We all know that the issue of income inequality has become more and more pressing in recent times, and that low-income families are disproportionately comprised of people of color. But what is not as well known is the disproportionate distribution of wealth. "The wealth of white households was 13 times the median wealth of black households in 2013, compared with eight times the wealth in 2010, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of data from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances" (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/12/12/racial-wealth-gaps-great-recession/). The problem with this is that generations of oppression and marginalization which all started with the disenfranchisement of African American slaves has allowed a huge amount of wealth to accumulate in the white population's hands. This means that even if we were to immediately apply Lebron's complete proposal of democratic perfectionism, it is not clear that we would be able to achieve the rise in social value that is necessary for perfect racial equality.
Even if, through formidable equality of opportunity that will develop for blacks as the implicit racism in institutions and people melts away, we see a rise in average black income, this will not fix the problem of wealth. Let's say there are two workers at a company making the same salary-- one of them is white, the other is black. Though they make the same amount of money, the white worker is more likely to have more discretionary income to invest into financial gains than the black worker is. This could be possible through a situation as simple as the white worker's parents leaving money in their will. Thus, though the black workers would be making as much as their white counterparts, they may not be able to climb the socioeconomic ladder beyond middle to upper middle class in great enough numbers for us to see more racial equality in the wealthiest of our nation. If this is the case, how far can Lebron's proposals raise the social value of blacks before it hits a wall? If those holding the most wealth in our country are not equally (or proportionately) representative, it seems there will still be an institutional implicit bias that blacks are inherently worth a lesser social value. How can Lebron avoid this without directly incorporating some kind of distributional justice into his scheme?
Lebron mentions three specific tactics for combating the diminished social value of black lives. He mentions the "Real" America Re-education Act (RARA), the Just Trojan Horse, and councils on police forces. All three of these address the ways in which we view people of color and act on our views. While I believe that Lebron would fully support continued affirmative action and other economic and political forms of distributional justice, what he seeks to address is the problem of our social values.
ReplyDeleteLebron rejects Rawls early on, partly because he believes legal and economic recourse to be insufficient to correct our implicit racism. What he seeks to address with his solutions is our cognitive dissonance that allows us to reject explicit racism while continuing practices that result in normatively lower expectations for African Americans. Lebron's solution to our racism is programs aimed at restructuring our attitudes, not our normative places in society. He does not, we can see, reject the usefulness of distributional models, but merely attempts to illustrate their insufficiency.
Kyla, I think you raise very important and interesting questions regarding Lebron's democratic perfectionism. When I was reading, I was also skeptical about how his theory would play out in reality. However, I came to the conclusion that in the long term this theory might work. If society is able to slowly change and give the same opportunities to equally qualified individuals, then we might be able to reach a time in which everyone has equal social value. I am more concerned with what should be done in the short term, while society is changing to revalue and adjust their flaws. Like you mention, I have a hard time thinking of how racial equality can be reached in the long term, especially in the short term. I think the example you give with wills is a great example of how historical circumstances require for measures at least in the short term.
ReplyDeleteErin, I agree with your point that Lebron thinks distributional models are insufficient. However, my question was whether or not Lebron's model is sufficient without them. Though in chapter 5 he alludes to the fact that maybe his programs could lead to an easier implementation of distributive justice in the future, it seems to me that he thinks that it is not imperative that we implement any sort of distributive justice in order to reach racial equality (more along the idea that it would be nice if we could and okay if we didn't). And I am asking if this is a weakness of his theory.
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