This week’s email is brief — I know that this is a short work-week and a hectic time. It contains two little lists.
The first is drawn up, in part, with an eye on the Ferguson, Missouri, and looks ahead to the next part of the saga there. The second is prompted by President Obama’s executive order on immigration last week.
The first list might be titled, “It’s Not That Complicated: Race Relations in 400 Words and Five Easy Steps.”
- Keep things in perspective: Race relations in our incredibly diverse nation in 2014 are good, and certainly never better. Think of most countries in most eras, including the United States until quite recently.
- Remember that, to the extent that there’s a problem with inter-race relations in the United States, it is mostly about African Americans and racial disparities. And that is a problem now fueled principally by culture, especially out-of-wedlock births. Put another way: If more than 7 out of 10 blacks weren’t being born out of wedlock, there very quickly would be even less to talk about, because we would quickly see greatly diminished racial disparities in poverty, crime, and so forth. And those disparities are also more the cause than the effect of the (greatly diminished, socially condemned) racism that’s left.
- In an increasingly multiracial society, racial preferences — and any kind of race-based decisionmaking — are a bad idea. The benefits are few, dubious, and marginal, while the costs are many, undeniable, and heavy: They are unfair to individuals, divisive, stigmatizing, reinforce racial stereotypes, pass over the better qualified, set a dangerous precedent in allowing discrimination, hurt minorities by “mismatch,” encourage excuse-making, discourage responsibility-taking, and on and on. This includes not only overt racial preferences but the use of the “disparate impact” approach to civil-rights enforcement, since it encourages race-based decisionmaking and, indeed, racial preferences in particular; perversely, that is, it encourages focus on color of skin rather than content of character.
- Note that the only reason for racial preferences that anyone really believes is a broadly remedial one — that is, as a way to make up for past discrimination. But, as a legal matter, this is a nonstarter since it has long been rejected by the Supreme Court. The law aside, race should be not be used as a proxy for disadvantage — nor, per the “diversity” rationale, for how people think. Programs for the poor should be available for all the poor.
- Whatever their cause, the way to address the continuing disparities and discrimination is through nondiscrimination — and addressing out-of-wedlock birthrates and other cultural pathologies that affect African Americans disproportionately but by no means exclusively. Addressing those cultural problems is the best — really, the only — way to diminish racism as well as racial disparities. We should focus on character and standards for all, not the skin color and national origin of just some.
The second list, as I said, is prompted by the president’s executive order on immigration last week. One way or another, our country is going to have many new people in it, and so both sides of the aisle should agree that we ought to give serious thought to assimilating them. In fact, the president himself contained a nod to this reality in his actions last week, as you can read here.
So my second list might be titled, “Top-Ten List of What We Should Expect from Those Who Want To Become Americans (and from Those Who Are Already Americans, for That Matter).” The list was first published in a National Review Online column a decade-and-a-half ago, and later on I fleshed it out in this Congressional testimony. Here it is:
1. Don’t disparage anyone else’s race or ethnicity.
2. Respect women.
3. Learn to speak English.
4. Be polite.
5. Don’t break the law.
6. Don’t have children out of wedlock.
7. Don’t demand anything because of your race or ethnicity.
8. Don’t view working and studying hard as “acting white.”
9. Don’t hold historical grudges.
10. Be proud of being an American.
When you think about it, how many problems would we have, with race relations or with immigration, if these rules were followed?
Happy Thanksgiving!
