I don't like to write about identity politics. I, of course, notice individual differences (race, gender, religion, etc.); usually it's more a matter of curiosity. For example, I worked on a Chicago project with a Sikh whom wore a turban, and one day I noticed my best (Asian) Indian friend wore a Rakhi around his wrist (a Hindu custom that I find utterly endearing, having 4 little sisters myself). We, of course, sometimes have simplistic assumptions of people whom are different than us. For instance, one of my friends in high school was Jewish, and I remember asking him about Kashrut (keeping Kosher); he looked at me with utter contempt and explained, in a tone dripping with disdain, that he was a REFORMED Jew.
Maybe it was growing up Catholic in an era where many people held absurd stereotypes against Catholics. (There were many good reasons to vote against Jack Kennedy, but his Catholicism was not one of them. Kennedy's womanizing alone was embarrassing for practicing Catholics.) Catholics have found race discrimination morally offensive; I can remember my mom talking to me about the underground railroad when I was a kid, I grew up in an integrated military (in fact, my best friend in fifth grade was black).
My last campus visit and academic job offer (in 1994) was from a historic black university in Louisiana, well known for its football program. I would likely have accepted (it wasn't a money issue, and I liked the chairwoman of the department) except the decision took weeks longer than expected, and I had just taken the first decent private-sector job offer since leaving academia in a recession. I still have the chair's response; she took my decision very personally, but to be honest she had not remained in contact since the campus visit. A number of universities, like most companies in the private sector, do a very poor job following up (I had been been on prior unsuccessful campus visits to universities in Alabama, New York, and Louisiana, and I don't recall getting rejection letters), and so I had inferred that this university had done the same, and I felt that it would be unfair to my new employers to quit just days or a few weeks into the job. What I recall isn't so much the race of the students or faculty I met, but the buildings were older and starker, and the campus visit included a meet-and-greet with students whom peppered me with questions about my (limited) business contacts and related topics I had not expected; I handled it on the fly and had no clue how I was coming across. (On most campus visits, in my experience, the main focus was delivering a presentation on one's research and various interviews with prospective colleagues and administrators.)
I have had colleagues, clients, even a government contractor manager of color; just like any other group of workers, there are some good ones and some bad ones, but race wasn't a relevant issue and never came up in conversations. I don't feel there was any preferential treatment, and the people I met I felt were qualified for their positions.
I do think today's plight of the urban black community is tragic: too many single parent households, failing public schools, black-on-black crime, a disproportionately high incarcerated proportion of young black men, high unemployment and poverty. Part of what makes the analysis difficult is the fact that many other minorities seem to overachieve; Asian Americans often grow up with parents almost fanatical over academic achievement, where anything less than an A is shameful; some Vietnamese refugees ended up valedictorians of their high schools, 10 of the last 14 spelling bee winners have been Indian-American (not Native American Indians), and other Asian American students find themselves the victim of reverse discrimination at many elite schools. (I think part of this is cultural; in many cultures, higher education is the ticket to a comfortable middle-class lifestyle, say, as a civil servant.)
American culture is more radically egalitarian; as a professor, I found many in the professional ranks overtly contemptuous of "ivory tower academics" to the point I started hiding my PhD and academic employment; I've worked for bosses without college degrees and most of my bosses could not do my job. What does this have to do the status quo involving the black experience in America? I'm simply trying to suggest why many immigrants have overachieved, say, in getting college educations correlated with higher lifetime earnings. (I mentioned, in contrast, I worked with a Bangladesh immigrant contractor at NASA-Clear Lake City; he told me that he was the black sheep of his family, stopping his education with an MS degree; every other member of his family had earned a PhD or MD.) On the other hand, certain professions, with very unlikely prospects for employment like entertainment and professional sports, have very high percentages of black representation; for example, nearly three-quarters of NBA players are black while roughly 1 in 8 Americans is black.
During my conservative, more policy-oriented days, I was more of a Jack Kemp type; I wanted to provide more tax-friendly, less-bureaucratic solutions, which I branded as my "American Renaissance" proposal. However, in my more libertarian phase, I've seen public policy as more of the problem than the solution. Drug prohibition has contributed to violence and high incarceration rates. The social safety net is morally hazardous and creates a vicious cycle of poverty and government dependence. Government-privileged teacher unions are a key Democratic Party constituent group and effectively block substantive reform, leaving schools with dysfunctional social promotion policies of barely literate students, high dropout rates, and low graduation rates; only a tiny fraction have the opportunity to attend more effective Catholic, other private-sector alternatives or public charter schools.
The Voting Rights Act was nobly inspired; in the aftermath of Reconstruction there was a climate of intimidation to inhibit black citizens, particularly in the Old South, from exercising their right to vote guaranteed by the Fifteenth Amendment; part of this was physical intimidation (e.g., the KKK) and there were also some dubiously legal barriers to voting enacted like literacy tests, poll taxes, etc., a lot of them with grandfather clauses exempting existing (mainly white) voters from needing to qualify.
Has it worked over the past few decades? Undoubtedly. To the point that as of 2004, before the Congress in 2006 extended the Voting Rights Act for another 25 years, as Chief Justice Roberts noted, in Mississippi, the percentage of registered black voters exceeded that for white voters, while the reverse was true and the disparate highest in deep-blue Massachusetts, which in the recent past reelected a governor of color, a state, unlike Mississippi, not subject to federal oversight and prior approval of local voting changes. Keep in mind by 1987, Mississippi had the highest number and Alabama had the highest percentage of black elected officeholders; just over half of blacks lived in the South and held over 60% of offices (although this has not been reflected as much at the federal vs. local level).
Despise black representation, particularly at the mayoral level, we've seen inept leadership, despite setting unrealistic expectations, and public policy failures: failing schools; high violent crime zones; crumbling infrastructure, single-parent households, high levels of poverty and unemployment, etc., despite a vast expanded social welfare net, unprecedented money thrown at public education, etc. We have seen some high profile scandals among prominent black elected officials, including, but not restricted to, Marion Barry, Charles Rangel, Kwame Kilpatrick, Jesse Jackson, Jr., William Jefferson, etc. (I will also acknowledge that scandal goes beyond skin color: just a sample: Bill Clinton, Blagojevich, Spitzer, Weiner, George Ryan, Nixon, etc.) Even with a two-term Kenyan-white American President, it's difficult to point to how "progressive" policy has made any material change in the status quo, despite nearly unanimous (up to or over 90%) support of Democrats by black voters.
I'm more irritated by dime-a-dozen economically illiterate black professor "pundits" (from politically-correct "academic disciplines") on Sunday talk shows continuing to promote black victimization, the vast white conspiracy, and other miscellaneous nonsense. No, voter fraud reforms are not some Trojan horse scheme to return the South to the days of Jim Crow laws, and the idea that SCOTUS striking down discriminatory, obsolete federal micromanagement oversight of traditional state administration of elections (by the Tenth Amendment). Just because federal micromanagement cannot be arbitrarily extended over reformed states does not nullify the substance of the Voting Rights Act, no matter how many "progressive" pundits absurdly allege otherwise.
It is unfortunate that these "pundits" don't focus on the historic failures of "progressive" policy, the lack of political diversity within the black community, and the divisive, counterproductive effects of black victimization rhetoric. It would seem to me after having banged one's head into the wall several times with failed government "fixes", one might infer that government is part of the problem, not the solution. Government restrictions on business (e.g., minimum wage) don't help unemployed black teens get starter jobs. The prosecution of participants in the underground drug economy makes it even harder for the defendant to get a job and a start a family.
Let's be clear: we can't have unrealistic expectations of government policy. There are cultural issues, including sexual permissiveness. Churches and parents need to step up. The community needs to focus on achievements of scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs as much as (if not more than) sports stars and rap artists. We need higher academic standards and expectations and to teach the list of virtues.
From a public policy standpoint, we need to stop enabling government dependence; we need to get government out of the way of revitalization of urban areas, promote a competitive education marketplace, and foster business start-ups and employment opportunities. We need for black youth to be open to the insights of people like Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Ben Carson, Tim Scott, Mia Love, Clarence Thomas and others.
