having to deal with all of the things you mentioned that black people have to a lot of the time.
GOP Greed over People is fitting~! They stopped the movements started in 60's to overcome racism, by their southern strategy.
1
As usual, a very thoughtful piece from David Brooks. He's truly an heir to William F Buckley. The important change in our society as well, as the ones he mentioned, is the fact that we are no longer a "melting pot", we are now "multi-cultural". To say it another way, we have gone from the model of "From many types, we are One", to the new multicultural model of "From One, we are many types". Now that everyone is self sorting into their own ethno-tribe, why should someone believe a member of another ethno-tribe over their own?
12
Thank you, Mr. Brooks, for pointing out the brief period of serious racial progress - the 1960's and 1970's. This came about as a result of the barrage of protests of the 1960's. As Frederick Douglass said, power has never yielded anything but on demand. School desegregation was ordered by the S.C. in 1954 but in most places in the South was not implemented until the issue was forced in the 1970's.
Since then re-segregation has been rampant and new tactics of racial subjugation have been devised. Schools have been situated in poor black neighborhoods, underfunded by property taxes and many of them failing. As you point out schools that are 90-100% minority are increasingly common. Racism, overt and implicit, has given us laws structured and enforced to achieve mass incarceration of blacks. Brutality toward blacks, always present, is now becoming more visible thanks to phone cameras.
Gross disparities in wealth, health, and opportunities remain. Positive programs are few, underfunded, and seem dismal. It's good to see a few of the powerful fired for racial slurs, but it's merely a caution to be more discrete.
Racial unrest is growing and awareness of racism is spreading. Protests in many parts of the country, Black Lives Matter, The African-Am museum in DC, the Lynching museum in Montgomery, the Civil Rights museum in Atlanta, the Poor People's Campaign being revived, to name a few examples.
The problems remain, the pendulum is swinging, and demands will be coming.
20
The inequality gap continues to widen and no solution is in sight. The elites that run this country have no interest at all in progress for the poor. On the contrary, they believe that their continued dominance depends upon keeping them down.
97
Excellent, makes one rethink the racial progress, lack of, that we've accomplished over the years. Numbers and statistics don't always give the right answer.
Living here in Atlanta where we have a majority Black population (46%) one can easily be lulled into thinking progress is being made. Many thousands of African Americans have moved here in the last 20 years and I always thought they came here for the jobs and better climate. That may be so, but maybe there's another driver. Getting away from those racist attitudes from the cities they lived before moving.
Thank you David. Sad to say, but I likely won't live to see the day when segregation no longer has a place in our country.
6
Hmm, you outline many of the ideals that Bernie Sanders outlined in his bid for President. Maybe there is common ground out there after all.
2
Mr. Brooks
you might look at incarceration rates before blaming norms for the absence of African American men in neighborhoods.
And in doing so, you might also look at the excellent research on why - this is much more complex than can be elaborated in a brief comment but start with disproportionate sentencing for the drugs most often used in the black community, poor schools and discrimination in the job market and much much more.
26
We talk constantly about higher rates of incarceration but never mention higher rates of crime.
7
Mr. Brooks perhaps would be enlightened by reading “The New Jim Crow” by Michelle Anderson.
1
There is nothing in my comment that negates the fact that charged crimes are higher. The question is why.
Some of it is poverty and absence of opportunity, some of it is as I stated above differential sentencing, some of it is the higher presence of police in certain communities of color and some of it is actual higher crime rates. But to attribute that somehow to culture is problematic. I wrote a piece a while ago that looked at the literature on murder rates in communities of concentrated poverty. African Americans and to a lessor extent Latinos are most likely to live in such communities because of historical factors (see The Color of Law, it is excellent on this) but murder rates were almost identical in such neighborhoods no matter which race or ethnicity lived there.
Any strides towards meaningful racial progress was abruptly halted by the 2016 election. America elected and re-elected its first black president and, at last, seemingly turned a corner for a more diverse and tolerant country.
Today, America is roiled by racial conflicts that tore the country apart in the 60s and 70s. The voters chose a president whose intolerance and racism mattered more than racial progress or the dream of a qualified woman who sought the presidency. The Republican Party, always hostile and unwelcoming to blacks and minorities, is perfectly content with the state of America today. They have the country they want.
51
It's a funny thing about the Republicans: In the 2016 primaries, two men who could rightfully claim Hispanic (and working backgrounds and working class origins were front runners for the nomination, Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida. They consistently beat Jeb Bush, whose wife of over 40 years, Columba, was born in Mexico.
There were no Democratic primary contenders in 2016 who were of Hispanic background. None that I can recall in 2008 either.
Fundamentally, you can rail against the Republicans, but in looking at the student populations in San Francisco and Manhattan schools, what it seems like is that many working class and middle class white Republicans in less tony places are making choices in regard to who they want to live among, and have their children attend school with no differently than their wealthy "progressive" counterparts with vastly higher incomes in more exclusive parts of the country.
3
"There were no Democratic primary contenders in 2016 who were of Hispanic background. None that I can recall in 2008 either.".......Maybe, but the fact is you now have a Republican President who apparently has wide appeal among the Republican base in no small measure because of his anti Muslim, anti Mexican, anti immigrants from s--- hole countries, rants; a vulgar bigoted narcissist who thinks that the way to stop unwanted immigrants from coming is to separate children from their parents. Go ahead and tell us how much you support your Republican President.
1
Accurate, except for the 'quiet' bit. It is only quiet for those who choose not to know.
11
The inadequate progress in dealing with our social problems should surprise no one. The stagnation in real income experienced by most working-class Americans, regardless of ethnicity, encourages them to believe they are trapped in a zero-sum contest with other members of their economic class, weakening any sense that they share common interests.
This lack of empathy blocks the formation of political coalitions that could pressure both federal and state governments to tackle the kind of systemic racism that helps account for much of the inadequate progress made by ethnic minorities. Our society will not commit itself consistently to combat racism, unless its members perceive advantages to themselves in doing so.
Prejudice, whatever form it takes, damages the economy and therefore harms the interests of most Americans because it prevents the optimal use of our human resources. Racism also promotes violence, making our communities less safe for everyone.
Trump's divisive rhetoric and policies help mask these realities from his supporters. Unless Democrats counter this strategy with inclusive ideas and policies that improve the lives of all working -class Americans, Republicans will continue to block social progress by pitting different groups against each other.
19
Isn't the mass incarceration of African-Americans another sign of pervasive and intractable racism? Mr. Brooks should have mentioned that.
21
You need to stand up an tell it like it is. For years the Republican Party has given a wink and a nod to racism. It is not by accident that the party has its biggest draw among less well educated white voters. Now we have a President who by his words and actions has made bigotry respectable, after all if the president of the U.S. can do and say racist things then it somehow must be all right. His appeal to banning Muslims, his border wall are an open invitation to his xenophobic base to express their latent hostility. If the Republican Party in Congress were made up of something other than boot licking sycophants they would stand up and reject Trumps boorish behavior. But no, they keep their heads down, try to make illegal immigration an issue (even though it is at a 40 year low) and hope for another Supreme Court opening. As bad as Trump is, what makes me really sick is the failure of the Republican Congress and others who know better (yes you David Brooks) to stand up and speak the truth.
78
It isn't popular in our society to be able to objectively examine the data and draw conclusions. People on the (far) right and (far) left believe you only are a good person if you adopt their one-sided and extreme views.
But reality usually resides in the messy middle.
Thanks for this column. It shows, once again, that we need a leader who can speak to the centrists in our nation--i.e, those people who can see both sides of issues and who be comfortable with complexity.
Regrettably, I see no one on the horizon who can do that.
16
@Dan
There is no such thing as the far left (within the context of American politics). There is such a thing as the far right, where the center is no longer there, but right. (and being pulled further right every day)
Even if we were to exclude all financial matters, then the sole idea of human rights for all, common decency, a women's reproductive rights to be her own, health care as a human right, and so on - whenever someone stands up for any of the above (even timidly), then they are branded a ''radical'' or ''far left'',
There are plenty of ideas that work, but the trade off is always going to be who is going to pay, how much is it going to cost, and how many people will be able to partake ? - that's it.
We can debate (in good faith) over the particulars, but many times the best solutions for helping the most amount of people, being the most efficient, and costing the least are nixed simply on ideological grounds. They are generally Progressive ideas as well.
That is where we go off the rails and start throwing around terms that have no meaning.
23
Not a comforting column, but an honest one.
It would be great if the numbers themselves were better, but absent such progress, we need to look reality in the face.
It is even that much more important to see the big picture of the struggles which minorities face instead of just blaming individuals for the predicaments in which they find themselves.
7
While the "systems of oppression" Brooks acknowledges can be said to cause a poor outcome for African-American men, the reverse result cannot be attributed to the cultural influences of marriage and church. These are correlations only, with at least as much chance that the men able to marry and attend church regularly do so because they are stable, as opposed to becoming stable by participating in these institutions. The military is another thing entirely. It is really a government training and employment program with something of an affirmative action mission and it is great to see recognition from the moderate right wing that such a program really works.
35
The Civil War never really ended. For all of the progress that was made in the last century, a black man was lynched in Mobile, Alabama in 1981. Black neighborhoods have been economically abandoned, public schools are under attack, and black men are shot by police with alarming regularity, and without sufficient cause to justify deadly force.
Black people can be arrested for sitting in a Starbuck’s, chased out of public swimming pools and harassed by the public for no reason other than their mere presence where they “don’t belong.” Drug crimes borne of lack of options and desperation consign millions of black people to privatized jails. Abuse is industrialized.
These attitudes were a longstanding problem, but they were weaponized by the G.O.P. in recent decades.
When Barack Obama was elected, it was more than politics as usual that caused his initiatives to be blocked by Republicans. He was called a liar during a national TV address. Our current excuse for a president was midwife at the “birther” movement that sought to discredit and demean Mr. Obama as a candidate.
Ever since Republicans discovered the Southern Strategy and voter suppression of minorities, a pall has descended on the country. Inflaming white resentment is a winning strategy that bolsters the ego of the ignorant, and gives them a group to feel superior to.
Until Republicans find it counterproductive, it will continue. It's up to all of us to make it stop. Vote them out. All of them.
719
@Gemli
Hear, Hear. It continues until there are electoral consequences. The President admitted (ON TAPE !) that he had sexually assaulted multiple women and yet, he was elected. (with probable help from a foreign power)
The silver lining (putting aside the massive pain in the meantime) is that simple demographics dictate that this white privilege backlash is going to be short lived and the last one to occur. The numbers say, simply so.
Keep the faith.
OK Gemster, you've addressed exactly half Mr. Brooks's argument (which is exactly what he points out each half of our political divide always does). You haven't said anything he didn't say himself. So what is your point?
Kevin Phillips, the republican strategist and creator of the southern strategy, is no longer a republican and no longer a strategist as far as I know. Unfortunately he realized his mistake too late and now we will pay the price as a society for many years to come. There are too many bad people and not enough good ones out there. I just don't see how we advance as a society or advance as a race at this point.
2
Not a good report, but also not surprising.
I still believe that the hope of re-energizing racial progress in this country is to dramatically improve the resources AND accountability available to primary and secondary schools in our poorest communities. If we did that, I believe that in a generation we’d see a large cohort of black and Hispanic lawyers, doctors, accountants and skilled practitioners of trades emerge from our overwhelmingly black and Hispanic ghettos and seek housing in what are now largely white middle-class communities not because of programs that artificially foster integration but because they can AFFORD the housing. What’s more, the integration would TAKE, because those new professionals would have values that fit far better with their neighbors than those whom HUD still wishes today to slam into those communities via subsidized housing.
However, we’ve never been very good at strategic solutions.
But David should understand this, as focused as he on “community”. There must be shared elements in lives for people to join and be welcomed into viable communities. The strongest element that people recognize in one another is shared class and the values that come with it.
David also started his column with a dig at Trump and the inflammation of racial division; but this problem has nothing to do with Trump. By the time Obama was midway through his second term, we hadn’t been so divided racially since our civil war. But it wasn’t Obama’s …
4
… fault, either. People, white and non-white, are rebelling against programmatic solutions that seek an integration not only across complexions but across classes, as well – solutions that are failing, have failed.
In order to truly integrate America across racial and ethnic divisions and eventually to dramatically moderate racism, we need to pull people in very large numbers and organically into the middle-class. You do NOT do that with subsidized housing but with education … and time.
7
"You do NOT do that with subsidized housing but with education … and time."
African-American Wealth is 5-10% of European-American wealth. The quality of K-12 education is dependent on how well the school district is funded, which is dependent on property taxes, which is determined by the wealth of the community.
If you are looking for education to level the playing field, then you need to be willing to fund education in communities of color on a massive scale to match the investment made in wealthier schools.
I'm on board with that. Are you?
Martin:
Of course I am -- I have been in this forum for the 11-plus years I've been posting here.
Just watched the latest documentary about Fred Rogers (referred to in this column last week). It was astounding to note his critics who claimed he fostered a "generation of entitlement" by his efforts to teach self-worth.
Here is an example of the blind spots which lead to cultural overcompensating. Rogers was dedicated to inspiring all to achieve their potential, regardless of environmental impediments. We must learn fundamental self-respect to find our own sense of initiative and reason for succeeding.
Working toward equality can easily boomerang without both sides facing it together.
8
Another considered and well researched column by Brooks. Progressives may not like parts of the piece ( e.g., the cultural norms of marriage, church attendance and fathers — helping to elevate blacks out of poverty ), but the overriding theme of a loss of societal momentum toward equality is irrefutable. The trend has huge repercussions for all Americans, regardless of their race or income.
Brooks always seems to write with compassion and inclusion. Pity we do not have more like him.
19
@W Greene
I recommended your comment (even though I am a diehard Liberal) because it was fair, as was the majority of this column. There is nothing wrong with some conservative policies and they have their place when fair and balanced. (mainly in economic matters)
However, by continually excluding other points of view, that have been tested and work, which also solve problems where conservative ideology does not - is problematic.
Mr. Brooks writes well and we do need counterbalancing points of view, yet I would hope you offer the same praise to Liberal writers. We all need to learn and outreach.
Regards,
6
Progressives don't mind references to the stabilizing tendencies of marriage, church or the military. Why would we? Enough stereotyping, please -- it doesn't advance mutual understanding and in fact just divides us further.
2
It's not surprising to me that a conservative columnist recognizes the military for the opportunity it provides to improve economic outcomes for minorities. It's true after all that discipline, training, the GI Bill, and a VA home loan will help anyone (especially since minorities have actually started to benefit from the latter two progressive opportunities in recent years).
That said, I wonder if the author knows just how much other deliberate progressive policy is exercised in the military to attain that outcome? Effort that is arguably just as important to improved outcomes for minorities as the GI Bill.
For example, efforts to increase minority Officer membership by targeting ROTC scholarships to HBCUs. What about promotion policies that invalidate promotion board selections for Officers and Senior NCOs if they do not reflect promotion rates by race that are proportionally reflective of the service as a whole? What about the extensive mandatory training provided to military members on racial and ethnic respect. What about the staff positions dedicated to equal opportunity trainers and the routine assessments of bias that Commanders are mandated to conduct and act upon if there is even a perception of bias?
In short - the military is providing opportunity for minorities at a better rate than industry because it is intentionally exercising progressive policies to minimize the racism and bias that is still rampant across much of the private sector.
45
What bothers me about columns like this is that you seem to have no problem identifying the underlying problems that have led to these gaps:
"the legacy of residential segregation; the racist attitudes in the workplace that demonstrably make it much harder for African-American men to get jobs; the prejudices — in the schools, in the streets and in the judicial system — that make it much more likely that African-American males will be punished, incarcerated and marginalized."
Yet you offer no solutions. While you may agree with conservatives that the military, church, and marriage often prevent these outcomes, they still don't prevent African American men from facing barriers created by society. Until you are willing to address the "legacy issues" with serious proposals, it is hard to see how there will be any meaningful progress. Rather than describe the problem, why not offer ideas about how the problem can be fixed.
69
@Bill
- And there you have it. It is easy to point fingers, isn't it ? We all know that there is still widespread systematic racism. misogyny, and a failed war on drugs that has fed the for profit prison/justice system (pointedly for minorities). These facts are indisputable.
Conservatives love to point to policies where bootstraps are handed out (actually bought) and where marriage (loveless or not) solve all ills, but do not offer alternatives which are proven, yet go against ideology.
Charity is not the answer. Society/Government being fair to all, and not to just all of one kind - is.
10
True progress on race can only be won when everyone's vote is counted equally and fairly. When I read in 'Grant' by Chernow that the first Civil Rights Act 1874 never was passed and it was over 90 years before one similar was passed, I recognized how long the fight for gaining this power has been and with gerrymandering and attacks on voting rights for minorities still is. To achieve equal rights, you need to have equal representation in our democracy. For children to thrive and have opportunities to rise above their impoverished circumstances, they need to have good public education, as well as good nutrition, safe neighborhoods and supportive adults who can provide these with their income. The current administration gave permanent tax cuts to the 1% and now want to gut social programs that give every child a chance. This is morally abhorrent to me as a former dedicated public educator. I think David Brooks need to ask the obvious question as to why the progress started to stagnate in after 1980. Isn't this when Republicans started cutting funding to great programs that supported poorer communities and families? Wasn't this the advent of the 'welfare queen' which was patently false? It turned LBJ's war on poverty into a war on offering any aid to lift your brother, just like they did in 1870's drawing Reconstruction to a close too early. Trump is now saying the war on poverty in America is over. It is not, whenever a child in America goes to bed hungry.
80
This is yet another one of those mea culpa type columns from Brooks. He laments the fact that there is a rampant "culture of individualism" that has shifted the focus away from the community. Whereas his observation is right, I wonder why he did not go on to analyze why we have placed more and more weight on individualism and less and less on communalism. The answer is rather simple. It begins with the famous statement by St. Reagan - ". . . government is not the solution to our problem, government IS the problem." When one pins the blame on the very institution that is supposed to even out the unevenness in society, it is little wonder that our emphasis shifted away from the 'US' to the 'ME.' A few decades later we have Trump that has taken that culture to new obnoxious heights.
Brooks grudgingly concedes that the left has it right in that there still exists systematic oppression. Just take a look at the number of black men and women who have been shot at, killed by shooting, or, if they are lucky, just asked for an ID and asked to leave the premises.
But that faint praise is immediately balanced with a false comparison about what the right has done right. All I could say to that false comparison is (to quote his own patron saint) "There you go again."
It is high time for Brooks to stop making such false comparisons.
That is to say, the left-wingers have it correct when they point to the systems of oppression that pervade society:
267
I appreciated your column much more than usual Mr. Brooks, because in this one, you were actually far more ''fair and balanced'' than usual.
Whenever anyone of us deals with these macro statistics in the abstract sense (presenting data points, percentages and the like) we zoom in on certain numbers that generally promote our ideological stances. In some cases that can work, but in most cases it doesn't, because you are going to leave out large swaths of the population.
That is what is happening in particular with minorities, but just poor people overall. It is no longer really a matter of black and white, but rather of dollars and sense - fairness.
Like all problems of society, it requires an ''all of the above strategy'' that is dedicated, consistent and prolonged.
What that means is that all matters have the common denominator of taxes. If you make more, then you should be paying more progressively - not less. Those taxes contribute to the infrastructure of society and benefits all - especially the poor. It pays for education, which is a root cause of poverty, and it pays for social programs to raise one out of poverty.
Once the above is stabilized, then a true living wage ($22hr min) needs to be implemented to further unburden the social network and create even more infrastructure for all to take part in. It is a chain reaction that has compound effects for all.
- Especially for the people you speak of ...
84
I support improving the lot of blacks and other minorities in the US, but progressivism, socialism and radicalism are not the solution if we want to win elections.
For example, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is a Democratic Socialist belonging to and supported by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), whose goals won't appeal to most Democrats, much less Republicans. Here are two of many off-putting DSA goals (https://www.dsausa.org/where_we_stand#global )
1. "Economic democracy means...direct ownership and/or control of much of the economic resources of society by the great majority of wage and income earners." This is Marxism/Communism, wherein workers own/control the means of production; it hasn't worked elsewhere and won't appeal to US voters.
2. "Social redistribution--the shift of wealth and resources from the rich to the rest of society--will require...massive redistribution of income from corporations and the wealthy to wage earners and the poor and the public sector, in order to provide the main source of new funds for social programs, income maintenance and infrastructure rehabilitation...." This goal is neither feasible nor appealing.
I am sad to see Democratic Party leaders so out of touch with reality that some are hailing a socialist like Ms. O-C as the future of our party. O-C and other socialists will cost us wins in the mid-terms and 2020. Abolishing ICE and turning factories over to workers are suicidal platform planks for the Democratic Party.
2
Your chronology of the end of racial progress corresponds pretty exactly to the end of rising wages and a growing middle class.
Let me be the millionth or so person to point out that, when you take away people's economic security, they turn inward -- toward their family and tribe. They begin to see life as a competition for scant resources, and grow wary of outsiders. They focus on keeping their slice of the pie -- not on making more and bigger pies.
864
It also corresponds with the election of Ronald Reagan, the era of "government is the problem" and the changes in tax structure that has hollowed out our nation's infrastructure, government support of the education and virtually ignores the health of it's citizens when numerous solutions are available and affordable like the entire rest of the industrialized world.
Add in decades of the election of Republicans who campaign by saying that government doesn't work well and upon election set about to running it poorly as if to prove that point.
We have had over thirty five years of supply side economics and forgotten that only demand keeps manufacturing busy.
No matter how vile an individual Henry Ford was he recognized that he could only sell automobiles to people who could afford them and he began paying his factory workers (regardless of race surprisingly) $5 a day so they could afford to buy what they built.
There are public and private solutions to our Nation's challenges.
None of them will advance as long as the Voters think that the answer to everything is a Tax Cut as 35 years of Republicans have told us all.
10
I have no idea whether things are getting better or worse or stagnating but the Brookings report that Brooks cites for the proposition that neighborhoods are desegregating only "slightly," in fact says that current levels are a "substantial improvement for blacks compared to earlier decades." The numbers for both children and adults show a reduction in segregation for adults and children with the largest improvement (among adults and children) being for hispanic children.
I saw the same relationship immediately as I read that part (thinking, "hmmm.... now what started around 1980 on that could be related?").
Love the way you presented it - thanks very much.
Interesting that we're all striving for a "middle class" existence when the standard of living of the middle class has been declining for decades. The trappings of bourgeois culture are idealized - and to be sure, attractive - but the reality is that the middle class of the 21st century is saddled with rising healthcare, education and child care costs, all the while dealing with stagnant wages and increasing workloads.
As a person of color, I agree with Brooks's column. Left unsaid is that in addition to the reversal in racial progress, America has been experiencing a decline in prosperity for decades. And with very few - and often inconsequential - exceptions, elected officials have done nothing to halt the slide.
635
With the ascendency of Trump to the WH and control-by-design of all 3 levers of government by Republicans--I think a lot of us non-black Americans are finally getting a chance to experience what it's like to be treated second-class citizens. I'm sad but hope it results in waking us up to the searing damage of racism and moves us to a new civil rights' movement.
2
Also key: "We need to address economic inequality to save what’s best about our nation....We need a tax system that supports strong, stable, and broad-based economic growth, not one that continues to reward the wealthiest Americans at the expense of everyone else.” Wuote from Heather Boushey who runs the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. Cited in David Leonhardt's column today.
2
"America has been experiencing a decline in prosperity for decades. And with very few - and often inconsequential - exceptions, elected officials have done nothing to halt the slide.
Because conservative have supported outsourcing jobs to increase profits for a few while liberals support outsourcing to raise the living standards of poor countries at the expense of our lower middle class to ease their white guilt.
1
One observation in this piece. In the final paragraphs when talking about the liberal perspective versus the conservative perspective on the barriers to racial progress all statements are made about black people, either as the victims of institutional racism(the liberal perspective) or the heirs of a broken culture(conservative perspective).
Nowhere in this article about racial progress is there an explicit statement about the behavior of white people.
The article should not say "the racist attitudes in the workplace . . ."
It should say the racist attitudes held by white workers make it harder for African American males to get jobs.
Individual actions and behavior are at the root of an unequal society.
525
It's true that individual actions and attitudes are basic to our unequal society, but these have been and are significantly influenced by governmental action.
The forced integration of the Civil Rights era has resulted in many younger people not sharing the racist attitudes of their parents. On the other side, the racist attitudes at the top - Trump and his ilk - has the opposite effect.
An article in the NYT this week posited that people's political beliefs may be informing their religious beliefs. Why may the same not be true of people's beliefs about race?
Governmental approval/endorsement of racism is a powerful and destructive force.
161
The uncomfortable observation is that first impressions are the lasting ones. Stereotypes and prejudices are not drawn out of thin air. And remember that none of us has the ability or even the right to force others to think/act the way we want them too.........the only person you can change .... is yourself.
No mention of the deliberate encouragement of race hatred and exploitation of white extinction fears by the GOP. That, like "class warfare" is the "race card" and the GOP owns both.
I spent an uncomfortable 30 minutes in a waiting room the other day where two, old, white guys talked openly about their hatred of all, young, brown men. The "N" word has come back into vogue among some of my relatives. There are "good people" in the White Supremacist universe our Commander in Chief tells us. The open hostility toward black athletes is as fashionable again as it was in Branch Rickey's time. The idea of getting rid of affirmative action is one reason broached for the appointment of Kavanagh to the Supreme Court. The good news is that the hoods are finally coming off in the KKK's locker room. The bad news is I know far too many of these people. Trump didn't invent racism, he just made it comfortable to be racist again. I honestly thought the American people were past this but we didn't lose the racism, just the shame that went along with being a racist. I don't have time to figure out who might, next, disappoint me with these hateful and cruel feelings, so to save time I'm just shunning all Republicans. You may say I am falling victim to stereotyping but in my opinion, when you stand with bigots, you are one too.
270
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Speaking openly about such intracultural experiences is part of the business left undone in this country from the last century.
1
I think it's far past time to call out these bigots when they spew their ignorant venom in the waiting rooms and restaurants of America. When we hear and see this rot crawling up the walls of our public spaces, we need to stand up and announce, "Ladies and gentlemen, we have a racist in the house! Let's hear it for our racist neighbors!" A dangerous gambit? Yes, but why let them off the hook? Normalizing these people is not an option.
2
The last two times I was in Shoprite I heard two very loud men in the NEXT AISLE ranting about "when we were kids, we worked" and "Everyone today wants a handout" on and on for many minues. I wondered if it was the same two guys each time.
Brooks: I am reading Eric Foner's "Reconstruction, America's Unfinished Revolution. In chapter 3 check ou pp: 110-..."Origins of Black Politics" and if you can stomach it: pp:119 ..."Violence in everyday life".
It is still a long long road for us a nation to achieve equality. Come on everybody. Keep on slogging. First job the elections in 2018. In 2020 trow da bum out..
1
There is a congregation next to my house. They are Africans who enjoy worshiping in their own language and singing from their own hymnals. Some are citizens or on the road to being citizens, and starting families in Montgomery and Prince Georges countys in Maryland. I imagine it makes life in America a bit less lonely, and they enjoy the fellowship the congregation offers.
It is a young vibrant beautiful congregation.
I was invited to their picnic outing by their Pastor with whom I often speak. Weekly. I try to be a good neighbor.
It was a beautiful turnout, but I felt that my presence was unsettling. Did they fear that this old white guy was an immigration agent? I sensed that kind of vibe.
I stayed for a bit, politely said I couldn't eat because the wife had an early dinner planned.
I didn't want my presence to be a disruption of a lovely afternoon.
Now that is sad.
210
How about Dylan Thomas? He was welcomed. The lesson was learned. Of course they were not welcoming. Worshiping while black, the fear of police is always present. Don’t give up. Even among white congregations, persistence is needed if you want to feel welcomed. Cliques, always a problem. The church is next door? Go and enjoy the music. I envy you!
2
That is sad, but bless you for trying. That is all that each of us can do.
1
Now as we never do in America, once we have an anecdote we have to go a bit further (quite a bit…) and ask the pertinent questions. Why is it like that? Why did this happen? What is responsable for theis situation?
Mr. Brooks: I would really suggest that you reread MLK's Letter from a Birmingham Jail.
To equate systemic racism with the supposed moral failing of black fathers is precisely the specious logic of white liberals that MLK's letter eviscerated.
As if black men could somehow, singlehandedly and with a little more grit in the teeth, change this?
358
@ SVB: “As if black men could somehow, singlehandedly and with a little more grit in the teeth, change this?” Well, there was one black man who thought that somehow, singlehandedly he could change the system--MLK. Moreover, he did so because he was well grounded in a culture—the Western prophetic tradition.
Except that's not what David Brooks is arguing at all. Did you bother to read his concluding statement?: "If we're going to do something about this appalling retrogression on race, we probably need to be radical on both ends."
He's not saying that black men could somehow highhandedly change this.
Respectfully, I don't think Mr. Brooks said black fathers have a moral deficiency. He only said that if fathers are around, children do better.
Listen to DT's comments yesterday on immigration in Europe and it's not even code for racism. When you have someone in his role saying that "you are losing your culture" it is not even a subtle normalization of racism and white nationalism. It's a flat out statement of his goal for us. I'm afraid, again, for us.
407
I note that you don't claim anything Trump said was false, just that it was racist.
Britain has a rising problem of attacks in its streets using machetes and/or acid. Thousands of girls in Britain have been subjected to genital mutilation, and no one or almost no one has been prosecuted. And thousands of English girls have been subjected to sexual abuse. The genital mutilation and sexual abuse has been committed largely by Muslims of immigrant origin, e.g. Pakistanis.
Now: is anything I said factually wrong, or is it just racist to say it?
Although a liberal myself, I often read Mr. Brooks' columns and find myself nodding in tune with his reasoned, calm and genially thoughtful approach. I just as often disagree with his premises and instincts, but he seems like a humane, honest and thoughtful conservative (a dying breed).
One of the differences between myself as a liberal and Mr. Brooks' conservative tendencies is the way we read the last forty plus years of politics. I see the modern conservative movement as determined effort to afford large corporations and ultra-wealthy individuals the opportunity to control our society to their own benefit. Under the guise of small government, freedom and market economics I see a concerted effort of the elites and ultra rich to re-write the rules to their own radical advantage. They are the modern "robber barrons" but with much better PR and messaging.
For those of us who are not ultra rich, not venture investors and not executives in very large corporations, the government is a legitimate way to assure our future success. Government is a means to curb the offensive acts of the big guys -- consumer fraud, employee exploitation, pollution and granting various other perverse advantages to themselves -- as well as a means to educate the next generation and care for the elderly.
The modern ultra conservatives have cynically but successfully reinvigorated racism. Racism is a tool to divide those who are being plundered by the elites.
246
"For those of us who are not ultra rich, not venture investors and not executives in very large corporations, the government is a legitimate way to assure our future success."
That view strikes me as doing more harm than good.
Although a mere professor, I achieved a net worth (as did most of my friends) of several millions through careful/frugal spending, saving, investing in rental properties, and a variety of other means (legal and open to the many, not the few.)
Your comment also errs in the fallacy of composition--surely the great majority cannot rely on government "to
assure our future success" (i.e., beyond that of providing the necessary functions of government.)
1
The problem with labeling conservatives "robber barrons [sic]" as the sole sackers of democracy is that the liberal ultra-wealthy far out-number and far out-wealth the Koch types of the world. Check the latest Forbes list, especially the top ten. Check the wealth of our fine Congress - guess who is the wealthiest? Who hangs out on the Vineyard? In the Hamptons? However, you are spot on in your assessment that elites use racism to divide and conquer.
To make progress, we must recognize that we white citizens are the problem. We deny police double standards, we practice racism in our choosing friends, neighborhoods , who we hire, and even where we go to church, but most of all how we vote.
Unless we become more color blind nothing will change.
The data Mr. Brooks quoted affirms what happened with the advent of the Republican southern strategy. The 60's brought the problem to a head and solutions were started. The war on poverty, head start, equal opportunity laws, desegregation in education and housing. It all began to work, then Republicans began the tactics that divided us and brought them success. The result was attacks and ending of affirmative actions, ending support for the poor, and a white backlash.
Even good intentioned conservatives such as Dave Brooks refused to see the connection of their politics to the problem.
101
Congrats on writing the only sensible comment on this board.
Those points you make are valid, but without acknowledging some balance of culpability to non-whites makes this counterproductive against progress.
Teachers will tell you, every day, that the students are not the problem, it’s the parents. And by that, they mean the problem students show up unfit to be in a classroom that requires behavior befitting a classroom shared with other students, headed by a teacher whose direction you MUST follow, or you will be disciplined or expelled.
Yet somehow it is the “system’s” fault that some students end up on the classroom-to-jail track, while from THE SAME SCHOOLS some black and hispanic students end up at Ivy League or Flagship state universities, and move on to the upper middle class.
How is this relevant? Desegregation at bayonet point turned out to be the easy part, hard to believe. Now we have to create a national culture where being school ready does not mean just knowing the alphabet.
It means being having deportment conducive to a learning environment inside and outside of class from 7 am to 5 pm daily, enforced not by faculty, but by parents, whatever parents you have, from kinder to 12th grade.
Where is that cultural trend going to take shape?
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That’s why programs like Head Start are so important for ealry childhood development, and most especially for poor families. Yet Republicans often cut the budgets for the programs because they know that these programs mostly benefit poor families of any color, who may not vote as regularly as their traditional supporters in the suburbs. Their goal is to get elected, not help prepare all children for a good education.
This is true of all students, not just African American and Latino. Plenty of white students come to school having been raised in an atmosphere of chaos, violence and neglect.
In my integrated Long Island high school back in the late 50s it was some of the privileged white students who did the acting out in (and out) of school. I don't remember any of the black students having to be disciplined like some of the white students and they all ended up amazingly successful 60 years later. So did most of the white students, even the ones who had to be disciplined but certainly never ended up on a classroom to jail track although it often took a stint in the military to straighten them out, something they do admit today. Just like that white kid in Texas who got off from court charges because of "affluenza!"
Left-wingers are radical. Reactionaries are radical. At the moment, reactionaries are in charge, just one brand of radical. We don’t need radical anything. What progress there has been for those branded with a racial label owes nothing to radicals. Those branded with a racial label don’t need more things done to them. Indeed, the branded ones have enough things being done to them as it is—that’ the problem. Freedom is not radical, it’s natural to the human condition. When will the branded ones be free at last?
Certainly not with a President of the United States known only for branding.
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But freedom is messy, freedom is annoying, freedom is risky. In other words, freedom is hard, especially granting it to other people.
And for most radicals, freedom is wrong because it makes pushing their agenda impossible.
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Mr. Krantz: I agree with it all except the statement that freedom “is granted.” As I noted, in my opinion it’s natural to the human condition. It’s not something provided, it’s something we do.
Today in America a white person can be fired for calling the police on a black person. When police shoot a black man, the city is shut down with protests regardless of whether the shooting was justified. Pressure on police departments has led to de-policing in black cities, leading in turn to spiking murder rates. And tens of thousands of people with no right to be here are still entering the country.
It's not clear that the reactionaries are in charge.
This column makes me so very sad. Not because I disagree with it, but because I can't believe we elected a president who champions racism. Every time I hear a racist comment come out of our president's mouth, I so wish that I could hear someone speak about racism the way our former president did. I voted for Obama twice. Although there were times when he disappointed me, when he spoke about racism he spoke words of hope, not division. Trump did not cause racism, but he justifies it and benefits from the racial hatred he churns up, and churns up and churns up at every opportunity.
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Anne wrote, "I can't believe we elected a president who champions racism." Anne, the American people did not elect Trump. Hillary won the popular vote by about 3 million, which would have been celebrated as a landslide had not Russian propaganda and right-wing voter suppression conspired to rig the electoral college in favor of Trump.
The good people in America--the true patriots--still outnumber the racists. We just need to get out the vote better, since Republican politicians have rigged the system so that Democrats generally need a super-majority to win any state or national seat.
Mr. Brooks, would you please spell out what "radical on both ends" means. There has been an attitude change in this country that was caused in part by an unanticipated backlash to a black man and black family occupying the White House. It was a bridge to far, even for hopeful people who never saw the backlash coming. It is similar, I believe, to what would have happened and may still happen, when a woman is elected to the presidency. Oh, and yes, when a gay person and his or her same sex partner are elected, I think we can expect a backlash. As it turns out, electing Barack Obama was indeed radical. Who knew. Now we have something even more radical with Mr. Trump who enflames division, pandering to so many who seem almost relieved and thankful to embrace that division. Who are we? What have we become? Who do we want to become? Again, please describe the radicalism on both ends that your foresee as some solution to our divisive tendencies and dark nature. If, indeed, solutions and not simply observations are what you are after.
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It always amuses me when a conservative scratches HIS (rarely, HER) head about why African-Americans seem to "reject" the "bourgeois norms" that Mr Brooks finds so important.
In fact, since emancipation, the history of blacks in America has been one of constant effort on their part to adhere to those norms of family, faith, and wealth creation, only to be blocked by whites in both the South and the North. Blacks were not allowed to own their own land, develop their own businesses, achieve any level of education or prosperity, by force of law as well as extra-legal violence. Read about Wilmington NC or Tulsa OK.
What we have in the African=American community is a proportion who had reached a point of making do with the status quo, just as the civil rights movement was allowing them to actually shop at the same stores, eat at the same restaurants, and use the same public facilities as white people. This is the core of the ghetto subculture that is white America's caricature of African-Americans. The majority of A-A's are striving for success through education and employment, in spite of the generational impediments of lack of wealth and access to credit.
"Conservatives" have pivoted from outright racism ("separate but equal", "states rights") to blaming liberals for trapping blacks in a culture of dependency. (As if welfare was created by liberals for blacks only.) But they alone are to blame for the hole that A-As find themselves in.
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Oh my, YES it is.I supported Obama and thought that he would materially advance sound and generally acceptable initiatives to enhance the lives of AAs and all Americans--especially a concerted effort to diminish unwed child bearing, aimed at both males and females.
Yet, on this critical and nonpolitical tragedy, BO not only failed, he never tried.
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Having taught at several public high schools I found out, sadly, that a school may appear on paper to be desegregated while still being unfairly segregated within the classroom.
It was not simply that the vast majority of Advanced Placement classes were populated by 100% Caucasian and Asian students, nor simply that the vast majority of regular "College Prep" classes were populated by minority students...worse was the fact that around 15% of the (all non-minority) students in Advanced Placement should have instead been in the regular "College Prep" classes, and similarly that 15% of the (all minority) students in "College Prep" classes should have been in Advanced Placement. Somehow some knuckle-headed non-minority kids had parents who pushed for them to be in Advanced Placement when they did not deserve it, and likewise some brilliant minority kids should have been in Advanced Placement but somehow were kept out.
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Here in the South, the difference in many of the family issues that Mr. Brooks describes is similar for poor whites.
Things like high school drop out rates, teenage pregnancy, drugs, crime, etc. correlate to poverty.
In absolute numbers, there are more whites on welfare than blacks because whites are 63% of the population while blacks are 14% of the population.
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