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September 23, 2005
Race & Class Back on Political and Religious Radar
by Faithful Progressive
The Washington Post's Terry Neal had a very interesting column on Thursday. The title said it all: Race, Class Re-Enter Politics After Katrina. Of course, these issues never left for those who were paying attention--unfortunately, that is almost always a very small minority. Neal quoted Sen. Barak Obama (D-Ill.), the only sitting African American US Senator. "(Obama) wants to make sure that addressing poverty and race stays at the forefront of the national debate. Addressing the conference last night, Obama said: "The incompetence [in the federal response to Katrina] was colorblind. What wasn't colorblind was the indifference. Human efforts will always pale in comparison to nature's forces. But [the Bush administration] is a set of folks who simply don't recognize what's happening in large parts of the country." (Read more about Obama's speech here.)
What is it that Bush is missing? An excellent editorial at Civilrights.org this week by Mark H. Morial provides a good starting point.
Morial writes, "For example, four million more Americans were living in poverty in 2004 than before the economic recession of 2001 (1.1 million of whom fell below the poverty level in 2003 alone), meaning that now there are 37 million Americans in poverty.
The import of those figures was then underscored by the demographic profile of residents in the three dozen neighborhoods in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana hardest-hit by the storm the Associated Press published September 4.
Using Census data, the AP determined that sixty percent of those living in these neighborhoods were predominantly people of color and were twice as likely to be poorer than the national average and to not own a car: Nearly 25 percent of these residents had incomes below the poverty line, almost double the national average; and, while one in 200 American households doesn't have adequate indoor plumbing, in these neighborhoods, the figure was 1 in 100 households. The indicators of poverty were even worse in some neighborhoods in New Orleans, in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and in Mobile, Alabama.
University of South Carolina historian Dan Carter told the AP such figures shouldn't be surprising, but that usually there's "not a lot of interest in (issues of poverty), except when there's something dramatic. By and large, the poor are simply out of sight, out of mind."
Philosopher Cornel West said much the same in an interview for the British newspaper, The Observer. "It takes something as big as Hurricane Katrina and the misery we saw among the poor black people of New Orleans to get America to focus on race and poverty," he remarked. "It happens about once every 30 to 40 years."
We could say that some in America have long been trying to direct America's attention to the persistence of poverty. Our own publication, "The State of Black America," has had plenty of company in reminding the nation that the war on poverty the federal government mounted in the 1960s has never ended.
A Newsday story on Sen. Obama's speech noted that (Sen.) Obama offered short- and long-term suggestions for ending poverty.
"We have to start by ending the empathy deficit," he said. "We need to understand everybody has a sacred story to tell. We haven't been able to break through barriers of race and class. And we should make New Orleans a model for what is possible. Why not take every young man and woman in the 9th Ward who didn't have a job and train them in environmental cleanup? And then train them in construction. And don't rebuild the schools. They weren't teaching our children to compete. Let's give teachers bonuses to go down there and teach excellence...I don't know if I can save all these young men," he said. "But that's no excuse for not trying."
So far this post has all been about the political angle--what about the role of religion? Has race entered into the discussion again? Let's hope so. Let's start at home, with this site.
I think the section of our Values statement Equality and Inclusiveness is very strong: Samaritans were the outcasts of Jesus' day, and women were believed to be inferior to men in every way. Yet women were given the honor of announcing the resurrection, and Jesus stayed with the Samaritans for two days. Jesus healed the sick, who were believed to be ill because they had sinned. He traveled with women and welcomed them as his disciples. He ate with tax collectors and with Pharisees. Jesus lovingly ministered to the blind, the deaf, the lame. He cared for "unclean" lepers. He always welcomed people who society said were lowly and despised. By his actions, Jesus affirmed the equal value of all people. We seek to live as Jesus did when we hold that all people are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. We strive to follow his example by eliminating hurtful, exclusionary distinctions between "us" and "them."
But I think the statement of Issues that flows from these values is way too narrow. Of course I support gay rights--no sinner is more or less valuable in the eyes of god--and, as the so-called Christian Right forgets, we are all sinners. Further, The Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. writng in this months Trumpet, notes how Christian right fanatics have tried to use gay rights as a wedge issue to divide Christians. But Dr. Wright is having none of that: "The faith does not say that gays are going to hell." He also notes that efforts to use the Bible to support human cruelty are nothing new. "Christian fanatics used the Bible to keep us in slavery. Christian fanatics used the Bible to justify segregation and apartheid!"
To me it is clear that the struggle for Equality and Inclusiveness must also include support of Affirmative Action, economic development, renewal of the Voting Rights Act and other efforts to overcome these historic racial and class barriers. We have a duty as Christians to address these historic injustices, as well as to stand up for our gay brothers and sisters. In calling us to love our neighbors, Jesus demands nothing less of us.
Posted by Faithful Progressive at September 23, 2005 12:11 AM
Comments
Is there racial discrimination at my workplace?
There is one group that has an incredibly high representation at my workplace. This group has obviously different features from the rest of the workers, and live in a subculture defined by race and national origin.
Of course, the fact that people of Oriental background constitute more than half of the grad students (and at least 40% of the faculty) at the University department I work in is probably not the result of racism.
Also, I would have a hard time accepting affirmative action to level the playing field. I would be getting something I had not earned. I would feel like I was being told that I was inferior. I would feel as if I had lost my individual skills and talents, and been put behind a mask wearing the label "disadvantaged minority".
For that reason, I do not think that affirmative action will do much to improve the lot of others who are minorities in their workplace.
On the other hand, that does not mean that there are still sinners out there who might discriminate against people of a hated race. We should tell them that it is sinful, and use the law to support and enforce color-blind policies.
Posted by: karrde at September 26, 2005 09:14 PM
Affirmative action does not serve to put unqualified people into jobs, spots at schools, or anything else. Rather it affects only groups of equal qualified applicants. The whole concept of quotas, which sometimes may have been being filled by less qualified applicants, has long been abandoned as wrong and unfair.
That less qualified people are getting jobs the haven't earned is no only being spread by the Right.
Posted by: John G at September 27, 2005 02:06 AM
Your response is rather strange, John G.
I will quote another example from academia.
The last U.S. Supreme Court case about academic admissions and racial preferences involved a specific case where a person who would have otherwise been disqualified was admitted to the U of M Law school, over someone who was better-qualified. The better-qualified person was a white-skinned women, the less-qualified person was a black-skinned woman.
Is this an isolated case, or is it the usual case? I have a hard time deciding.
That is why I prefer a color-blind policy of admissions to higher education (or in hiring, or in giving out government contracts). If it can be proved that race was not considered when the applicant was considered, then it is very hard to yell "Racism!!" when one race has a disproportionate representation.
Posted by: karrde at September 28, 2005 09:05 PM
