Beinart’s Paradox
In his Washington Post column, Peter Beinart urges Barack Obama to urge the country to move from a system of race-based affirmative action to a class-based system. This, he says, will pay political dividends. What’s interesting is why he thinks it will pay dividends, namely that it will help Obama appeal to racists:
Notre Dame political scientist David Leege estimates that 17 to 19 percent of white Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents will resist voting for Obama because he is black. [...] Obama needs to bring Leege’s number down. That may be possible, because even racists can be wooed. Think about it this way: Many of the voters who right now won’t vote for Obama because he’s black would probably vote for Colin Powell even though he’s black. That’s because they don’t see Powell as a racial redistributionist, a guy who would favor his community at their expense. There’s no rational reason to believe Obama would, either. But because, unlike Powell, Obama is a liberal Democrat who enjoys overwhelming black support, that’s what many racially hostile white voters assume.
But of course on the merits of the issue, abandoning race-based affirmative action makes sense to the extent that we don’t think present-day racism — as opposed to economic issues that may in some cases reflect the legacy of racism — is a substantial problem. But if racism really is a huge barrier to Obama’s electoral prospects, that suggests that present-day racism really is a substantial problem and we should probably maintain some focus on race per se.
53 Responses to “Beinart’s Paradox”
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August 13th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
You mean this issue wasn’t also fixed by The Surge? I thought The Surge fixed all problems known or imagined by Man?
August 13th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
[T]hey don’t see Powell as a racial redistributionist, a guy who would favor his community at their expense. There’s no rational reason to believe Obama would, either. But because, unlike Powell, Obama is a liberal Democrat who enjoys overwhelming black support, that’s what many racially hostile white voters assume.
The third sentence negates the second.
August 13th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
touche
August 13th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
The question is really whether racism or classism is the problem.
I came from a nice liberal middle-class background. When I got a job as a janitor I met all kinds of people who had inter-racial marriages. Taken as groups, each racial group in that workplace was convinced they were better than all the others. Individually, they married people from their own class- the underclass- with little regard for race.
How that plays out probably depends on the intersection of demographics and geography.
In any case, affirmative action based on race doesn’t seem to have been that successful, judging from the statistics.
August 13th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Many of the voters who right now won’t vote for Obama because he’s black would probably vote for Colin Powell even though he’s black. That’s because they don’t see Powell as a racial redistributionist, a guy who would favor his community at their expense. There’s no rational reason to believe Obama would, either. But because, unlike Powell, Obama is a liberal Democrat who enjoys overwhelming black support, that’s what many racially hostile white voters assume.
Where can I get a job getting paid to opine out of my ass? Read that again? Does Beinart have any support for these claims, other than his [bottom]?
“many people”
“would probably”
“many…assume”
Says who? Sources please? Should we give Beinart the benefit of the doubt because he’s on the side of angels in this instance?
August 13th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
In any case, affirmative action based on race doesn’t seem to have been that successful, judging from the statistics.
Which statistics, exactly, would those be?
August 13th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
if racism really is a huge barrier to Obama’s electoral prospects, that suggests that present-day racism really is a substantial problem and we should probably maintain some focus on race per se.
A more cynical man than me might speculate that Beinart actually agrees with this point but doesn’t actually think that it should be addressed – i.e., that garnering support from racist whites should be a higher priority for Democratic politicians than addressing the systemic impediments to racial equality. Criminally wrong as he was and is about Iraq, I don’t actually think that Beinart believes this, but I am also absolutely sure that there is a very non-zero number of Democratic consultants and pundits who explicitly subscribe to this viewpoint, though most have the good sense not to do so publicly.
August 13th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
The point is even worse than that. Colin Powell’s has publicly supported race based Affirmative-Action and enjoys huge support in the Black community. If White racists are more likely to support Powell than Obama, it is only because they are not aware of these facts. Believe me, if Colin Powell were running for President, they would be made very well aware of these facts in the course of the campaign. Before the campaign started, voters knew little about Obama’s AA position (they still don’t know much about it) and he actually enjoyed little support in the Black community.
August 13th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Maintaining focus on race is entirely different than continuing race-based affirmative action. Because of the satellites of the Jesse Helms “White Fists” ad, an entire generation of voters has been trained to think of affirmative action as “reverse racism.”
I think “class-based” affirmative action makes more sense and would better address the goals of affirmative action, but I am sure the right is waiting to pounce on anything that has the word “class” in it.
August 13th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Beinart: “There’s no rational reason to believe Obama would, either.”
But that won’t stop Pete Beinart from recommending a reactionary policy response to racists who make irrational assumptions. Pete Beinart is a serious man!
August 13th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Beinart is an effing fool desparately in need of proving that he is unoriginal. He must have hellacious conversations — with himself.
Don’t go away angry Pete. Just go away. Asshole.
August 13th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
It is indeed a real puzzle how to appeal to people who are resolutely making false judgments about you–what guarantees that any thing you try will actually change those false judgments? And certainly proposing what to most people will be a wonkish policy idea seems like a bad bet to address the problem.
August 13th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Excellent. Matt wrote a whole (good) book arguing that Peter Beinart is an idiot, but this blog was curiously devoid of any mention of him or his idiocy for a year. I’m glad to see some vestige of that returning; hopefully we’ll get on to foreign policy soon.
August 13th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
“But of course on the merits of the issue, abandoning race-based affirmative action makes sense to the extent that we don’t think present-day racism — as opposed to economic issues that may in some cases reflect the legacy of racism — is a substantial problem.”
It is true that “racism is not a problem” almost certainly implies that “race based affirmative action should be abolished.” And you quite often hear that argument. But to infer from that, as you seem to be doing, that “racism IS a problem” therefore implies “race based affirmative action should NOT be abolished” is a simple logical fallacy. There may be many reasons that race-based affirmative action is a bad idea even if there is racism. For example, it may do more harm than good — that’s by far the most common argument against it in my experience.
August 13th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Irrational racists’ votes count just as much as everyone elses, people. Sad but true.
But if racism really is a huge barrier to Obama’s electoral prospects, that suggests that present-day racism really is a substantial problem and we should probably maintain some focus on race per se.
I agree with maintaining some focus on race per se in affirmative action, but there’s a problem with the logic here. White meatheads’ feelings about black people isn’t the problem that affirmative action addresses. Rather, affirmative action addresses the separate-and-unequal social and professional and political networks that white and black people belong to, and creates trans-racial networks.
Affirmative action programs don’t boost black enrollment at colleges so the black students can get job leads from 64-year-old Hillary voters from West Virginia, if you know what I mean.
August 13th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
It’s also worth noting that Peter Beinart finally criticized the media for something.
August 13th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Re seth
General Powell enjoys widespread support among working class white voters because of his military background. If Senator Osama had been a high ranking military officer, he too would enjoy that level of support.
August 13th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
You’re overthinking this. Beinart has absolutely no proof for his assertion that white racists will vote for a black guy if he’s sufficiently critical of affirmative action. Weren’t Lynn Swann in Pennsylvania or Alan Keyes in Maryland both below the median Republican vote in their states? And neither of them are fond of affirmative action.
August 13th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
pedant made the point I was going to. Yglesias’ critique here really does make a basic logical fallacy of the type pedant describes.
To bring it out more clearly, the arguments against Affirmative Action based on principles are lousy given the history and current state of the country. But that just means that whether we should adopt such policies, and what types we should adopt, should be based on the expected consequences of those policies.
And there is nothing in the fact that present day racism really is a big problem which guarantees that the best consequences would be obtained by using race based affirmative action. There is nothing in the fact that guarantees the opposite either, of course.
I think pedant gets the issue right, which is to say it is a problem of confusing a necessary with a sufficient condition.
August 13th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Personally, I think the entier idea of affirmative action has been wrongly expanded beyond its initial justification. The initial use of affirmative action was to redress historical racism at certain institutions. The point was to fix those racist institutions.
Somehow, affirmative action came to be seen as a way of promoting greater equality for traditionally discriminated against groups of people. But it has never been shown that this is the optimal way to promote equality and opportunity. In fact, the way affirmative action operates in many areas is to give an extra hand to minorities group memebers who are already at an advantage compared to their less well off group members. In addition, affirmative action breeds resentment and is easily exploitable by politicians looking to demonize liberals.
Democrats as a whole would be better served by limiting affirmative action as a means of specifically remedying racist institutions and focusing instead on other tools to promote equality.
August 13th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Judging from their latest issue I’d say the answer is The Atlantic Monthly.
August 13th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
RE SLC, so you’re saying that Powell’s military service would buffer him from attacks portraying him as a pro AA Liberal on most social and domestic political issues? How did that work out for John Kerry?
August 13th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Ban SLC already.
August 13th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
I don’t know why Beinert thinks “Obama needs to bring Leege’s number down.” Obama has maintained a slim lead in state polls and swing state polls suggest a lead in the electoral college as well. The odds of Obama gaining many votes through an appeal based on AA policy seem, as many others have noted, diminishingly low.
I would imagine the average response would be something along the lines of “Oh, he’s just saying that to get elected. As soon as he gets in there, he’s gonna…”
Also, it’s not as if the McCain campaign is honestly presenting and debating Obama’s views and platform on other issues like taxes or energy or foreign policy.
And while it’s hard to say with regard to Colin Powell since he never ran, in races with actual black Republican candidates, white Democrats have hardly done a lot of cross-over voting.
August 13th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
um, matt, I know you fled the atlantic to head deeper into the echo chamber, but I am going to have to cry foul on this one.
Your logical paradox only holds if the only reasons to get rid of racial AA are a) race is no longer an issue and b) racists hate it.
The problem here is that you are willfully misrepresenting the anti-AA case. Here’s three non-racist benefits.
A) Racial AA actively causes and exacerbates racism via it’s very existence. It isn’t just that racists don’t LIKE AA, the very existence of AA is one of the best recruitment lines to the racist fold. Why? Well, from one perspective it tacitly endorses the proposition that minorities are mentally inferior and requiring of assistance. Secondly it is the most visible and effective measure by which the government and large institutions practice so called “reverse racism”. Say what you want about the legitimacy, but telling young anxious white teenagers their dreams are to be denied because of a state run system by which “inferior” citizens are given a leg up at their expense is a pretty effective way to turn people into resentful and even hateful individuals.
B) The tacit message behind AA (obviously not the intended one of trying to counter the legacy of reconstruction, something americans are woefully uninformed about) filters down to black kids and forces them to internalize the very damaging meme’s being adopted by embittered white kids! There is a reason that when you ask someone what race they are before a standardized test, african americans score significantly worse than if you ask no racial questions. They have been told since their youth that “purely because of the colour of their skin, they get bonus points on the SAT to bring them up to speed with the white kids.”
C) Socio-economic affirmative action targets the very people who are in the most need. Currently, not only do you have the bad examples of rich black kids getting in and poor whites getting left out (or so the popular trope goes), you have rich black kids getting in and pushing poor black kids out! If the problem in need of rectification is the legacy of reconstruction has put african americans in a disenfranchised state, why reward the lucky few who have managed to scramble out of the hole we put them in, and leave the rest drowning?
So if there are good POLICY reasons to abolish racial AA in favour of socio-economic AA, then being good politics is just a bonus. And reasonable fodder for a column in a centrist magazine.
Now, if you would like to make a substantive defense of racial AA, please, by all means. But pithy ‘paradoxes’ does not quite qualify.
August 13th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
I think Beinart is basically arguing that Obama should say “vote for me and I’ll make sure you don’t have to pay attention to the black people around you anymore.” Like some 21st century Tilden-Hayes riff, with white racists falling in line behind a black President if he promises to help roll back previous advances for his people.
August 13th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
One advantage of race-based AA is that it’s easy to administer. With rare exceptions, a job or school applicant’s race is obvious. Administration of class-based AA could be far more difficult.
August 13th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Isn’t it likely Beinart is simply using a classic pundit ploy — advocating a position he personally favors as the solution to Candidate X’s problem, with no evidence it solves it? It’s like Amy Sullivan saying Dems have to drop pro-choice to win over religious voters…I’m sure she believes it, but she’s never offered anything like proof it’ll work.
The scariest pundits are those who think the American center magically matches their personal preferences.
August 13th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Actually, class-based affirmative action would probably benefit white, blue-collar working poor Klan members living in rural Red States as much as it would benefit poor urban blacks. So Beinart may have a point –but not the one he thinks.
August 13th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
With a last name like Yglesias and a father who’s from Cuba(?), does Matt get to list himself as a URM? Asking out of curiosity.
August 13th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Class based AA would actually be easier to administer in that students seeking aid (the students who may qualify) are already required to submit their ,or in most cases, their parents tax returns. I have never witnessed a student being required to submit a birth certificate or voluntarily doing so in order to prove they are indeed a minority in ten years of admissions work.
The best solution is adding a class based component to the current system and increasing state and federal based financial aid.
August 13th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Switching to class based AA might flip a number of working class whites from Republican to Democrat. Betcha the Republicans would fight this harder than Blacks.
August 13th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
I think class based affirmative action is a good idea in the same way that I think having wealthy people receive social security benefits is a good idea. Which is to say I think that both ideas aren’t really good, but they are bad ideas that make better ideas more palatable. Class based affirmative would allow an expansion of affirmative action. It would allow the program to have more teeth than it has now. And if that happened I think it would ultimately end up helping poor blacks much more than the current system. While I am against it philosophically I think it would lead to superior outcomes.
August 13th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
It’s perfectly consistent to think that racism remains a problem, AND to think that current-day race-based affirmative action is mostly counterproductive. That’s what I think.
August 13th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Frankly, I think this interview could blow his connection to Evangelicals.
It also explains that Trinity UCC was more about “street cred” than religion.
August 14th, 2008 at 6:45 am
Re: #25 – I’m reluctant to change a policy just because some people lie about what it does, which seems to be what your first two objections are about. I’m more sympathetic to your third point, although to the degree that class-based affirmative action helps poor whites, it’s not addressing racism. (And of course we could have both types of AA if we wanted). Here’s my question. Given that racism exists in the U.S., which I think is beyond dispute, we can either do something or do nothing. I think it’s unacceptable to do nothing. You and others believe that affirmative action is not the right thing to do. So: what should we do instead?
August 14th, 2008 at 10:59 am
Re Seth
Oh come on Mr. Seth, are you comparing the military service of Senator Kerry with that of General Powell? What brought down Senator Kerry was the swift boats smear campaign which would hardly be effective against General Powell.
August 14th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Re Dan Larkin
Mr. Larkin is a poopy head.
Re Don Williams
A number of progressives have advocated an income based affirmative action program, e.g. radio talk show host Bernie Ward.
August 14th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
#36, I had a long post, but the website ate it. the bottom line is it doesn’t matter who lies about what, if the practical implication of the policy is it causes more borderline, working class, anxious whites to adopt racist attitudes, then that is a bad policy, in addition to other noted problems.
Think of it as a parrallel to arguments about blowback for US foriegn policy blunders. If invading iraq was a mistake partially because it encouraged a whole lot of borderline extremists to find hate in their hearts for america, the legitimacy of their claims is irrelevant, it doesn’t matter if middle east muslims are legitimate in their interpretation of the events, the fact is the invasion caused the proliferation of a bad thing. In the example it is relgious extremism and hate, in the AA case, it is racism.
“Here’s my question. Given that racism exists in the U.S., which I think is beyond dispute, we can either do something or do nothing. I think it’s unacceptable to do nothing. You and others believe that affirmative action is not the right thing to do. So: what should we do instead?”
I said pretty unequivocally we should have socio-economic AA. This TARGETS the very disenfranchised, of both races, and has the benefit of removing the best recruiting tool racists have to offer.
Oh, and advocating it might just get a black man in the white house, with all the innumerable benefits to the status of african americans therein. So yeah. there’s the alternative…again.
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