In this previous blog, I addressed the issue of affirmative action/identity politics from a political standpoint, to show that the underlying principle of the Left is corrupt, and similar to and no less corrupt than the principle underlying the bigotry of the Right. Although I am sympathetic to the motive of the Left’s approach, namely, to devise ways whereby equality can be achieved not only by rights, but also by improvements in education, employment, housing, and other social assets.
The segregationists’ “never” is a long time; steps to eliminate racial discrimination and its effects must shorten it. But haste can make waste, or at least not hoped-for results. Affirmative action has attempted to speed up the process (identity politics has not been around long enough to achieve results). No one denies that it has narrowed or nearly eliminated the gap for some Blacks. (I use “Blacks” as shorthand for all people of color and women of color or not.) But I deny that it has succeeded for millions more left behind (just as tax credits do nothing for those too poor to pay taxes) for whom little or no action has been affirmative. We have accelerated the process for some, but we have stalled progress for many. The hare has led the tortoise, but we know who wins the race.
Group-based discriminatory programs intending good results have not achieved—and, I think, cannot achieve—the widespread results needed to attain rough equality in society. To put it bluntly, affirmative action/identity politics is a partial, cheap way out because it costs nothing to enroll or hire someone on the basis of birthright or biology and avoids the costs of fixing the underlying problems. It is an easy way to feel better about a problem which it does not and cannot solve. Witness the millions living under current conditions in Black big-city ghettos. Also witness conditions on reservations and in Appalachia—the latter suggesting that the inequalities affecting minorities and women extend to millions of Whites as well.
A better way is to address the problems of poverty. Its concomitant conditions—poor education, under- or unemployment, poor nutrition, poor housing, poor health care—affect millions of disadvantaged citizens in rural and urban areas. An approach to address these conditions would be programs based on needs, not identity. As such, this approach would be holistic in perspective and integrated in implementation, in contrast to the patchwork of welfare programs for this or that group. Still, such an approach would not require any program to be one-size-to-fit-all; government programs can be designed to be flexible enough to accommodate regional and even local differences. Moreover, this approach would give more political power to all groups united by common interests than a patchwork of programs which may be reasonably suspected of keeping groups divided, politically weak, and dependent on favors (in return for votes). Of course, such coordinated programs would cost billions more than we currently spend, but they would be fair and, properly implemented, effective. An additional benefit is that they would reduce the resentments which affirmative action/identity politics fosters, with the political consequences from which the polity is presently suffering.
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