November 14th

Race II in American Politics

Race in Contemporary Issues:

 M. Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X:

o The ying and yang of the 20th century AA political though.
o One advocated integration and one advocates separatism; violence vs.
non-violence.
o Famous for “I had a dream” speech

LUTHER KING:

• Letter from Mt. Gommery Jail by Malcolm X in which he defends

his political strategy: speaks about the use of direct action to create crisis,
which you need to negotiate and change things.
o Two types of laws: just and un-just, if you violate un-just law you didn’t
do anything wrong, double negative.
o Peaceful protests can elicit violent reactions and they did and he knew he
was putting people in danger.
o Disappointed with white churches, whom he though would be more on his
side, but they weren’t.
o Started pushing for economic equality.

MALCOLM X

• Pushed for black separatism

• Broke with the nation of Islam and became open to the idea of
nation brother and different races worshipping in harmony.
• The valve or the bullet: opposite means to challenge the political
agenda.
• The Ballot: democrats were not the party of AA, they are dixiecrats
and AA should not place their vote/hope in them.
• In terms of non-violence, he doesn’t advocate it, but he doesn’t
rule out violence. “Be non-violent but do not rule out violence if that
the route you must take”…we want equality but we will get it at all
means.

MLK and M. X and associated and never heard without the other.
 Public Policy

 Conservative view vs. Liberal view.

 Liberal view is currently unpopular
o There is an alternative to the status quo;
o A just society requires color blind policies, but we don’t live in a just
society we live in a society where there is current discrimination and the
lingering effects of past discriminations. Therefore, we should not have
color blind politics. Color obviously matters. In order to treat individuals
fairly, in a society we should realise how race treats people unfairly.
Conscious of race is different from conscious of race in terms of racial
expression.;

1) Preferential treatment/reverse discrimination: quotas

• 1978 case called Bakke vs. Medical School of Cali. He didn’t get in
because he was discriminated against since he was white, in the minority. This
went to Sup court in a very split decision. Powell, said you cannot have
quotas, that’s unconstitutional. But race can be used as a plus factor in order to
ensure diversity. If two candidates are equally qualified, then and only then
can you discriminate on race. This is the minimal view of affirmative action,
and its still controversial.

• In 1995, Hotwood vs. Texas: law school applicants sued for equal
protection rights (14th amendment). Courts prohibited in University system at
the graduate level, suggesting ruling out affirmative action. Proposition 209
allows citizens to make public policy decision, banned the use of affirmative
action in university admissions. This was pushed by Ward Connerly, himself
an AA and an conservative who said that affirmative action was just another
form of discrimination. Ever since the number of minorities has grown and
there was a 50% reduction of minority students since.

• The arguments for this is that you need diversity but maybe this system
stigmatises and created prejudice which is the thing its trying to avoid in the
first place.

• The ideal to affirmative action is reparations. Give AA money for wrong

done in the past.

2) Re-Districting: section 2 of voting rights act addresses 8 southern states and

requires them to redistrict if this allows minority to have a fair say and if it is
required. This is renewed every few years.
 • Miller Johnson: some of these districts are so weird that its
unconstitutional. The aesthetic factor.
• Hunt: shape criterion, doesn’t make sense to have so much districts. A
minority in the whole becomes a majority.
• Bush vs. Reeno: struck down districts claiming race to be a main factor.
• Political interest should not be exclusively tied to race; people are
different and free to do what they want.
• But when people do associate their interests with color, maybe we should
be able to protect the minority. Under-represented groups should have
representation.

3) Urban Politics:
• Missing Link: the dependent variable- what accounts for the urban
underclass in the USA? What explains the ghetto? What is to blame for poor
black neighbourhoods?
• Reject: the culture of poverty: the ghetto is explained by a culture, a
screwed up set of values that are bad such as the inability to defer gratification
which is the hallmark of an effective society. Irresponsible fathers who don’t
stay home and raise their children – controversial…Chief criticisms: people’s
own fault that they are in these circumstances
• Institutional racism: if you go to a certain school you don’t even have
employers look at your CV. “That’s an immigrant school…we don’t accept
people from there”.
• Welfare incentives: government efforts to make things better actually
made things worse. Because they can count on this. Have babies you cannot
afford. Governmental solutions are the cause of the problem.
• Structural economic change: most big cities with big AA poor blocks are
in older American cities, places that have seen a big decline in manufacturing
jobs.
• Real Problem: residential segregation: blacks are prevented from
integrating, from moving out. The solution of this is to enforce insisting laws.
The fair housing act 1968: amended many times, if you want to move
somewhere, you cannot be stopped because of the color of your skin…but
how many times has an AA family moved to Manhattan?
• Several different solutions/approaches from a public policy point of view:
• 1) Market: let he market be, create tax incentives, enterprise zones.
Some say the market is what created these problems in the 1st place.
• 2) Government: create social programs, public housing. But we all
increase taxes to spend on poor people, it wont happen
• 3) Civic culture: need to turn to the few intermediate associations
that still function in these neighbourhoods, such as black churches who
can better get them to interact into educational, etc.
• 4) outsource the gvt to public private enterprises to do things
themselves.
 Philadelphia, Detroit, Boston.