The Daily Voice Debate on Obama (Part II)

Interesting dialogue.

Addressing Prof. Tillery:

Obama addressed working class whites who harbor anger and resentment over having to bus their children across town, and being turned down for jobs because of affirmative action as legitimate gripes for them.

Even taking into consideration the things placed upon us by a racist country, me being hired over a more qualified white person can easily be interpreted (through white people's eyes) as unfair. The same goes for busing children across towns in efforts to integrate.

What I took from that segment of Obama's speech is that we should try to "understand" each others concerns and not simply "dismiss" them as you have done here; and as white people often do to us. The idea that you must understand me in order to me to understand you is the inauspicious start.
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There will always be people who seek to downplay race. I would not use the discussions of a minute number of pundits and reporters as evidence of a backlash or hinderance of racial progress in the US no more than I would the dialogue of black academissions critical of Obama's speech as evidence of black people being against Obama.
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What is it that we should be asking Obama for? More government programs? Much of our problems can be attributed to personal responsibility not what the government hasn't done for us. I would argue that Obama needs to do nothing other than be a great president who has the benefit of being a black man with a black conscience. He doesn't need to offer me anything. I believe that's the attraction that we've always had to the Democratic party and ultimately Hillary Clinton. The party and Clinton "offer" things to us.

Hence, your consideration of Hillary's response to the illegal immigration issue.

The question asked was, "How do you propose to address the high unemployment rates and the declining wages in the African-American community that are related to the flood of immigrant labor?"

His response was, "Before the latest round of immigrants showed up, you had huge unemployment rates among African-American youth.

And, so, I think to suggest somehow that the problem that we're seeing in inner-city unemployment, for example, is attributable to immigrants, I think, is a case of scapegoating that I do not believe in, I do not subscribe to. There are a whole host of reasons why we have not been generating the kinds of jobs that we are generating. We should not use immigration as a tactic to divide. Instead, we should pull the country together to get this economy back on track.
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I wholeheartedly agree with Obama's analysis and will go a bit further and say that illegal immigrants should not become the new "white man" for black people. Cosby's book addressed many of the simple things we can start that are separate from government involvement.

The fact that Hillary visits black communities where that concern is shared does not make her point any more valid. Illegals immigration suppresses wages. It does not make us stand on the corner, drop out of school, have babies, or get a rap sheet
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Wow...just, wow...Alvin Tillery makes some very great points...things to actually think about and focus on...points not meant, (IMO), to knock Obama, but to bring focus to certain fabric of U.S. society...I absolutely love this feature on the Daily Voice...I can't remember when I have heard a conversation that touches on the things that it does so openly, allowing me to gain perspective about things that usually are so dishonestly politized...please keep it up...

I support Obama.
This thread seems to suggest that 1)white concerns are trivial and black concerns are not. 2)Obama has somehow failed blacks by not being more militant.
If elected, his job would be to support ALL of us, not one demographic over the other. If the point is that he should not do that, or would not, or is sneaking into office to become a "black" president, then he should not win. The last president thought he only represented "his" people, and he is arguably the worst president in history.
Regarding "white privellege", many or most whites' families got here after the civil war. Most have poor ancestors.I do not say the grievences are equal, but that what people have suffered or feared is real to them. you can never get cooperation by saying "your concerns are trivial, but mine are real."
Don't believe me? Watch this: if not for the great potato famine, I'd have land and relatives in Ireland. No ancestor of mine had anything to do with slavery, that I know of. Think of the status of Irish imigrants, fleeing a famine that cost Ireland 2/3 of its population. No white American today ever participitated in slavery. Neither did a single living black.
In the colonies, there was never a time when the majority of whites supported slavery, but those who did had enough money to have enough power to doom the country in the absence of compromises designed to bring about the ultimate end of that crime against humanity.
In the slave holding states, the majority of those whites who endorsed slavery were not wealthy enough to own slaves. Even in the confederate states, the majority of whites did not own slaves.
These are estimates, but so are the numbers in the letters above.
So: did that story break your heart and make you see that my history is more tragic than yours? Of course not. Each of us is prone to nurse our own grudges and trivialize others'. It's not evil, it's human nature, but what is so wrong with a candidate who tries to understand ALL these points of view, and to show us each others' point of view?
You might feel that you lost that job because of color. You could well be right. Or maybe you really weren't the best candidate. I might feel I lost that job, which I needed for the same reasons as you, because of affirmative action. I could well be right. Or....
It's always going to be easier, and often true, to blame external, unfair phenomena than to blame our own shortcomings, but it's always going to be more empowering to say, "What part of this is my responsibility? What part under my control?
I like Obama, and plan to vote for him, but letters like those on this page suggest that fox "news" has a better read on him as a radical infiltrator than I do. If these letters were written by white supremecists, then they are working. If they were written by black racists, then you are shooting yourselves in the foot. If the goal is "Equality", then I suggest that you realize that EVERYONE thinks he has a legitiate case, and no progress will be made until we stop comparing grievences and work together for all of our good.
You deserve good schools, safe streets,jobs, medical clinics. Not as payback for a terrible crime that most whites had nothing to do with, but as human beings and as Americans.

Speaking of Obama's speeches, he gave another really cogent one on the economy today in New York City:

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/obamas-speech-on-the-economy/index.html?hp

C Brown, that's an interesting perspective you bring to the discussion.

However, no one mentioned anything about slavery. That was your introduction. African Americans experience problems that supercede slavery. We are currently living under the consequences of such actions.

Simply being born white has advantages. That's not blaming whites for anything. It's a recognition of a fact. You can't downplay by giving a historical analysis of Irish Americans. I don't think you have to worry about not hailing a cab because you are Irish.

To: Xx
First, I really liked your letter up above, and your response to me was good as well.
You noted: "You can't downplay by giving a historical analysis of Irish Americans"---That was exactly the point I was making.
Also, I was not trying to one-up your concerns, but to point out that that's not the way to get everybody to pull together. I've listened to people in hospital waiting rooms: "A heart attack? That's nothing, you should see my cancer!"
But they are not respecting each other's illnesses, just insisting on having their own respected. I think the right answer is to say, "A heart attack? That's bad!" and later when you mention your cancer, I say, "Cancer? That's bad!"
For what it's worth, I'd think cancer is worse, but I'd rather neither of us was in that waiting room with something bad.

...to bring up African American concerns involving race are not meant in every case to trivialize others experiences, or create guilt for others... Often, it is an appeal for EMPATHY! Why is this word so lost in the discussion? For someone to admit, I KNOW HOW YOU FEEL, not to condescend, but to then be able to share similar emotions and experience can work wonders and be a start to better relations between different parties...So much of this is American history...we should not forget about the past and should be able to talk to one another about at certain levels by now without coming apart at the seams...come on now, let's do this...

Dear Friends--

I am glad that my comments have provoked so much discussion on the site; that was certainly our intention! I am writing now to clarify my initial remarks and offer counterpoints to Mr./Ms. XX and Mr./Ms. C.C. Brown.

First, I want to apologize if my remarks seemed to suggest that I think it is okay to discriminate against white people. I certainly do not think that way. On the contrary, I am opposed to racial discrimination in all forms. I also believe that all persons who have been discriminated against should take action through our governmental institutions (EEOC, Civil Rights Commission, etc.) and the federal courts.

At the same time, I do not back down at all from making my point that the generalized notion that most whites and some minorities hold in our society that affirmative action equals "reverse discrimination" against whites is a fantasy that is nurtured by our racialized culture and politicians.

It is interesting that Mr./Ms. XX immediately jumped to the conclusion that the 125,000 African-Americans that I cited as receiving affirmative action benefits between 1965 and 2003 were "unqualified." I never said that in my post. The fact of the matter is that colleges and universities do not admit "unqualified" minorities because of their race. In the typical admissions process, search committees set a floor for GPAs and SAT scores. Once you are above that floor, you are eligible for consideration. So, these 125,000 people are "qualified."

Now, the political issue emerges because the few minority candidates that make it to this level of consideration are often below the average profile for the overall institution. Let's say that the floor for consideration at prestigious university #1 is 1300, the average student in the university has a profile of 1500, and the average minority student has a profile of 1380. Since Bakke, whites have felt that having minority students admitted closer to the floor of the admission standard means that you are "taking away slots" from more qualified whites. This is what I reject as myth. In all of the 300 or so universities (out of about 3600) that practice affirmative action, there are white students walking around close to the SAT floor as well. Indeed, in terms of numbers there are often more of these students walking around campus than African-Americans.

These white students may have been admitted because they are the children or grandchildren of alums, they play a mean violin, or the university sees that they have a very challenging financial background. These are all good reasons to be admitted to a university in my view. I also happen to believe that recognizing that black students, on average, have weaker educational profiles because their parents and grandparents went to the segregated schools that were at issue in Brown v. Board of education or that they have less family wealth because of the legacy of Jim Crow in the economy also seems to be a reasonable practice.

I wonder why there is no outrage to remove other students who fall close to the SAT floor--like President Bush when he was at Yale--from these universities. I also wonder why no one ever says that a white student close to the SAT floor "took my spot." Isn't it a great irony that the students who sued the University of Michigan on the grounds that minorities had kept them from being admitted were near what was likely the SAT floor of the school themselves? How do they know that "their slot" did not go to another white student or a Michigan football player or a poor white kid from the upper peninsula who got special consideration. They don't know, but what they do know is that everyone thinks that affirmative action is reverse racism, so let's take a shot at suing to get rid of the minorities.

The fact of the matter is that in an competitive admissions process where 50 to 60 percent of the applicants fall above the SAT and GPA cutoffs, admissions committees have the right (by law) to make choices about how best to maximize diversity along a number of fronts. So, it is never quite so simple as to say that I was not admitted because someone else was. Indeed, the vast majority of students who are rejected are "qualified" for admission in the basic sense.

This is where the Supreme Court was really spot on over Bakke in the 5-4 decision that struck down the Michigan point system as being too formulaic. In a split decision the Court said that Alan Bakke was to be admitted. In this Michigan case the court said that there was no way to know that Jennifer Gratz would have been admitted to the university if the 500 minority students admitted that year were removed. They were able to make this determination because we know through statistics that removing all of the minority students from the admissions process at Michigan that year only improved the chances of each white student of being admitted by about 3 percent. Despite this fact, a majority of whites fear being excluded from universities because of affirmative action.

My point was to demonstrate that these fears are not "legitimate" because affirmative action does not alter 97 percent of a white student's prospects for getting into college. By contrast, how much do we think growing up in a segregative neighborhood or having parents who were disadvantaged in the economy because of the color bar alters the chances of black students. So, when you think about how hard it is for white students, think about if you would rather be the black student.

Wouldn't it be great if we could all "come together" and work on these problems through politics--oh yeah, we did that when we put affirmative action in place in the 1960s!

I will comment on the work force--where the data provides even more evidence to destroy the myth of "reverse racism" and the issue of Irish Americans in separate posts over the next few days.

Thanks again for the great discussion!

Al Tillery

Professor Tillery and Xx
Thank you for this continuing discussion.
I'm starting to regret the Irish-American example I used. It was meant only as an example, it is not the case that I feel I-A angst. I'm barely aware of my own family tree. When I tried to point to the moon, everybody looked at my finger. The example could have been a displaced Palestinian, or someone whose family lost everything in an American Japanese internment camp.
I'll repeat that I'm not judging anybody's story. My actual life has never been helped or hurt by affirmative action or race in any way that I was aware of. I did spend my 20th year homeless, so the Skull and Bones Society wasn't rolling out any red carpet for me.
My thesis is the opposite of yours, Professor Tillery. I submit that every person's concerns ARE as "legitimate" as they are sincere. Suppose our friend Reginald Smythe is miffed because "his" spot was taken away by affirmative action. His anger is legitimate because of what he believes to be the case, not illegitimate because he's wrong. What difference does it make? If you tell Reggy that his fears are not legitimate, you've lost him forever, and made a permanent enemy for affirmative action. Suppose you recognize that his is a legitimate anger, but based on wrong information. Which of us has not fallen into that trap? Tell Reggy what you told us above. That's a great case. The cure for ignorance is not dismissal, but education. And yes, of course, that means both ways.
If Reggie were afraid of alien abduction, or black cats, or Hell, his fear would still be as genuine as his belief, and the cure would still be evidence based reassurance.
I'm not brave enough to make up a name for Reggy's counterpart, so he's "Mr. B" for now. Mr. B is angry and hurt because he believes he got slow service in the restaurant because he's black. We all agree that could be true. It's more likely than Reggy's alien abduction. In this example, however, his blond waitress is actually dragging her feet because she's tired, or she likes him, and is in no hurry to see him leave, or just doesn't organize her workload well, or is new to the job.
If he assumes the worst, it gets added to the chip on his shoulder, if he gives her the benefit of the doubt, he can enjoy his meal...when it finally arrives.
Per Yeahisaidit: "For someone to admit, I KNOW HOW YOU FEEL..." I dunno, would you believe that, or would you say, as I infer from these pages, "no you don't, you have no insight at all into how I feel."? The only thing I can compare your feelings to are my own feelings in real or imagined similar circumstances. If my feelings aren't "legitimate", what can I offer?
if you, meaning everybody in this dialogue who're not hearing what they want to, could get EXACTLY the right response, what would it be? And how would things be different a minute later?
I'm with Obama. We can nurse grudges, deep ,painful, legitimate grudges, or we can look for common cause. Nothing brings people together like teamwork, and we, together, have lots of really big problems to solve. Can that be our "therapy"?

Hi, sucker.

Your mommy and daddy feel care more about people who are totally unrelated to you than they care about you. They don't want you to go to a good college.

Hi, sucker.

Your mommy and daddy care more about people who are totally unrelated to you than they care about you. They don't want you to go to a good college.

Dear C. Brown--

THanks again for the continuing discussion. I am glad that you made your point about Irish Americans because it provides us with a very well-documented counter example to the black experience. I will talk a bit more about that in a moment. For now, though, let me say that I agree with you that we should not "nurse grudges" and look for "common cause." I think the problem with your posts is that you just assumed that because I suggested that black disadvantages are a function of racial exclusion and most white claims of "reverse racism" are myths that this is somehow advocating racial conflict.

On the contrary, I am making a simple empirical claim. While it is easy to say that everyone's claims are legitimate if they are "sincere," I think it is clear that the world of politics and public policy just doesn't work that way. Moreover, I just reject the notion that our government should waste time taking illegitimate claims seriously when we have real public policy problems to solve.

Let's say, for example, that I accuse you having stolen my laptop. I believe this claim sincerely and I decide to press the case forward in the court system. You provide counter evidence that you were no where near my desk or even the town where I working when my computer was taken. Was my intial claim "legitimate" just because it was deeply held by mean? Of course it was not, and the court would find that way and immediately throw my claim out.

This seemed to be exactly the logical structure of the argument you made about your Irish ancestors not being around to own slaves in your intial post. I think that your formulation missed the intial point, but I do not think that it was necessarily wrong (if are were talking about compensation for slavery).

My intial point was that by pandering to whites when there is so much evidence that the vast majority of their concerns about policies designed to promote racial equality are not supported by empirical evidence just furthers the racial stalemate and leaves blacks out in the cold.

At some point, leaders have to lead and that means telling the truth and setting agendas about policy.

Professor Tillery,

Thanks. I hope that this topic is not growing old, I feel very involved in this conversation. By the way,I'd hope to hear more from Professor Warren and Xx. as well.
"Pandering" is a loaded term. I suppose some of mine have been more loaded than I'd like, too.
If you charged me with stealing your laptop, that charge would be investigated and thrown out at whatever point it became clear that I couldn't have done it. This is what I mean when I say that your charge should be considered "legitimate", and answered with facts insteadof dismissal. I know at the time of the charge that I'm innocent, in this specific example, but neither you nor anyone else would be satisfied if the cops and Ijust said "oh, poppycock" and moved on. In your example, I and the omniscient narrator know the charge is false, but you are sincere and a just society owes you an answer. Certainly, we could not remain friends or work well together if your belief were not addressed.
Note that all of my comments assume that theparties involced believe their own position. In the very common case that one or both of the parties are creating "straw men", all bets are off. You and I can't do much about people who actually want to prolong arguments, or to poison the water.
Specifically what truth would you like said, and what specific policy changes do you think should occur?

Dear C. Brown--

Of course, we should investigate all claims. Moreover, my point was not that there has never been a white person who has suffered racial discrimination; of course, that would be a false proposition. Moroever, I root for all persons who suffer discrimination and hope that they win redress.

My initial point was that Obama's reference to affirmative action programs framed them as something that should be the source of legitimate concern to the whites who resent them. My proposition--which is based on evidence generated through the types of "investigations" that you reference in your last post--is that these fears and resentments are not "legitimate" because affirmative action programs have not harmed whites.

I pointed out that recent studies suggest that the majority of white Americans expressed fear about affirmative action programs in college admissions. I then showed--with data from 2003 Census reports--that there are far too few blacks at the colleges where affirmative action is practiced to have harmed the majority of whites. I also cited the opinion in the Supreme Court's ruling on the University of Michigan's affirmative action program, which said that these programs left 97% of white students' chances in the applicant pool in tact. Are these "investigations" not enough to say that claims of "reverse racism" are largely mythical.

I promised data on the work force in the earlier post, so let's have a look at that. The George H.W. Bush administration did a study of affirmative action in the workforce beginning in 1991. I am posting a link to the study so that it will be availble to those who are interested:

http://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/reich/reports/ceiling.pdf

The key findings are that:

(1) In 1965 (when affirmative action started) white men had 100 percent of the management jobs in the Fortune 2000 companies.

(2) In 1995 (when the study concluded), and after 30 years of affirmative action, white men had 97.5 percent of the management jobs in the Fortune 2000 companies.

(3) Of that 2.75 percent increase in diversity, 88 percent of the gains were realized by white women.

(4) In 2001, there was a follow up study that found that, despite being only about 45 percent of the workforce, white men remained 90 percent of the managers. Moreover, the vast majority of these new gains three-quarters went to white women.

So, from the standpoint of XX's intial concern about affirmative action unfairly promoting minorities over whites, I say produce the bodies and then we can talk. I also say that if poll data shows that most whites believe that they have lost opportunities to affirmative action or know someone who has, the best "investigations" in academia and government research show that they are likely mistaken.

Thus, for Obama, a civil rights lawyer, who talks constantly about being the product of the civil rights movement, to nurture the myth of white disdvantage from these programs cuts against the grain of all the evidence.

Don't we need to talk about this fact if we are to break the racial stalemate? I mean there has been so much made of this "reverse racism" issue in the conservative attacks on the legacy of the civil rights movement.

Perhaps I am in the minority by thinking that white Americans are not all racists, and can actually handle the truth--the way they always expect minorities to do--when the numbers just don't break their way.

All best,

Al Tillery

Professor Tillery

That's just the sort of great answer I'm talking about. You may feel that everybody should already know all this, but clearly they do not. I don't believe in "bumper sticker politics", but if you can make that case a little more concise and memorable, you can increase its vigor as a meme, and do us all some good. Since this is not an area of expertise for me, I can't say what the counter arguments might be, but this seems compelling to me.
I didn't hear Obama say whites OR blacks SHOULD harbor fears and resentments towards each other, but just that they DO, for reasons that seem valid to them. In my life I have had moments of rage (totally unrelated to the sorts of issues we are discussing here). At least some of them were truly justified, and all of them seemed justified to me at the time. I can't remember ever making a good decision while angry. I know that our culture promotes righteous anger as a powerful force for change. It's a defensible argument. But it's a difficult strategy to control, to avoid mistakes with. We may disagree about whether anger is still the best tool for social change. I hope it's not, I hope we've reached a point where other strategies make more sense. It's a judgement call. If you feel the time has not come to work TOWARD common cause, rather than FROM resentment, you may be right. I yield to you that you are an expert, and I represent a tiny sample of the audience you are trying to reach.
But, if that time is not now, then when? If ever? Are we stuck with this situation forever? Generations before yours and mine created this problem, what specifically, could our generation do to break the cycle? If it is unfair for you to accept a socioeconomic burden as an accident of birth, how fair is it to impose a moral burden on someone else as an accident of their birth?
But let me shift gears. I said in an earlier post that I was unaware of having been helped or hurt by affirmative action. I've had a chance to consider this further, and I want to make a case for how I have been helped by....well, I'm not completely convinced that affirmative action is the best engine for social change, but how I've been helped by social change.
Every day, my life depends on the engineers who built my stuff, the cops who maintain some degree of public safety, the decisions of politicians, medical workers, and countless others. I want all of those people to be the very best possible. The more people we educate and open doors to, the better "best" becomes.
In a Darwinian sense, any company that practices discrimination misses out on some of the best applicants, and leaves them for competitors to hire. It should turn out that dicrimination is an evolutionary disadvantage for the buisiness, or culture that practises it. The more people we educate, the stronger the economy becomes. Our economy. MY economy. Gains for any demographic are gains for all. My stocks go up, more potential employers or employees benefits me, goods become cheaper and more reliable, and America is more stable overall. Of course cheaters mar this vision, but they only make it work less well, all of these benefits still do occur, more slowly than in my simplified model. This is the flip side of what I meant when I said that if any demographic is disadvantaged we all are. I mean it literally, not as an ideal, when I say that my well-being depends on your well-being. I do not believe that this is a zero sum game, but we do have to train our collective eye to see win-win alternatives.
If this sounds idealistic, I can remember when it did to me as well. To the extent we can model the larger scale on the smaller, I have learned over time to get more out of almost every negotiation by making sure that the person negitiating with me also gets more out of it.
It may or may not be your utopia, but I've spent most of my life both hoping and believing that we could become a color blind society. There are much better reasons for people to dislike each other! I still believe that, inevitably, the future will regard our fixations on race as quaint and counterproductive. I feel cheated that I no longer believe that I will live to see that time.
There will always be rich people and poor people. There will always be people who got rich, or poor, by being crooks. But, statistically, I can't do well if you don't do well. Poverty and despair nourish crime and debt. So does greed, but that's another topic.
Thank you for allowing me to participate in this interesting and challenging conversation.

Talking of children ... check out a clip from "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" (1967)

Sidney Poitier talks about his children from his planned mixed marriage who would become President - or at least Secretary of State!

View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEJLfmJ7S0o

INDIANA AND NORTH CAROLINA!

HISTORY WILL BE MADE TODAY WITH YOUR VOTES.

WE NEED CHANGE...BARACK OBAMA FOR PRESIDENT!