Perspectives differ. . .

Experiences determine perspectives, attitudes and expectations.

I'm not sure why this reality is so hard to understand or accept, though I have a hunch or two.

The data below clearly reports  that African Americans possess and express quite a different experience of life in the United States than do white people.

People like me would do well to keep this fact in mind.

Even better, it would be really good for me to find out just why this is true.
 

Race Relations in the United States | InsideGov

Percent Saying Blacks are Treated less Fairly than Whites | InsideGov

Support for the Black Lives Matter Movement | InsideGov

"How are you, Sir!"

I don't know why I always seem to see situations like I'm about to describe. But, I do.

Last week, I walked into a Downtown bank to do some business. 

At the teller counter I noticed two bank tellers.

One's station was closed, but the man behind the "This Window is Closed" sign appeared to be filling a quasi-security role, sort of watching over the station of the other teller. 

Ahead of me, an older gentleman approached the counter.  He carried a worn backpack.  He wore relatively shabby blue jeans.  He could well have been homeless.  He appeared to be cashing a check or breaking a larger bill into a small amount of change.  The off-duty teller watched him with great interest.  He never looked at me.

As he stepped up to the service desk, the teller looked past him and said to me, "Be with you in a moment, Sir." 

Of course, I assumed that is how things worked there.  A line forms.  When it is your turn, you receive service.  It occurred to me that the teller felt the need to explain why he was forced to serve the poor, homeless-looking gent first. 

I replied, "Not a problem at all." 

When the customer--that's what he really was--finished his business and turned toward me to walk away, I said to him, "How are you, Sir!"

Before the man was able to get out what turned into a muted response to my greeting, the teller, assuming I was speaking to him, interrupted our encounter and said, "I'm doing fine.  How's your day going?"

The customer, the man to whom I directed my inquiry, looked at me and said simply, "Hello."

You may think me overly sensitive, judgmental or seeing/hearing things that are the product of my weird mind.  But, I have to tell you, I don't think so.  Not at all.

The man ahead of me had little money, and he looked the part. 

I had plenty of money, and I was dressed in clean, pressed, relatively new clothing.

He was black.

I am white.  

I had an account. 

He didn't. 

Surely, no one would be expected to greet him with respect. 

It's just the way things work, right? 

As I left the bank, the story continued. 

I got into my car and drove up Main Street back toward my office.  As I pulled away from the curb, I spotted the man on the sidewalk just ahead of me.

He delivered the cash he had received in the bank to a man seated in a wheelchair. He handed him the backpack and began pushing him up the sidewalk.  Clearly both were homeless. 

Both are no less men than the bank tellers and me. 

Both worthy of my respect and courtesy. 

Why does money and appearance and status matter so much to us?

Why do we fear the poor? 

When will we learn?

Categorically Unequal--book notes

I haven't read Categorically Unequal, but I plan to in 2009.

Not long ago, someone sent me the following synopsis of the book's content. Controversial, no doubt. Worth a careful study because usually this sort of study turns bright lights on subjects we'd just as soon ignore.

________________________________

The United States holds the dubious distinction of having the most unequal income distribution of any advanced industrialized nation. While other developed countries face similar challenges from globalization and technological change, none rivals America’s singularly poor record for equitably distributing the benefits and burdens of recent economic shifts.

In Categorically Unequal, Douglas Massey, the Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University, weaves together history, political economy, and even neuropsychology to provide a comprehensive explanation of how America’s culture and political system perpetuates inequalities between different segments of the population.

Categorically Unequal is striking both for its theoretical originality and for the breadth of topics it covers. Massey argues that social inequalities arise from the universal human tendency to place others into social categories. In America, ethnic minorities, women, and the poor have consistently been the targets of stereotyping, and as a result, they have been exploited and discriminated against throughout the nation’s history.

African-Americans continue to face discrimination in markets for jobs, housing, and credit. Meanwhile, the militarization of the U.S.-Mexican border has discouraged Mexican migrants from leaving the United States, creating a pool of exploitable workers who lack the legal rights of citizens. Massey also shows that women’s advances in the labor market have been concentrated among the affluent and well-educated, while low-skilled female workers have been relegated to occupations that offer few chances for earnings mobility.

At the same time, as the wages of low-income men have fallen, more working-class women are remaining unmarried and raising children on their own. Even as minorities and women continue to face these obstacles, the progressive legacy of the New Deal has come under frontal assault. The government has passed anti-union legislation, made taxes more regressive, allowed the real value of the federal minimum wage to decline, and drastically cut social welfare spending.

As a result, the income gap between the richest and poorest has dramatically widened since 1980. Massey attributes these anti-poor policies in part to the increasing segregation of neighborhoods by income, which has insulated the affluent from the social consequences of poverty, and to the disenfranchisement of the poor, as the population of immigrants, prisoners, and ex-felons swells.

America’s unrivalled disparities are not simply the inevitable result of globalization and technological change. As Massey shows, privileged groups have systematically exploited and excluded many of their fellow Americans.

By delving into the root causes of inequality in America, Categorically Unequal provides a compelling argument for the creation of a more equitable society.

[Order a copy here. For a bibliography of Massey's previous work take a look here.]

.

Pigment Matters, And Pays

Vanderbilt University law and economics professor, Joni Hersch recently completed research on the impact of skin color on earning power among immigrants to the United States ("Study of Immigrants Links Lighter Skin And Higher Income," The New York Times, Sunday, January 28, 2007, A19).

Her findings are compelling and concerning.

In short, light-skinned persons earn more money on average than those with darker complexions.

The reason?

Simple discrimination on that basis.

Professor Hersch studied government surveys for 2,084 legal immigrants to the U. S. from around the world. She discovered that those with the lightest skin earned on average 8 to 15% more than similar immigrants who were born with darker skin.

"On average," Dr. Hersch said, "being one shade lighter has about the same effect as having an additional year of education."

Interestingly, the study considered other factors in the analysis such as English language proficiency, education, occupation, and racial or national background. Even after controlling for race, it was clear that skin color mattered.

For example, for two immigrants from Bangladesh with the same abilities, occupations and backgrounds, the lighter-skinned person would make more money than the darker-skinned individual.

The last paragraph of the article seems telling:

"Although many cultures show a bias toward lighter skin, she [Dr. Hersch] said her analysis showed that the skin-color advantage was not based on preferential treatment for light-skinned people in their country of origin. The bias, she said, occurs in the United States."