The misinformed opinion of Daniel Oakes (“Consider it:
Racism is truly declining,” Feb. 7) is troubling. Not as much
because it is the opinion of Oakes personally, and not even because
it was insensitively published during Black History Month, but
because Oakes’ self-serving interpretation of a single poll
is probably not very different from a belief shared by a majority
of people in this country.
It is even more troubling that this belief is so profoundly and
dangerously mistaken. Oakes relies on one source, a 1997 Time/CNN
poll of 1,282 adults and 601 teens (ages 12-17) to conclude that
racism is not a problem, and that, in fact, the perception that
racism is a problem is all a big conspiracy.
Even without taking into account that nationwide polls have
extreme difficulty in reaching people in low-income communities,
who are exactly those most likely to be victims of racism, this
poll provides enough conflicting evidence that it in no way
unequivocally proclaims the decline of racism in America. Despite
their personal experience, over half of teenagers in this poll
believe that racism is still a “big problem” in
America.
That half of black adults, yet only a quarter of teenagers,
reported an experience with discrimination should give us further
reason to be cautious in proclaiming that racism is not a problem
in the United States. As sociologist Joe Feagin pointed out when
this poll was released, someone under 18 has rarely had the
experience of looking for a job or buying a home and has had fewer
opportunities to experience racism.
However, Oakes still feels confident enough to proclaim, despite
his own status as a student, that “when we get past students,
academics and politicians, and when we get to people who have held
private-sector jobs,” we will realize that perceptions of
racism are a construction of the liberal media and academics. I
worked in the private sector, in one of those “minority-heavy
voting districts” that Oakes claims perpetuates this
myth.
Unfortunately for Oakes’ argument, I found his optimistic
proclamation that “if you work hard and make good choices you
have a fantastic chance to succeed” to be false. Instead, a
truly shocking and sad proportion of my friends’ and
colleagues’ lives were troubled by poverty, violence and
despair. Additionally, racism at the hands of employers, store
owners, teachers and law enforcement was a very real part of their
lives.
I also found something that makes me very skeptical of
Oakes’ argument ““ as a member of the dominant, white,
educated culture, I was very ignorant of my own racism because it
was not a part of my segregated life. I found that when I was
thrust into a diverse situation, I was, and still am, frightened
and ignorant of people that have a different skin color than my
own.
I had walked around my entire life checking my wallet every time
I passed a young black man and had never thought about how that
action by me, a member of a privileged, decision-making class,
could be a reinforcement of racism and its terrible
consequences.
The Census Bureau tells us that blacks and Latinos are more than
twice as likely to live in poverty, less likely to graduate from
high school, and more likely to be in prison than whites.
To face reality and accept these sad social realities is to be
faced with a very poignant conundrum ““ either there is
institutional racism in the United States that is denying equal
opportunity and quality of life to people of color, or we have to
blame these gross inequalities on something else.
If we believe racism is a construction of the media, we must
sadly conclude that a higher proportion of blacks and Latinos are
deprived of an equal quality of life because of the reasons that
racists have long argued ““ that they are lazy, unintelligent
or incapable.
Relying on the wisdom of these teenagers puts us in an
uncomfortable situation of having to either deny the reality of
inequality in our society or to explain it with unmistakably racist
reasoning.
Or we can come to the conclusion that I would like to hear from
a student such as Oakes, and hopefully will one day hear from more
members of American society ““ that a single poll cannot deny
hundreds of years of history and the reality of racism that the
truly educated can see with their own eyes.
Enos is a first-year graduate student in the political
science department.