19 November 2007
There is a general level of contradiction existing in the current doxa. Although not at all a new factor of the assumed consciousness, it is growing to be increasingly problematic in its halting and stigmatizing nimiety. While contradiction may be yet another complaint lodged at Los Angeles' fickle attitude towards dining choices: substituting ingredients and requesting "bizarre modifications" as a sign of discipline and power (Jennifer Steinhauer, "The Hollywood Diet," The New York Times, 11 November 2007), the danger comes when the same contradictions that reinforce and perpetuate shows of discipline and power occur in analyzing the current state of racial (in)equalities.
Whether it is from a white or from a black perspective, the contradictory answers to the disparity question shares this single fact: it betrays the need for objective analysis and a critical look at history for any signs of objective accuracy, or the lack thereof. Although such objectivity may be but a "noble dream" (Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The 'Objectivity Question' and the American Historical Profession, 1988), there is a great deal to be uncovered in pursuing this exercise.
And this is a history particularly saturated with paradox and contradiction.
Between 14 November 2006 and 13 November 2007, The Associated Press published results of studies on racial inequality in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement. In the latter study of 2007, The Associated Press quoted Marc Morial, President and CEO of the National Urban League:
"Too many Americans, whites and even some blacks, think that the playing field has indeed leveled...it has not" ("Income gap between black, white families grows").
In the former study of 2006, The Associated Press quoted Lance Freeman, Assistant Professor of Urban Planning at Columbia University, for his 'solution' to the disparity - home ownership:
"Home ownership creates wealth, which enables families to live in good neighborhoods with good schools. It also helps families finance college, which leads to better-paying jobs, perpetuating the cycle" ("U.S. report: Racial disparities continue").
As if a backing by numbers replaces substantive credibility, The Associated Press also quotes Thomas Shapiro's agreement that home ownership is indeed the " 'easiest answer' to narrowing racial gaps...which would help minority families accumulate wealth."
This disparity is not limited to black Americans. The same study exposes an interesting paradox with another minority class:
"Asian Americans, on average, have higher incomes and education levels than whites. However, they have higher poverty rates and lower home ownership rates."
There are countless other news articles on racial inequality in the political, economic, social, and healthcare/medical spheres. To discuss them all and give them their proper due would exhaust the space of this blog. Instead, I am writing this series on Culture and Race through the perspectives of three significant historians to expose the profound contradictions and ultimately, to resolve them through hyphenation.
The first historian I begin with is Thomas J. Sugrue precisely because he addresses the homeownership issue in his book, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (1996). Ultimately, Sugrue argues that racial inequality after the New Deal is a result of a mutually reinforcing process of ideology and political economy and of identity and self-interest. The main culprits he identifies are the policymakers, large corporations, small businesses, realtors, and citizens that reinforced racial and class inequality and black political marginalization. Despite this, however, a black bougeoisie emerged to grow and to flourish with the conation and unwavering intent to purchase property.
Next, I will turn to historian David R. Roediger through his book, The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (1991). In rather broad strokes, he argues from a Marxist historical perspective that whiteness was a way the white working class responded to the fear of dependency on wage labour and was a concept necessitated by the capitalist work discipline. The heritage of the Revolution made independence a powerful personal masculine ideal mandating a great psychological emphasis on self-differentiating between slave labor and 'hireling' wage labor. In this manner, the white working class began constructing self-identity through otherness and changes in language exposed a greater complexity in race and class (mis)perceptions. Indeed, through his attention to language, I find an 'entrance way' to my greater ambition: a re-definition and re-introduction of a more accurate and relevant language - hyphenation - to capture the spirit, expose the paradox, faults, limitations, and to realize the potentiality of the present.
Finally, I will turn to Peter Kolchin's essay, "Whiteness Studies: The New History of Race in America" (The Journal of American Historians, June 2002), because he juxtaposes many historians' accounts of race against each other, including Roediger's book against Matthew Frye Jacobson's book, Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race (1999), thus delineating a much-needed critical analysis to the debate. Ultimately, he calls for more contextualization of race in its historical setting, analyzing what exactly whiteness means in its cause and its consequences in the study of race in America.
Through this exercise, I hope to prove that the language structuring our reality is just as important as the actuality of the reality itself in lending an objectively accurate account of America's Race Paradox in particular and American Culture in general.
