Racial Inequality,
Racism, and Racial
Change (3/21)
Complete Policy:
ArmyNavy and what can be done?
What forces and policies influence race
relations in what ways?
Is there race inequality
of opportunity (review)
Is the playing field level.
Some people believe it is more than level.
The text (e.g. p. 440 “Top dog or Underdog”)
suggests this is mistaken.
Feagin argues that discriminatory treatment
and stereotyping is pervasive in the US today,
As measured by thousands of matched pair
applications for housing, employment, etc.
#4 The Myth that
nothing can be done
There are not only huge shifts in attitudes,
But also large differences and relatively rapid
changes in different institutions.
The army went from largely vertically
segregated to the most integrated large
institution in the US in decades.
The process was similar to that pictured in
Remember the Titans
The problem in the army
and other armed forces:
The problem was that vertical segregation
was divisive, dysfunctional and unjust.
Incoming candidates differed in test scores,
so that if those scores to determined
placement vertical segregation was assured.
Are the test score differences innate or due to
differences in schools, etc.?
The army argued that there was evidence of
the latter, and if so it is unjust as well as
inefficient to accommodate to it.
Nature of army programs
A set of four main compensatory programs.
None insures one a position, only a chance.
They are not aimed to replace the
educational system, but to remedy the
cumulative racial inequality.
The army and the navy,
again.
Feagin does not believe that the army is any
more “utopian” than the navy.
Nor were the average sentiments of either
most people or most officers different.
The main difference was a commitment by
the leadership to a sufficient set of policies
directed at both inequality and prejudice.
Are race relations and race
inequality stable, unstable
or hyperstable?
Call a structure “stable” if it changes a little if
a small force is placed on it, and it changes a
lot of a large force is applied.

Structures without feedbacks are often stable.
Call a structure “unstable” if it changes a lot
even when only a small force is applied.

Positive feedback structures are often unstable
Call a structure “hyper-stable” if, even after it
has been changed, it tends to change back.

Negative feedback structures are often hyperstable.
The three marbles, again
stable
unstable
Hyper-stable
Which dynamic describes racism and racial inequality?
Why?
Myrdal believed that race
relations were unstable.
They have lots of positive feedbacks.



A decrease in prejudice should create an avalanche of
further changes unraveling the racist structure.
Just as an increase in racial inequality should create an
avalanche of further changes increasing racism.
(Note that both happened in the 1970’s)
Moreover it is part of a larger system.



Changes in the economy were undermining Jim Crow.
Changes in the whole society were making Southern
regionalism less viable.
Changes in the world were making US failure to live up to its
ideals less viable.
The structure of positive feedbacks that brought it
about, would cause the whole system to unravel.
Implications of his analysis
of racial inequality as
positive feedbacks
The structure looks inert because and
only because it is so pervasive.
But policy interventions can be very
powerful because change is amplified.
However they must be broad spectrum
(I.e. health, education, political power,
income, wealth, social participation, etc.
Feagin’s view: We are at
a fork in the road:
2 Contradictory dynamics responding
to the coming minority majority in
different ways:
1. Increasing separatism and coercion
Gated communities
The “Brazilian solution.”
•
•
2. A broad coalition to build inclusive
citizenship and “true democracy”

“Without justice, there cannot be peace”
The relation between
individual attitudes and
social dynamics
Individual actions
society, but in
many different ways.
Society
individual attitudes and
behaviors, , but in many different ways.
Pettigrew** calls the assumption that a
racist society is one that contains a lot of
prejudiced individuals a failure to “keep
our levels straight” or to “think in systems
terms”
Housing segregation
and tipping points
A striking and well-understood example
involves housing segregation.
Suppose that when some black families
move into a neighborhood, all the white
families move out. Does that mean that all
the white families are motivated by prejudice?
Even ignoring the institutionalized policies of
banks, real estate agents and developers,
schools, or politicians, imagine a distribution
of attitudes as follows:
White willingness to live
in neighborhoods of
varying mix
Suppose the following mix of attitudes:
19% favor an integrated neighborhood and will remain, so long as they are
not the only whites in the neighborhood.
20% favor an integrated neighborhood and will remain, so long as it
remains 50% or more white.
20% favor an integrated neighborhood and will remain, so long as no more
than 1/3 of the residents are nonwhite.
20% favor an integrated neighborhood and will remain, so long as it does
not become more nonwhite than the country as a whole (i.e. so long as it is
less than 20% non-white)
20% favor an integrated neighborhood and will remain, so long as they do
not observe other families moving out.
1% oppose a integrated neighborhoods and will move out if any non-whites
move in.
What is the dynamic that results?
White flight
1.
2.
3.
4.
If the institutional rule is that each family
makes an independent decision, and if there
are no social policies that produce counterpressures, then:
the move of the one percent that oppose
integration in principle will cause
the next 20% of white families to move out,
which will cause the next 20% of white
families to move out,
and so on, leading to an all black
neighborhood.
Does the outcome
reflect wishes?
In one sense, by definition the outcome reflects
wishes (as well as institutional arrangements.)
But by assumption, 99% of the population prefers
an integrated neighborhood.
And the unwillingness of, for example, the last
20% to live in an almost all-black neighborhood
may have nothing to do with prejudice.
The outcome dynamic is the same as that which
would result if all white families wanted to avoid
contact with any black families.
But what would have to be changed to change the
dynamic is very different.
Within a decade, Jim Crow had been
dismantled.
Why did so “little” change in attitudes
inequality and social relations result?
On the one hand, the dismantling of Jim Crow
is not “little.” Some people even argue that
the playing field is level today (a position that
Feagin and the text both contest).
On the other hand, many structures of
inequality and segregation have remained,
and have even grown over the past 20 years.
Theory #1: Deeply rooted
sentiments
Some people suggest that attitudes
about race are socialized early and
resistant to change.
But many attitudes appeared to change
quite rapidly
The army
Bennington
“Remember the Titans”
Theory #2: The new
racism
Some people suggest that public acceptability
merely made racism take the form of cultural
stereotypes rather than genetic theories:



“symbolic racism” using code terms of “crime in the
streets,” “welfare,” or “political correctness”
“sense of group position:” that whites merely shifted
to whatever policies were most likely to maintain their
advantages.
“laissez faire racism:” that the positions most likely to
maintain white advantage were individualism and
limitation of government policy
Theory #3:
countervailing forces
An unstable system can amplify either an
increase or decrease of either racial
inequality or racial prejudice.
Civil rights instituted a beneficent cycle
Deindustrialization, globalization, and
government cutbacks instituted a vicious
cycle.
Which increased inequality in the black
community and cancelled each other out.
Theory #4: Backlash
The erosion of privileges (or perceived,
relative privilege)of some whites
produced counter-movements and
counter-policies,
and the majority of whites were not
willing to take sides.
My own personal view
I (Peter Knapp) have argued that there are
evidently countervailing pressures



Both forces are demonstrable,
And inequality in the black community has
increased.
See the Symposium in Contemporary Sociology
(26:314-7; 1997)
but that sociology often has difficulty
estimating how large are the effects of such
countervailing feedbacks,
and that is one of the reasons for developing
more systemic theories.
The continued decline
of prejudiced attitudes
in the US:
RAC PRES
Intermar
00
60
1980
1990
2000
RAC PRES: % say they would vote for a candidate of the other race, if their
party nominated him.
Intermar: % oppose laws against the marriage of blacks and whites.
The lack of trend on
policy
BLACK $
HELP BLACK
40
5
1980
1990
B LACK $: % believe that the government is doing too little to
improve the life chances of blacks.
HELP BLACK: % strongly agree that the government should
help blacks overcome the effects of past discrimination.
The effect of Jim Crow
racism (or race prejudice)
on “HELP BLACK”
INTERMAR.?
by
GOV.BLACK
GOVT.HELP
AGR.W/BOTH
NO SPECIAL
Missing TOTAL
245
489
1259
4321
12.3%
24.5%
63.2%
100.0%
1564
2339
3601
11675
20.8%
31.2%
48.0%
100.0%
Missing 1641
2549
4445
3281
11916
TOTAL
1809
2828
4860
19277
9497
19.0%
29.8%
51.2%
YES
NO
1993
7504
A small fraction of the population opposes intermarriage, and
they are only 8% less likely to support gov’t aid to blacks.
Another measure of Jim
Crow racism (or race
prejudice) Re “HELP BLACK”
RACE DIF2
by
GOV.BLACK
GOVT.HELP
AGR.W/BOTH
NO SPECIAL
Missing TOTAL
169
305
684
1281
14.6%
26.3%
59.1%
100.0%
1155
1964
3001
6398
18.9%
32.1%
49.0%
100.0%
Missing 2126
3108
5620
11598
TOTAL 1324
2269
3685
YES
NO
Only a small fraction of the population believes that blacks
have less inborn ability to learn, and they are only 4% less
likely to believe the government should do more to help.
1158
6120
22452
The effect of new racism (or
belief in less motivation) on
“HELP BLACK”
RACE DIF4
by
GOV.BLACK
GOVT.HELP
AGR.W/BOTH
NO SPECIAL
Missing TOTAL
458
1063
2467
4212
11.5%
26.7%
61.9%
840
1120
1169
26.8%
35.8%
37.4%
Missing 2152
3194
5669
TOTAL
2183
3636
YES
NO
1298
3988
100.0%
3299
3129
100.0%
11766
2278
A substantial fraction of the population says that blacks have less
motivation and will power, and they are substantially less likely
(12% vs. 27%) to support government help.
The effect of belief in
discrimination) on “HELP
BLACK”
RACE DIF1
by
GOV.BLACK
GOVT.HELP
AGR.W/BOTH
NO SPECIAL
Missing TOTAL
962
1102
930
3221
32.1%
36.8%
31.1%
352
1106
2751
8.4%
26.3%
65.4%
Missing 2136
3169
5624
11676
22605
TOTAL
2208
3681
19277
7203
YES
NO
1314
18.2%
30.7%
2994
100.0%
4380
4209
100.0%
51.1%
A substantial minority of the population says that blacks have less
income, etc. because of discrimination, and they are substantially more
likely (32% vs. 8%) to support government help.