Toward and More Just and Equitable Society: How to be an Ally in the Fight for Racial Equity

 The Two Tracks

There are two tracks that white people can follow to be allies in the fight for racial justice and equity in our society. On one track, we can support the efforts of people of color in the explicit fight for racial justice. On the other track, we can as white people work for a more just and equitable distribution of wealth and income in our society. On this track, we deal with issues that are not explicitly racial but that have racial implications.

Allies in the Explicit Fight for Racial Justice

Most writers on the subject of how we can work as allies agree that  white people should not attempt to lead the fight for racial justice but should support the efforts of people of color. As allies, we must first of all educate ourselves in the history and effects of racism in our country.  This is not simply a matter of learning facts but of changing deeply held opinions and attitudes. For many, the process of education is difficult and even painful, and it takes place over years.  As we learn, we can must share what we have learned with others.

We can in addition, offer forums in which people of color can express their concerns and their demands. We can contribute financially to the fight, and we can participate in marches and demonstrations to show our support. We can vote for political candidates of color and for those who support reforms. We can participate in multiracial groups that work to get local governments to appoint people of color to committees and commissions. We can also push the organizations to which we belong to look for ways to become more inclusive.

Working for a More Just Society

All of these things are useful, but they do not exhaust the possibilities.  We can also fight for a more just society in ways that are not explicitly antiracist but that have the effect of reducing the economic gap between white people and people of other races. People of color are much poorer on average than white people.  This relative poverty of people of color is not a matter only of people who are poor in the sense that they have very low incomes and almost no wealth. The relative poverty of people of color extends through almost all levels of our society. People of color with college degrees, professional qualifications and good jobs are paid less on average that white people with similar resumés; people of color carry heavier burdens of student debt than white people; and they have far less inherited wealth than white people. Consequently, their relative poverty reproduces itself in each generation across almost all levels of our society. The relative poverty of people of color is not itself racism, but it is an effect of racism.[i]

To mitigate this effect of racism, we need to think about ways of redistributing wealth and income in our country, and in doing so, it helps to remember that racial inequality is not the only kind of inequality that we have. We live in a society in which most of the wealth is held by a very small percentage of the people, and we can develop policies that increase the fairness of our society as a whole.

If we do that, we will also decrease the wealth gap between people of color and white people because people of color are overrepresented in the poorer levels of our society and therefore, they will benefit disproportionately from policies that redistribute wealth or income down. Thus, reducing the economic effects of racism is bound up with the task of making our society as a whole more equitable. If we do that, we will reduce the wealth gap between white people and others, and we will at the same time make most white people better off. Thus, the struggle for a just and equitable society is not exclusively a racial struggle. It is a struggle for all of us.

We Must Work on Both Tracks

As allies in the struggle against racism, we white people must work on these two parallel tracks. On one track, we support the political struggles of people of color. Such struggles might include the struggle for reparations, the struggle against police violence, the struggle for immigration reform and the struggle against environmental injustices. Elements of the struggle for prison reform also appear on this track. In those struggles, we follow the leadership of people of color.

On the second track, we struggle for a more just and equitable distribution of income and wealth in our society. Such struggles might include the struggle to raise the minimum wage, the struggle for affordable child care, the struggle for free post-secondary education, the struggle for affordable housing, and the struggle for a decent, national system of health care. Some elements of the struggle for prison reform may also appear on this track.  Here, we act independently for justice and equity for all people in our society.

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[i] William A. Darity and A. Kirsten Mullen, From Here to Equality, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 2020

The Radical Right Undermines Our Democracy for Partisan Advantage

The Radical Right is Deliberately Undermining Our Democracy for Partisan Advantage.

Mr. Trump’s claim that our presidential election was won by fraud is patently false, and it has been rejected out of hand by dozens of judges as well as several state governors. In spite of the claim’s absurdity, it has done great harm to our country because millions of Americans believe it, and as a result, they deny the legitimacy of our government and of our basic, political institutions.

Our Government Survives Because We Believe It is Legitimate

Our democracy, like any government, has not survived for two centuries on brute force alone. It has survived because most of us accord legitimacy to it and to the electoral processes by which our leaders are chosen. Our government has survived because we accept it and follow its rules most of the time. We do not actively oppose it or attempt to overthrow it. We believe that submitting to the government is right and just even when it does not act justly. We express that belief in the principle that we are a nation of laws, and that it is an obligation of a citizen to obey the laws. We believe this because we believe that our government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed just as our Declaration of Independence says that it should, and the way that “the consent of the governed” is expressed is through fair and open elections.

It is true that we also have a strong tradition of civil disobedience in which people deliberately disobey what they see as unjust laws, but even in civil disobedience, we accord legitimacy to our institutions. Thus, the civil rights demonstrators of the nineteen sixties allowed themselves to be arrested and taken to jail. They placed their trust in the legal institutions of our country. They demanded change, but they did not propose revolution.

The Claim of Fraudulent Elections Legitimizes Violence

Claiming that our elections are fraudulent shatters the consensus on which the legitimacy of our government depends and thus legitimizes violent, armed resistance. Violent resistance in the United States is a real possibility. Our country has many, organized armed groups that claim to represent the real will of the people. It is not clear how many members these groups have, but the number is estimated at several tens of thousands. Today, the groups are fragmented and have little power, but their members have shown a willingness to commit extremely violent acts and to promote violence against public officials.  If the groups were to be brought together in a national movement, they would become a real threat to our democracy.

Our Democracy May Not Survive

That is the threat presented by the actions of our outgoing president and his supporters. They threaten to turn a fragmented collection of violent groups into the violent component of an organized, national movement with central direction and millions of members. Currently, the campaign against the legitimacy of Biden’s election is the national organization, and the violent radical rightist groups that support it form the basis of the development of an organization like SA. The violent groups by themselves cannot overthrow our system because they are too small and fragmented, but if they become the violent vanguard of a national movement with millions of members, our democracy may not survive. Our democracy could die as Germany’s did in 1932. In the election of that year, the Nazi Party received more than 11 million votes, but the SA, its paramilitary wing (the brownshirts), had only 400,000 members at that time, and a few years earlier, it had been far smaller.)

The effects of the nationalization of the violent groups have already appeared in threats to the lives of election officials and elected politicians, and I fear that the movement will become more violent and more extreme. The threat of violence is already being used to maintain Trump’s control of the Republican Party and to keep Republican politicians in line. The effect may well be that even if the forms of our democratic institutions survive, they will cease to function. If the radical right denies the legitimacy of Mr. Biden’s government, it may well become impossible for Republican legislators to engage in bipartisan work with Democrats, and our national government will be immobilized. We will be unable to take action against any of the serious, national problems that we face.

We must stand firm against the destruction of our democracy by the radical right and its armed gangsters.

Reducing Racial Inequity in the United States By Making Everyone’s Life Better

 We Must Reduce Racial Inequity in the Distribution of Wealth

Reducing the racial inequity in the distribution of wealth in the United States is an important task. Black people have on average a tiny fraction of the wealth and income of white people, and the difference is due largely to racist policies the history of which is exhaustively detailed by Darity and Mullen[i].  Black people today inherit less than white people do on average, and they have a harder time accumulating wealth during their lives because they are paid less on average than white people at every occupational level. This problem will not solve itself anytime soon. Some kind of action is needed.

Reducing Inequity Through Reparations

We cannot undo the racist policies of the past, but we can reduce their effects in the present by adopting policies designed to make it easier for black people to accumulate wealth. Among those policies are reparations. Reparations are cash payments or services that would be provided for black people as a way of making the wealth accumulation playing field more level in our country.  Reparations would be paid for by the federal government out of tax revenue, and a detailed and reasonable proposal for reparations has been laid out by Darity and Mullen.[ii]

Alternatives to Reparations

The moral case for reparations is unassailable, but politically, the idea has one great weakness, which is that it ignores class differences and consequently leads to the false idea that in order for black people to prosper, white people as a group must give something up.   Talking in terms of reparations leads people to think that in order to level the playing field, all white people must suffer, and of course, that generates opposition. Many white people say, “We didn’t own slaves; we didn’t redline black neighborhoods; we didn’t lynch people or terrorize them. Why should we pay?”

We can approach this problem in a different way if we remember that we live in a time of enormous inequality.  We live in a time in which the wealth gap between the richest white people and the poorest is at least as great as the gap between the median white person and the median black person. Most of the wealth of our society is owned by a small, upper class. In such a society, a graduated, progressive income tax system can guarantee that most of the money to pay for reducing the inequity in the distribution of wealth would come from people who now have substantial wealth and substantial incomes. Most white people would not suffer. In fact, they would benefit.

We can design policies that will have the effect of reducing racial inequity while also reducing class inequity. If we focus on increasing the fairness of our society generally, we will inevitably reduce the gap between black and white people because black people, being overrepresented among the poor and the working class in this country, will benefit disproportionately.

Focusing on fairness in our society in this way meets Ibram Kendi’s definition of an antiracist policy. In his book entitled, How to be an Antiracist[iii], Kendi defines a racist policy as “any measure that produces or sustains racial inequity between racial groups,” and he defines an antiracist policy as “any measure that produces or sustains racial equity between racial groups.”[iv]

What then can we do to reduce unfairness in our society and thereby reduce the inequity between black and white people in the distribution of wealth?  A number of things have been proposed, and here are a few of them.

Create Public Trust Funds for All Children

William Darity and his colleagues have proposed that a publicly funded trust fund would be set up for each child that is born in the United States, and the amount in the fund would vary from $500 for children from well-to-do families to $50,000 for children from poor families. Trust funds of this kind would be especially beneficial for black children because black families have on average only about 10% of the wealth that white families have, but the funds would also benefit poor, white children.

Raise the Federal Minimum Wage to $15 or More

An article published by the Economic Policy Institute shows that raising the minimum wage would have a strong effect on the incomes of black workers, and that would increase their ability to save and build wealth. Black workers are overrepresented in minimum wage jobs, and in addition, black people are concentrated in states that have very low minimum wages. So, an increase in the minimum wage would help to reduce the wealth gap between black and white people.

Provide Publicly Supported, Affordable Child Care

The lack of affordable child care is one of our country’s largest barriers to economic equity. Affordable child care would make it possible for many women to go to work or to go to school to improve their skills and thereby increase their incomes. Affordable child care would also make it possible for working women to raise their living standards and to save money thereby increasing their wealth. Thus, affordable child care would benefit working class families of all races, but because black people are more likely than white people to be poor, black people would benefit disproportionately, and the gap between them and white people would be reduced.

Let’s Make Everyone’s Life Better

This article has described a few of the alternatives to reparations for reducing racial inequity in the distribution of wealth in the United States. They are not the only alternatives. Others might include creating a decent, national health care system, providing a reasonable supply of affordable housing or providing a guaranteed, annual income. All of these proposals have the advantage of providing an alternative to the narrative that says that any effort to improve the lot of black people must inevitably worsen the lot of white people.

We can make everyone’s life better!

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[i] William A. Darity and A. Kirsten Mullen, From Here to Equality, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 2020

[ii] Darity and Mullen, pp. 256-70.

[iii] Ibram Kendi, How to be an Antiracist, One World, New York, 2019.

[iv] Kendi, p. 18.

Woke and Conservative

 Being Woke and Conservative

How can people be “woke” and conservative?  They do it by treating racism as a personal, psychological problem rather than as a social issue. They think that the first order of business is to overcome the racism in their hearts, and this belief conveniently absolves them from a need to do anything that will really make life better for black people.

We can see this attitude in a recent article called “As A POC, I Thought I Couldn’t Possibly Be Racist (And I Was Wrong)” . Its author says,

It’s about completely upending and rewriting everything you thought you knew about how the world works — and it is terrifying. It is scary and makes you question if you ever deserved anything you worked so hard to earn. It feels as if it’s a personal attack because haven’t you also experienced prejudice — and if you’re a non-Black person of color — racism?

It’s paralyzing because you realize you are complicit.

Later, the author adds,

As a non-Black person of color, it also means examining both how we are and have been complicit in perpetuating anti-Blackness — and how anti-Blackness ultimately harms us and as Scot Nagawa wrote, is the fulcrum of white supremacy. It means dismantling a lot of cultural trauma of how we, too, are both oppressed and oppressor — as colonized and colonizer.

It looks like changing the people you follow on social media, changing the kinds of narratives and stories you read or watch, changing the artists and music you consume. It looks like quashing that very human response of discomfort and dis-ease. It looks like listening and not rushing to erase the myriad experiences of Black people — who are not a monolith.

Personal Growth Rather than Political Action

What is described here is a process of personal growth. There is nothing here about doing anything that would actually reduce the gap in wealth and well-being between black people and white people in our country. There is nothing here about providing adequate health care to black people. There is nothing about registering black people to vote. There is nothing about making sure that people who work in occupations dominated by black women are paid adequately. The reader is not even exhorted to protest against the murder of black people by the police!

What is described here is profoundly conservative because it does not demand that we confront the injustices of our society. Instead, it demands only that we purge our hearts of “anti-blackness.” It treats the fight against racism as a process of self-improvement rather than a process of social and political change that requires confrontation and conflict.

Black People See the Irony

Many black people are aware of the irony in this approach. An article entitled “When Black People are in Pain, White People Just Join Book Clubs” says,

… when things get real — really murderous, really tragic, really violent or aggressive — my white, liberal, educated friends already know what to do. What they do is read. And talk about their reading. What they do is listen. And talk about how they listened.

… white people tend to take a slow route to meaningful activism, locked in familiar patterns, seemingly uninterested in really advancing progress. Theirs is still a world of signs and signaling, where actions like joining book clubs — often based in some “meaningfully curated” readings [like] “White Fragility,” “How to Be an Anti-Racist,” “Between the World and Me,” maybe even “All About Love” — take precedence.

 

But those actions are fraught: Book clubs, for instance, are comfortable gatherings of friends who are unlikely to nudge one another to the places of discomfort that these books, at their best, demand. Who wants to damage a relationship over something as abstract and removed as racism? Learning about new perspectives and the ideas underlying them is great; wanting to discuss them among friends in safe spaces is understandable. But outside the window are people marching to the beat of a different drum.

Let’s Get to Work!

We have real problems of racial inequity in our society, and solving them should not have to wait until I and other people who are not black have purified our hearts or finished deepening our understanding. With all our inherited imperfections, we have to get to work on those problems right now. The solutions to many of them are political. They demand action and confrontation.

What can be done to get the police to stop shooting black people? What can be done to reduce the wealth and income gaps between black and white people? The answers don’t depend on the purity of my heart or the depth of my understanding. They depend on political action.

Focusing on personal growth rather than political action is easy. It is comfortable. It does not demand that we annoy our neighbors or upset our relatives, but it is ultimately a dead end. It does not solve the problems of our society or make it a more just and equitable place.

Let’s get to work!

What Should We Expect From Amy Coney Barrett?

 It now seems clear that Amy Coney Barrett will be nominated by Pres. Trump and confirmed by the Senate as a Supreme Court Justice. She has been widely hailed by evangelical Christians and other conservatives as an ideal candidate, and she has been equally widely condemned by liberals as “religious nut” who will vote to roll back decades of progress in civil rights and in health care, especially health care for women. What can we expect from her?

Abortion

Ms. Barrett is a devout Catholic, and as such, she believes that life begins at conception and that abortion is always immoral. She has said that she does not think that Roe v. Wade will be overturned but that restrictions will be enacted, especially on late-term abortions. She also believes that requiring employers to cover birth control or abortion in health care policies they provide for their employees is an infringement on the employers’ religious freedom. So, we can be confident that she will vote to restrict access to abortions as much as she can.

Health Care

On the broader question of health care, she follows her mentor Justice Scalia in believing that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional. She believes that the Supreme Court decisions that found the ACA to be constitutional did so only by stretching and distorting the language of the statute beyond its plausible meaning in order to save the statute. So, she will probably find the ACA unconstitutional if she has an opportunity to do so.

I suspect, however, that the result of overturning the Affordable Care Act will not be what conservatives would like to see. Support for some kind of national health insurance program is widespread in the United States, and if the ACA is overturned, we have a fine alternative waiting in the wings: Medicare for All.  Medicare is a successful program that has been in operation for more than half a century. Its constitutionality is firmly established.  All we would have to do would be to broaden it to cover all of us instead of only those over sixty-five. We would of course have to raise the taxes that would support the program, but people who are now paying a substantial part of their incomes for private health insurance would probably come out ahead financially, and companies would no longer have to provide health insurance to their employees. So, we can expect that if the ACA is overturned, a serious effort to enact Medicare for All will follow.

Social Justice

What would Barrett’s positions be on broader questions of social justice? We do not really know, and she may vote very conservatively on such issues. However, as a devout Catholic, she may support the Church’s strong teachings on social justice. She has in fact written on this issue in connection with the Church’s opposition to the death penalty. She believes that a Catholic judge should recuse him-/herself in death penalty cases. Her strongest statement on social justice may come from the commencement address she gave at Notre Dame, where she is on the faculty. She said there that Notre Dame as a Catholic institution aspires to produce a “different kind of lawyer,” and she asked the students to think about what that might mean. She answered her question by saying,

I’m just going to identify one way in which I hope that you, as graduates of Notre Dame, will fulfill the promise of being a different kind of lawyer. And that is this: that you will always keep in mind that your legal career is but a means to an end, and as Father Jenkins told you this morning, that end is building the kingdom of God.

This statement is ambiguous. What does it mean to “build the kingdom of God?” A non-Catholic might fear plausibly that it means that Notre Dame’s graduates should promote the power of the Catholic Church in the United States. A non-Christian might fear plausibly that it means that Christianity should be promoted as an “established religion,” and that Christian teachings should have official status in the United States.

However, a devout Christian might believe that we work to build the kingdom of God by promoting the values of justice, mercy and love that Jesus and the Hebrew prophets so eloquently expressed. I belong to an organization called ESTHER-Fox Valley, and many of its members – including a number of Catholics –   are motivated by precisely this idea. Amy Barrett is a devout Christian. I do not know what she thinks, but apparently, I will have plenty of opportunity to find out. I hope that she takes seriously the social teachings of the church to which she belongs.

Tweet America Great Again?

 All Talk, No Action

Our president doesn’t believe in policy or action. He believes in tweeting and promising. The hallmark of his presidency is that he talks a lot but does very little. This is not an accident, and the reason for it is that his role is to be a front for the business Republicans. They support him because he provides camouflage for the real policies of the Republican Party, which are low taxes and reduced regulation, especially environmental regulation. 

Camouflage for Republican Policies

The Republican Party needs the camouflage that Trump provides because low taxes and reduced regulation are not terribly popular among the regular Americans who vote in presidential elections. So, the party has had to find issues that can motivate voters to support Republican candidates. Law-and-order, fear of foreigners, and abortion have served the party well by drawing millions of voters into the Republican fold.

Whip Up People but Don’t Solve Problems

These issues have attracted voters to the Republican Party, but it has had to use the issues carefully because they can continue to motivate voters only as long as they are not resolved. If we had no unrest in our cities, there would be no law-and-order issue. If we actually excluded foreigners, fear of foreigners would cease to be a motivator. If abortion became illegal, it would no longer motivate voters to vote Republican. So, the Republican strategy has been to whip up voters’ concerns about these issues but not to do anything to resolve them, and Mr. Trump has been a perfect president for this purpose. He tweets; he puffs up his chest; he blames the Democrats; but he is careful not to propose solutions.

We can see this strategy in action in Trump’s response to the current disorder in our cities. He tweets continually. He and his supporters give apocalyptic speeches in which they predict that if Democrats are elected, no one will be safe in our country. He finds photo opportunities at scenes of disorder. He praises as patriots the white people who parade with guns. What he doesn’t do is offer solutions.  He doesn’t do anything to reduce the disorder.

He doesn’t offer solutions because he doesn’t want solutions. He wants to use the issue of law-and-order to get people to vote for him, and as Kellyanne Conway said, “The more chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence reigns, the better it is for the very clear choice on who’s best on public safety and law and order.”

If You Want Change, Vote For Change

If Trump is elected again in November, nothing will change. The disorder will continue, and Trump will continue to tweet. If you want change, vote for change! Vote for Joe Biden in November.

This Week's Funniest Joke

The Funniest Joke 

This week’s funniest joke was told at the Republican National Convention. Mike Pence – who is not generally known as a comedian – told us that only Mr. Trump could save us from the wave of violence that would be brought on by the election of Joe Biden as president. With a straight face, Pence told us that we had to elect Trump as our president if we wanted to be safe from the violence and disorder that a Democratic administration would bring on. What a laugh!

The thing is that Mr. Trump is our president now. The disorder and violence that Pence wants us to fear are happening right now on Mr. Trump’s watch, and we can see that he has no idea what to do about it. He talks about how wonderful the police are, and he ignores the fact that a black man in Kenosha was shot in the back seven times. (In the back seven times! Let that sink in.)  Mr. Trump pretends that the deaths of people like George Floyd or Breonna Taylor are collateral damage in a “war” to save our “way of life.” He stirs up people’s fears, inflates his chest, sticks out his chin and “promises” that he will not allow “radicals and anarchists” to endanger our country, but his claims are a joke because he is our president now, and he doesn’t know what to do.

Two Ways to Maintain an Orderly Society

The simple truth is that there are only two ways maintain an orderly society. One is to provide what our Pledge of Allegiance calls “liberty and justice for all,” and the other is to use violent repression of dissent. When we provide liberty and justice for all, we don’t have to worry about civil disorder because no one wants to disrupt a fair and just system. If we don’t provide liberty and justice for all, we can insure social tranquility only by repressing dissent. Stalin and Hitler are the models for that. They had orderly societies, but their peoples paid a dreadful cost. (If you want to know more about this alternative, you can read about the Sicherheitsdienst.)  

If we want to have a just and fair society without resorting to violent repression of dissent, we have to provide “liberty and justice for all.” We cannot have one system of justice for white people and another for black people. We have to work to realize the promise on which our country was founded. We don’t have to achieve perfection all at once. People are patient, and if they can see that we are moving toward a more just and fair society, they will wait. If they can see that their children’s lives will be better than their own lives, they will be patient.

Mr. Trump Has No Idea What to Do

Mr. Trump has shown clearly that he doesn’t understand any of that. If we want to know how Mr. Trump would deal with our country’s disorder and violence, all we have to do is look around. We don’t have to hope that if he were president, he would know what to do. He is president now, and it is obvious that he has no idea what to do. So, Mr. Pence’s claim is a joke, or perhaps it is the punch line to a joke that has been going on since 2017.

To Get Change, Vote for Change

If we elect Mr. Trump on November 3, we can be sure that nothing will change. He will be the same clueless blowhard after the election that he is now. He doesn’t know what to do now, and he won’t know then.

So, wake up! If you want change, vote for change.  Elect Joe Biden!  

Is this all a Coincidence?

 Republicans Campaign on Law and Order

Something is happening in this country. I don’t understand it, but it worries me.  The Republican Convention has just nominated as its candidate for president a well-known fake populist and would-be fascist who is running on a platform of law-and-order. He is trying to scare us into believing that we will be safe only if we elect him to protect us from radicals, communists and dangerous foreigners.  

Violence Springs Up Conveniently

At the same time, very conveniently for him, we have violence and disorder in the streets in widely separated cities in the United States. In Portland, Oregon, peaceful protests and violent ones have been going on for months. In Minneapolis, Minnesota, we have a neighborhood where public services of many kinds have been suspended because the police won’t go into the area. A bus staffed by volunteers is providing emergency health care, and volunteers from local gangs are patrolling the neighborhood to keep the peace. Meanwhile, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the shooting of yet another Black man by the police has been followed by several nights of violent protests.

This Situation Benefits Only the Far Right

From a radical leftist’s point of view, none of these situations serves any useful purpose.  This is not Russia in 1917. No one expects violent protests in Portland or Kenosha to grow into a revolution in which the national government will be overthrown.

These protests are just as useless from an American progressive’s point of view. No one expects that torching stores in Kenosha or attacking a police station in Portland will hasten the day when we have affordable health care for all, free post-secondary education, a green new deal or plenty of affordable housing.

In fact, the only beneficiary of this situation is the well-known fake populist and would-be fascist who is running for president. The disorder that we are seeing lends  “credibility to [his] otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.” It makes it easier for people to believe him when he tells us that we need to elect him in order to be safe.

What is Going On?

Is this all a coincidence? Did violence break out in Kenosha by chance just at the right moment to give support to the Republican candidate?  Is it likely that violence in Portland has been sustained for months without some kind of outside support or encouragement? Should we believe that the police have spontaneously on their own refused for months to carry out their duties in Minneapolis? Is it likely that all of these things are happening concurrently by chance, or is something more sinister going on? Is violence being promoted by far-right groups in order to give the Republican candidate a chance to be elected?

I wish I knew the answer.

Vote for Joe Biden to Save the World Order

 A Foreign Policy Emergency

We need to elect Joe Biden as president in November in order to save the world order that includes the United Nations, the World Trade Organization and the World Health Organization. That world order has haltingly and imperfectly helped us to avoid destroying our entire civilization in war as we came close to doing in the first half of the Twentieth Century. Not much was said about foreign policy during the Democratic Convention that ended last night, and that is unfortunate because we have a foreign policy emergency that is just is serious as the domestic emergencies that Biden, Obama, Harris and others spoke about during the convention.

We Almost Destroyed Our World

President Trump is trying to take us back to the world order that led to the First and Second World Wars. His “America first” foreign policy is intended to free us from the constraints of international cooperation and international organizations. He wants to take us back to the Nineteenth Century world of national autonomy and bilateral treaties. To our eternal sorrow, we know how that world ended. In 1914, it exploded in a war in which more than 16 million people died, and the major European nations were all effectively bankrupted.

At the end of that war, an attempt was made to create a better international order, but the attempt failed in part because the United States failed to support it. After a twenty-year truce, hostilities resumed with greatly improved military technology. In World War Two, more 60 million people died; many of the world’s cities were reduced to rubble; and the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

We Created International Institutions

When World War Two ended in 1945, the world’s leaders looked at each other in horror, and they said to themselves, “We can never do that again.” Under the leadership of the United States, they created today’s world order with the United Nations at its center. That world order is far from perfect. It did not prevent the Korean War, the Vietnam War or the current, seemingly endless conflicts in the Middle East, but that order is all that stands between us and the destruction of our world. We should not abandon our international institutions because of their weakness. We should improve and strengthen them, and if we do, we may someday have a world in which peace and not war is the norm. We cannot go back to the world of 1914 because we know how it ended.

Biden Supports Our International Institutions

Joe Biden will restore American support for the international institutions that preserve our world.  Biden is no one’s idea of a “peace candidate.” In 2002, he voted to authorize President Bush to use military action in Iraq, but Biden understands why the United States must support the international institutions of today’s world order. He will restore America’s leadership in that order.

It is no exaggeration to say that a vote for Joe Biden is a vote to save the world. So, in November, vote as if our lives depended on because they do.

Language, Respect and Humanity

Words Matter

Half a century ago, the women’s movement taught us that words can express respect or disrespect and that it was important to use words that expressed respect. Women insisted that they should be referred to as “women,” and not as “girls,” or “chicks.” Moreover, women showed us that the use of disrespectful and degrading language not only signals disrespect, it leads to disrespect. Using words like “girls” to refer to grown women leads us to think of them as childlike, although in truth, they are not. A word like “lady” may also be problematic because it situates a woman in a hierarchical relationship with men. A woman is a “lady” in relation to a “gentleman” who does things like opening doors for her because she is weak and needs protection.

Women also taught us to avoid the “generic masculine” pronouns in speech and writing because the idea that women in a group should be subsumed under masculine pronouns was degrading to women. Our use of language has changed because of what we have learned from women, and our actual treatment of women is slowly catching up with our linguistic usage.

Men Can Also Be Degraded

The lesson that we have learned from women may be applied in other areas where degrading language is still used. One of those is the use of “male” in place of “man” or “boy.” This usage grew out of American racism. Not long ago, black men were routinely addressed and referred to as “boys” in ordinary conversation and in official settings like police reports. Black people objected to this usage, but the police were reluctant to call black men “men” and in addition, they didn’t know what to do when they arrested or pursued a young black person who was indeed a boy and not a man. At what age did it become obligatory to call a black person a “man?” They solved the problem by replacing both “man” and “boy” with the term “male,” and once they started using “male,” they broadened its usage to include white men and boys as well. The use of “male” gradually spread from police reports to other official settings, and from there it passed into popular usage.

This is unfortunate because this use of “male” is dehumanizing. A man is person, a member of society. A man has rights and obligations. A man is worthy of respect or condemnation. A boy is a human child. He has a right to be protected and cared for. Men and boys stand in relationships to their parents, their siblings, their friends, their employers and their fellow citizens. And of course, they stand in relationships to women, who are entitled to demand respect and equal treatment from men.

In contrast, a male is simply a masculine member of a certain species. We speak of male animals, but we don’t ordinarily speak of “male humans.” A male has neither rights nor obligations. A male is not a person.

Let us Not Use Degrading Language

You might object and say, “Don’t be absurd. A man does not lose his status as a human being merely because we call him a ‘male,’” but we learned from women that the way we talk about people matters. Women rightly insisted that getting rid of the generic masculine mattered. They rightly demanded not to be called “girls.” They taught us that respectful and equal treatment required the use of respectful and egalitarian language.  Calling men and boys “males” robs them of their humanity. Let us not do that. Let us use language in respectful ways for all members of our society.

Mass Incarceration and the Racial Wealth and Income Gaps

Broad-Based Policies to Reduce the Racial Wealth and Income Gaps

I recently published a piece in this blog in which I suggested that the income and wealth gaps between Black and White people could be reduced by policies that provided non-cash income to a broad swath of our population. Specifically, I mentioned a tax-supported, national health insurance program, free post-secondary education and changes in housing policy to encourage the development of affordable housing.

My argument was that such policies would do two things. First, they would reduce the importance of the income gap directly by providing people with non-cash income in the form of services. Second, such policies would reduce the financial burdens that poor and working-class Americans bear and thus make it easier for them to build wealth. Since Black people are more likely than White people to be poor or working class, Black people would on average benefit more than White people, and the wealth gap would be reduced.

The Importance of Mass Incarceration

In response to my blog piece, a colleague sent me an email in which he said,

Fair housing, universal healthcare, and equal hiring practices are great initiatives that we should work on. Mass incarceration and the after effects of having a prison record can unfortunately undermine some of these worthy initiatives. Tough to get a job, get a student loan, acquire housing if you have been incarcerated. Mass incarceration is systemic racism disguised as "law and order.”

My colleague is obviously correct. Mass incarceration inflicts grievous damage on Black people in our country. Using current incarceration rates, studies have shown that approximately, one-third of Black men will probably be imprisoned at some time in their lives.  How many imprisoned people would that be? Well, there are about 47 million Black people in our country, which means that there are approximately 23.5 million Black men, and if one-third of them go to prison at some time in their lives, about 7.8 million people will be imprisoned.

That is a big number, but it does not include all of the people affected by mass incarceration. Some of those men will have families. They will have wives (partners?) and children. Let us assume that half of the imprisoned men have families with two children.  That would give us 3.9 million families and 11.7 million wives and children in those families. Adding in the men themselves, we get a total of 19.5 million people or about 42% of the Black population of the United States whose economic prospects are damaged by the policy of mass incarceration. We cannot rely very heavily on these numbers because our assumptions may not be exactly correct, but the general point is clear: a very large share of the Black population of this country will have its economic prospects damaged by our practice of mass incarceration.

Broad-based Policies Can Still Help

Such people might still be helped by the policies that I proposed. If the families of incarcerated men had tax-supported health care and affordable housing, the economic damage inflicted by mass incarceration would be reduced, and if a child of an incarcerated man had access to free post-secondary education, he or she would be more likely to overcome the barriers imposed by the poverty that was caused in part by mass incarceration.

We Must Also Eliminate Mass Incarceration

Nevertheless, my colleague is correct. The effect of my proposals would be reduced for such people because their poverty would make it much harder for them to accumulate wealth. Their poverty would be alleviated, but it would not be eliminated. Thus, we can conclude that a broad attack on the income and wealth gaps between the races should include both the kinds of policies that I have recommended and the elimination or reduction of mass incarceration.

Dealing With our Racial Wealth and Income Gaps

There are many things we can do to reduce the inequity created by the income and wealth gaps between Black and White people in the United States. We should not wait.

Racial Wealth and Income Gaps are Real

The enormous differences in wealth and income between White and Black people in our country have been well documented. White households earn more than twice as much as Black households on average and have nearly 10 times as much wealth. These gaps are due partly to past racism and partly to present racism.

Past racism is important because it affects the ability of Black families to pass on wealth to their children.  For example, the Federal Housing Authority underwrote an enormous expansion of home ownership in our country after World War II, but the practice of redlining effectively prevented most Black people from buying houses under this program. Today, as a result, far fewer Black families than White families are able to pass on wealth in the form of a family home.

Present racism is also important because it affects hiring practices: it is harder for Black people to get jobs than it is for White people. Present racism also affects wages. Black people are paid less than White people in similar jobs.

Reducing the Gaps and Their Effects

It is going to take a long time to eliminate these wealth and income gaps, but we can immediately reduce their importance by enacting policies that provide non-monetary income for all of our people.

For example, health care costs account for about 35% of poor Americans’ pre-tax income, but only about 3.5% of rich Americans’ pre-tax income. So, a decent, tax-supported, national healthcare system would immediately reduce the importance of the income gap considerably. Such a program would also reduce the size of the barrier to wealth accumulation by Black people.

Free post-secondary education provides another example. Educational debts are well-known to be a heavy burden for young Americans, and the burden is heavier for Black Americans. That burden makes it harder for Black people to accumulate wealth, to form families or to buy houses. If the burden were eliminated, the wage gap between Black and White workers would remain, but it would be less of a barrier to wealth formation for Black people. Over time, the gap would gradually be reduced as black people accumulated more wealth.

American housing policies are well-known to increase the cost and reduce the supply of housing for all Americans. Naturally, the high cost of housing affects Black people disproportionately because on average, they are poorer than White people. Changes in zoning laws and tax policies to encourage the development of affordable housing would go a long way toward improving the condition of many Black people in the United States. Some would be able to buy houses, while others would find that rent took a smaller share of their incomes. As a result, Black people would become better able to accumulate wealth, and the gap between them and White people would be reduced.

Let’s Not Wait

Policies like these would go a long way toward reducing the inequities that have resulted from racism in our country, and we do not have to wait for the elimination of racism in order to enact them. We should of course strive to reduce American racism because racism and its effects have always made a mockery of our claim to provide liberty and justice for all. However, eliminating racism will be a long fight, and we can do things to make people’s lives better without waiting for victory in that fight. Let’s get started now!

White Fragility and American Popular Protestantism

Racism as a Private Sin

Recently, the book White Fragility has taken our country by storm. “Woke” progressives have read it and explored its meaning in depth. Many have found that its message resonates deeply with them. I think that one reason why the book has been so successful is that it fits well with one of the strongest strands of our culture – that of popular, American, Protestant religiosity. Like American, popular Protestantism, White Fragility is deeply conservative in its political implications.

Protestant Christianity generally focuses on salvation from sin through faith in Jesus Christ, but what is sin?  We can divide sins into two categories. There are public sins like oppression of the poor or corruption in public business, and there are private sins like fornication, gambling or drinking. American Protestantism has recognized both, but popular Protestant religiosity has focused much more on private sin than on public sin. Those like the 19^th century abolitionists who have insisted on social justice have faced widespread opposition from religious groups. 

The focus on private sin encourages individuals to work for personal development, self-understanding, psychological growth and repentance rather than to engage in social action, and White Fragility fits neatly into this tradition. Just as Protestantism insists that sin is the inescapable condition of mankind, so White Fragility insists that racism is the inescapable condition of our society. Just as Protestantism says that we should look into our hearts, find the sin there and turn away from it, so, White Fragility says that we should look into our hearts, find the racism there and turn away from it. In both cases, “salvation” comes from personal improvement, not from social action. Thus, the message of White Fragility fits well into the conservative religious tradition of one of the main streams of American culture. In that tradition, we achieve “salvation” by seeking virtue in our private lives. We do not have to confront the evils of our society.

White Fragility and Social Action

Readers of White Fragility may be social activists, but the book does not lead them in that direction. They may oppose the systemic racism of our society by fighting against discrimination in housing, in hiring or in education, and they can protest against police brutality. However, the decision to engage in that kind of public fight for social justice must come from outside of the book. The closest that White Fragility comes to promoting social action is its recommendation that we should be bold enough to object when we hear people make racist remarks or tell racist jokes. We should not allow such remarks to pass unchallenged. We should recognize and call out the sin of racism in ourselves and in our friends and associates. White Fragility asks us to do what we can to free ourselves and those around us from the sin of racism, but the book does not ask us to engage in a public fight for social justice.

This approach seems very natural and understandable to us because it fits well within our religious tradition. It allows us to think of racism as a private sin from which we should free ourselves as much as we can. We will never free ourselves from it completely, but we can begin our Pilgrim’s Progress.

Racism is a Public Sin

Treating racism in this way is profoundly conservative in its political implications. Such an approach does not directly challenge any institutional practice because it allows self-improvement to take the place of social action. The focus on self-improvement is very attractive to most of us because it is much less risky and requires much less time than social action. However, it is ultimately a dead end because it does not lead to social change. We cannot allow ourselves to be seduced by the attractiveness of self-improvement. We must remember that racism is not primarily a private sin. It is public, and it must be fought in the public realm.

Freedom and Masks

A Struggle Over Freedom in Our Country

Today, in our country, a struggle is going on between those who believe that we should require people to wear masks in public to slow the spread of the coronavirus and those who believe that the requirement to wear masks is an infringement on individual freedom. In this struggle, the two groups talk past each other. Neither side understands what the other is saying. To those who favor requiring people to wear masks, the advantages of doing so are obvious, and the opposing argument seems stupid or insane. Those who oppose the requirement cannot understand how anyone could favor such an intrusion on a free person’s right to live as he/she chooses.

Freedom Has Two Meanings

To see what is at stake here, we need to dig more deeply into the idea of freedom. “Freedom” has two, different meanings.  Sometimes, we use “freedom” to mean “freedom from authority.”  I am free in this sense if I may do what I choose without restraint from rules or bosses. Freedom in this sense is equivalent to autonomy.


A second meaning of freedom refers to capability. I have this sort of freedom if I can really do what I want to do.  To understand what this means, consider President Roosevelt’s famous “four freedoms.” The first two (freedom of speech and freedom of religion) clearly refer to freedom in the sense of autonomy, but the second two (freedom from want and freedom from fear) are different. If I am to be free from want, I must not only be autonomous, I must also have at my disposal the means of procuring sufficient food, clothing, shelter and so forth. Freedom in this sense includes capability.

We Must Sometimes Choose

Sometimes, the two kinds of freedom conflict, and we have to choose between them. Sometimes, increasing our capability requires us to act together as a group, and in order to act effectively, we must submit to the authority of the group. We must give up some autonomy in order to enjoy an increase in our capability. The most extreme example of this is the military. In the movie, A Few Good Men, there is a scene in which Col. Jessup is asked whether marines always follow orders, and he answers, “We follow orders, son. We follow orders, or people die. It’s that simple.”


Less extreme examples are all around us. For example, those of us who live in cities give up the right to use septic tanks because the city sewage system makes us capable of avoiding water-borne diseases like cholera, typhoid and dysentery. The key idea is that we give up autonomy in order to acquire capability. We submit to the authority of the group because we get something in return. Otherwise, the group’s assertion of power over us would be tyranny, and finding the right balance between autonomy and capability is and has always been at the heart of American politics.

The Second Meaning of Freedom Has Been Lost in Our Political Discussion

Unfortunately, the discussion of freedom in the United States has come to be dominated entirely by the first meaning of freedom.  In this discussion, the question of freedom has come to be always and only a question of autonomy.  Capability has been excluded completely by the way that the discussion of freedom is framed. We can see this not only in politics but also in popular culture. George Strait’s song, “Amarillo by Morning” gives us an example. It is about a rodeo cowboy who is on his was to Amarillo to complete in a rodeo. The cowboy says,

Amarillo by morning, up from San Antone
Everything that I've got, is just what I've got on
I ain't got a dime, but what I got is mine
I ain't rich, but Lord I'm free
Amarillo by morning, Amarillo's where I'll be
Amarillo by morning, Amarillo's where I'll be

The cowboy loves his autonomy, and he believes it makes him free. This framing favors the political right because it can always be used to oppose any government policy that infringes on the autonomy of individuals. We have seen this framing used in the debate over the requirement for every individual to have health insurance, and we on the left have been unable to respond effectively because we have failed to make capability an important part of the discussion of freedom. 

Masks and Freedom

This brings us back to the issue of masks. Requiring people to wear masks does infringe on their autonomy but it increases all of our capability. By submitting to the authority of the group, we increase our freedom from disease, and since, the disease in question can kill us, the trade-off seems reasonable.  If we are to have sensible, political discussions in our country, we must reframe the discussion of freedom. We cannot allow the idea of freedom to be limited to autonomy. We must insist that the meaning of freedom is broader than that. We must insist that for us to be truly free, we must be capable as well as autonomous.

Choose Life!

The Party of Death

For some time, it has been clear that the Republican Party is a party of death.

In the debate over environmental pollution, Republicans have consistently opposed cleaning up our environment, and they have also consistently opposed regulations to prevent further pollution, although we know that many Americans die every year from illnesses that are caused by pollution. Republicans have favored those deaths.

In the debate over climate change, Republicans have consistently opposed action to mitigate climate change although we know that many people will die from disease, war and starvation that are caused by our changing climate, and we know that many Americans will die in wars that are caused ultimately by climate change. Republicans have favored those deaths.

In the debate over abortion rights, Republicans have for many years opposed a woman’s right to choose, and they have claimed to support a “right to life.” They conveniently forget that one of the main reasons for making abortion legal was that thousands of women had died from illegal abortions performed under unsanitary conditions by unqualified practitioners. The debate over a woman’s right to choose is really a debate over a woman’s right not to be killed, and in that debate, Republicans have chosen to deny her that right.

In the debate over national health care, Republicans have consistently opposed any kind national health care system, although we know that many Americans die every year because they lack health insurance. Republicans have favored those deaths.

In short, Republicans have consistently preferred to let people die rather than act to save their lives. They have done so because some of their wealthy campaign donors might lose money if action was taken to save lives.

This week, in Wisconsin, the Republicans showed their preference for death even more blatantly. They opposed delaying the state’s spring election because they believed that the pandemic would depress voter turnout and that any reduction in turnout would favor Republican candidates. Wisconsin’s Republicans did this although they knew that going to polling places would expose people to the COVID-19 virus and would undoubtedly kill some people. Republicans were happy to kill people to secure an electoral advantage.

Yet again, the Republican Party showed itself to be the party of death.

The Party of Life

The Democratic Party, on the other hand, is the party of life. The party has supported cleaning up our environment to save lives; it has supported mitigating climate change to save people’s lives; it has supported a national health care system to save people’s lives; it has supported a woman’s right to choose in order to save women’s lives; and Democrats tried to delay Wisconsin’s spring election to save lives.

Choose Life

At the end of his life, (Deuteronomy 30:19), Moses told the Israelites, “I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Therefore, choose life that you may live.”

We cannot do better than to follow his advice. Choose life!

We Are All Partners, and We Have the Rights of Partners

What is the Traditional Social Responsibility of a Business Firm?

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted many questions of social justice. Some of them – like the question of who should receive federal aid while our economy is shut down - demand answers right away. Such questions will receive practical answers in the form of legislation. However, behind these immediate questions lie bigger questions about the responsibilities of business firms in a society where business firms cannot survive without periodic injections of public cash. How should business firms in a such a society behave? Should we demand that they behave in ways that promote social justice? In the light of the COVID-19 pandemic and of our government’s response to it, we must rethink all of our ideas about business firms and their relationship to us and to the rest our society as a whole.

The traditional view of business firms comes from the work of Adam Smith. In this view, they are private organizations that offer goods or services that people want to buy, and our relationship to them consists solely of transactions in which we buy the things that they sell to us. The firms are assumed to act purely in their own self-interest, but market competition ensures that their self-interested activity will redound to the benefit of all of us.[1]  They want to maximize their profit, but to do that, they have to attract us to buy from them. If their prices are too high or their products are of poor quality, we will not buy from them, and they will lose money. Thus, the “invisible hand” of the free market ensures that the firm that offers the best products at the market price will get our business.  Its competitors must either come up to the standard of the competition or fail. Each individual firm is small in relation to the size of the market as a whole, and so, can allow firms to fail because others will arise to take their places. The failure of an individual firm will not damage the economy as a whole, and social justice need not be a concern of a business firm, which acts in its own interest. As Milton Friedman, put it,

There is one and only one social responsibility of business–to use it resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.

The Traditional View of Firms is No Longer Sufficient

The traditional view of firms has never been an adequate description of the large firms that dominate their markets in a modern economy, and today, that view has become absurdly inadequate. Today, some firms have become so big and important that we cannot allow them to fail. The consequences for their employees, for the communities where the firms operate and for our society as a whole would be too severe. Consequently, we can no longer allow the invisible hand of the free market to do its job of disciplining business firms, and in fact, we do not allow it to do so. In 2008, we extended billions of dollars of assistance to large firms to prevent our economy from collapsing, and now, in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are about to do it again.

Moreover, the current crisis has shown us that we must also see small businesses as too big collectively to fail. Just as the failure of a large firm could bring down our economy, so, could the simultaneous failures of thousands of small businesses. We now live in a world where big events – like the current pandemic – can cause many small businesses to fail at once. Today in the United States, millions of small restaurants and other “main street” businesses may fail in the current crisis, and the effect on our economy would be disastrous. We can see what would happen in this story of one restaurant in New York. So, our most recent aid bill includes loan guarantees for small businesses as well as large ones.

We Are Now Partners in Every Firm

The need to provide public assistance to prevent many businesses from failing in the current crisis has in effect made all of us into partners in all of the firms in our country, and as such, we take responsibility for their survival. We did so in 2008, and we are doing it now. In fact, whenever companies in an important sector of our economy are in danger of failing, they come to us for an injection of cash to keep them afloat, and we oblige because we must.  In Adam Smith’s view of the firm, this could never happen because in that view, we would not care if a particular firm failed. Other firms would arise to take its place, and there would be no danger to the rest of us or to the economy as a whole. Therefore, we could allow the free market to impose its discipline.

In the current crisis, no one thinks that we should allow the failure of millions of businesses. We argue over how much help to give to them; we argue over which companies to help; we argue over the conditions under which aid should be given; and we disagree about whether it is better to provide money directly to companies or whether it is better to give money to workers, who will then spend it; but no one says that we should do nothing. No one believes that we should simply allow our hotel chains, our airlines or our small, local restaurants to go under. Too many people would lose their jobs; too many small suppliers to those companies would also fail. No one believes that the free market should be allowed to impose its discipline.

Twice in a single generation, we have seen some of our largest companies turn to us for injections of cash to prevent them from failing, and today, we see small companies doing the same. Moreover, we can be sure that events like the crash of 2008 or the COVID-19 pandemic will recur. We will get through the current crisis, but we can be confident that in a few years, some other major event will shake the economy, and our firms will again come to us hat in hand.

If firms depend on periodic, public assistance, we who provide that assistance – the people of the United States – are entitled to have a say in the ways that the firms are run. If we must act as partners, we have the right to tell the companies that we will help them only if they operate in ways that benefit us, and we are entitled to enact regulations to ensure that they do so. Such regulations must be considered a standard and unavoidable part of the economic system we live in because, in that system, firms cannot survive without public assistance.

What Should We Demand of Our Business Firms?

So, we must think seriously about how firms should operate. What does our commitment to social justice demand? What should we require of firms in our society? How should they behave? Here are a few of the things we should think about.  This is not a complete list, but it is a start.

1. We should think about climate change and our environment. Perhaps, we should not allow firms to operate in ways that put our planet at risk. Perhaps, firms should act positively to maintain and restore our environment.
2. We should think about the distribution of income. Perhaps, our firms should be required to operate in a way that provides an equitable distribution of income among our people.
3. We should think about our national interest. Perhaps, we should not allow our firms to operate in a way that is contrary to our national interest.
4. We should think about the distribution of the burden of taxation. How should the cost of government be apportioned among various sectors of our population?
5. We should think about racial justice. Perhaps, a country that has prospered by exploiting people of color should now require its companies to promote racial equity.
6. We should think about human rights. What things are human rights? What goods and services should be provided to all of our people, and what goods and services should be apportioned by the free market? For example, is health care a human right? Is housing?

We should begin a national conversation on these topics, and the conversation should be based on the idea presented here: firms cannot survive without public assistance, and therefore, we who provide the assistance are entitled to a say in the running of the firms. We must think about the requirements we want to place on them. What do social justice and our shared, common interest require?

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[1] Heilbroner, Robert, The Worldly Philosophers, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1961, p. 40