Race and Class

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Race and Class

• john a. powell
• Williams Chair in Civil Rights Civil Liberties,
  Moritz College of Law.
• Director, Kirwan Institute
• March 9, 2009

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Overview

• What is Race? What is Class?
• Race and Class as Mutually Constitutive
• How Race Survived
• The New Deal
• Targeted Universalism

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Race and Class

• What do we mean by Race?
• Biology?
• Culture?
• Social Construction
• What is meant by Class?
• Income?
• Social Status?
• Wealth?

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Race Class in the US as Interactive

• Poverty and race 2006
• White (non-Hispanic) 17.9 million in poverty,
  9.3 poverty rate
• Black 9.0 million in poverty, 25.3 poverty rate
• Asian 1.4 million in poverty, 10.7 poverty rate
• Latino (all Latinos) 9.3 million in poverty,
  21.5 poverty rate

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The Racial Wealth Gap
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Hurricane Katrina

• Why were African American and poor neighborhoods
  impacted the most from Katrina?
• The dynamics of spatial inequity, combined with
  patterns of racial segregation
• Flood risk in New Orleans was not equitably
  distributed and followed historical patterns of
  segregation in the City

After levee breaks, the Ninth ward rapidly floods
in New Orleans. Photo by Ted Jackson/NEWHOUSE
NEWS SERVICE)
Evacuees sit stranded in the streets outside the
Convention Center of New Orleans in the aftermath
of Hurricane Katrina September 3, 2005.
REUTERS/SHANNON STAPLETON
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Dualism and Reductionism

• Many assume that racial disparities can be best
  addressed through class measures and vice-versa
  or, that one can be reduced to the other.
• Marxism
• Critical Race Theory

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Racial and Class Meaning

• Its not simply that race and class interact,
  they are cultural and social constructs, and they
  convey meaning.
• In each era of American history, race and class
  have helped define each other.

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How Race Survived History

• Roediger looked at times in which there were
  palpable shifts in race and how they didnt hold
• Also, he underscores the continuing hesitance to
  address race in political discourse
• Some declare race over while others like
  President Obama seek to shift toward
  class-based remedies
• He calls for a broad-based coalition between
  racial groups, feminists, immigrants, working
  class in order to transform the social order

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Race and Class as Mutually Constitutive

• Racial meaning, identity and practices have
  constrained, helped shape and limit our class
  consciousness.
• One of the reasons that America is exceptional in
  lacking a labor party, having a weak union
  movement and a thin, two-tiered social welfare
  system is the way that we do race.
• Example Race and Social Welfare Spending
  (Alesina and Glaeser)

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Race and Class

• Racialized systems not only impact institutional
  arrangements but also particular institutions,
  such as unions, with consequences for the entire
  society.
• Example Race and Taft-Hartley. Southern
  Democrats, concerned that low unemployment and
  booming industry after WWII might cause wage
  leveling along racial lines, flipped their vote.
  The result was Taft-Hartley.

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The New Deal

• There was no greater mechanism in the 20th
  century for increasing the material and social
  distance between poor whites and poor non-whites.
• The Social Security Act
• NLRA and FLSA
• Selective Service Readjustment Act (GI Bill)

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The GI Bill

• The GI Bill was the most wide ranging set of
  social benefits ever offered by the federal
  government.
• It reached eight out of ten men born during the
  1920s.
• It is credited with creating the modern
  middle-class, but almost exclusively for whites.
  

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The GI Bill

• Millions of GIs bought homes, attending college,
  started business ventures, and found jobs.
• Between 1944 and 1971, federal spending for
  former soldiers totaled over 95 billion
• Although formally colorblind, there was no
  greater instrument for widening the racial gap in
  post-war America.

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GI Bill - Homeownership

• Between 1945 and 1954, the US added 13 million
  new home to its housing stock.
• In 1946 and 1947, VA mortgages alone accounted
  for more than 40 percent of the total
• VA Mortgages paid for nearly 5 million new homes,
  by making homes affordable with capped interest
  rates and 30 year loans.

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GI Bill High Ed.

• On the eve of WWII, some 160,000 Americans were
  graduating from college each year. The GI Bill
  paid for the entire cost of tuition plus a
  stipend.
• By 1955, about 2,250,000 veterans had
  participated in higher education.
• The country gained more than 400,000 engineers,
  200,000 teachers, 90,000 scientists, 60,000
  doctors, and 22,000 dentists.
• Another 5,600,000 veterans enrolled in some
  10,000 vocational programs

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GI Bill Administration/Implementation

• The implementation of the GI Bill was left to
  state and local government, including those that
  practiced Jim Crow racism
• The GI Bill needed the backing of Southern
  Democrats to pass, which gave discretion to white
  administrators in the South
• It empowered private institutions, such as banks
  and colleges, to offer services only to veterans
  they would choose to assist or admit.

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GI Bill - Implementation

• Local control strongly discouraged blacks from
  applying for GI benefits.
• Banks and colleges refused to admit or accept
  black applications, so blacks were shunted into
  segregated institutions and neighborhoods to
  receive funds.
• In the South, 95 of black veterans used their
  benefits in historically black colleges.

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GI Bill

• Even in the North and West, black enrollment in
  higher education remained small, never exceeding
  5,000 during the late 1940s due to persist
  discrimination and a lack of access to
  counseling.
• In 1947, some 20,000 eligible black veterans
  could not find places to use benefits even though
  they qualified.

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Two Groups

• 10 Constraints Reduce Opportunity for Group A
• 2 Constraints Reduce Opportunity for Group B
• Any one of these constraints denies opportunity

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Two Groups Differently Situated

• A Universal policy removing the first two
  constraints would only vastly improve the
  opportunity of Group B
• Group A would still be denied opportunity.

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Whats the Solution?Transactional v.
Transformative Interventions

• A transformative intervention is one that works
  to permanently transform structural arrangements.
  
• A transactional intervention, on the other hand,
  is one that may impact outcomes across several
  domains but does not fundamentally change the way
  structures and institutions operate.

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Universalism v. Particularism

• Universalism takes people as they are. It is a
  transactional intervention.
• GI Bill
• N.J. Fair Share
• Targeting within Universalism

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Universal Program
Group A
Group B
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Universal Program
Group A
Group B
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Targeting within Universalism

• Combines a call for the universal with attention
  to the particular experience of minority
  Americans.
• Supports the needs of the particular while
  reminding us that we are all part of the same
  social fabric.
• Rejects a blanket universal which is likely to be
  indifferent to the reality that different groups
  are situated differently related to the
  institutions and resources of society.
• It rejects the claim of formal equality that
  would treat all people the same as a way of
  denying difference.

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A New Paradigm

• What is our alternative vision?
• A model where we all grow together
• A model where we embrace collective solutions
• Where race is experienced and addressed in a
  different way
• No longer using race to divide and distract from
  class struggle
• Using race to transform our society in a way that
  lifts up all people

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Concluding Thoughts

• Be deliberate about building coalition
• Through a new paradigm and with coalition
  building we can make great strides in addressing
  the race and class disparities in our nation
• Strategic transactional change, can ultimately
  accomplish transformation
• Eyes on the prize(s)
• Remember- We Have, and Can Make Progress!

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Questions or Comments?