alternarrative

I have often complained, along with my friends in college who were engaged in critical activism, about the pervasive tendency in our culture to treat racism as if it’s merely an issue of attitudes and personal prejudices. It was therefore refreshing to read a great article by Thomas Sugrue in The Nation, in which he presents a nuanced review of this and related issues. A pertinent excerpt:

The story of inequality is one of the maldistribution of power and resources. Racial inequality has persisted in American life not just because whites harbor bad thoughts about blacks but because the advantages that redound to whites through racial segregation, especially in housing and education, have yet to be dismantled. But structural explanations of racial inequality have never fared well in a culture that attributes success to individual merit and pluck. White Americans who live in privileged suburbs pride themselves on their colorblindness but resist efforts to construct affordable housing lest it interfere with property values. They rebel against the misuse of their tax dollars to support the indolent and efforts to shore up failing urban schools. Structural explanations are taboo because they puncture our treasured myths of upward mobility and self-reinvention. Anyone can make it if they try hard enough, if they break free from the chains of dependency, if they get up in the morning and say, “Yes, I can!”

If that last phrase sounds familiar, that’s probably because it’s deliberately so. The four books reviewed by Sugrue include one that was co-authored by Bill Cosby, and he also raises some interesting questions about notions like “sellout” or “race traitor.” Read the full piece here.