From race-based to poverty-based affirmative action
Following Jim Webb's recent insightful and highly relevant comments about Appalachia and racial sentiments he really should be considered the top-tier VP candidate, as long as he passes a vetting process for skeletons.
Webb argues very well that
1. There is bias against black and brown minorities in Appalachia, creating a wall for Obama.
However, 2. It is not merely racism, but a feeling that the affirmative action programs of the 60s went beyond historical justice for African Americans to aiding other minorities and in effect at the expense of the socio-economically poor in general (e.g. whites also in poverty).
Therefore, 3. If Obama were to speak to this cultural group with this understanding in mind he would be able to reach them.
I have heard this idea floating around before (on Slate?) that perhaps one of the most dramatic, powerful things Obama could do to win the 'hearts and minds' of the vast mainstream of America would be to propose transforming affirmative action programs from being race-based to being purely poverty-based.
Of course this is a pivot that could meet resistance from the base, but who can disagree that it is a policy change whose time must come at some point anyhow?
OBAMA / WEBB '08
It was on Matt Yglesias as well.
It's an idea that makes a lot of sense at the state level, or at the admissions-office level.
The problem I see is that it doesn't apply particularly well to the *part* of affirmative action that is handled federally. The Feds don't really tell individual colleges how to weigh applications. And it's hard to weigh socioeconomic background when you're talking about contracting, employment, etc etc.
At the Federal level, moving from race- to class-based affirmative action would be pretty much the same thing as getting rid of affirmative action.
What he could do, has done, and should do again, is express a generalized openness to new ideas on the topic.
May 22, 2008 12:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
For instance, he could say that commitment to defense of the status quo version of this program is not, for him, a litmus test for the Supreme Court.
But I'm honestly not sure where Obama's own instincts lead him on this issue.
May 22, 2008 12:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
The odds of a white person born into poverty still being poor as an adult are 1 in 14. The odds of a black person born into poverty still being poor as an adult are 1 in 3. Poverty affects blacks and whites differently, its reality is different, its causes are often different. Many of the public policy issues relevant to social mobility have a racial component, most notably, housing and education. The single greatest cause of persistent black poverty, the shadow drug economy and the U.S. war on drugs, has an inescapeably racial dimension to it.
In short, I think that the suggestion that we focus on poverty rather than race is just impossible and certainly would not produce effective public policy.
Now this does not mean that we need a return to robust affirmative action, whether race or poverty based. But that is a longer conversation.
May 22, 2008 12:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for bustin up this straw man argument Joe Pettit.
Webb showed his ignorance of civil liberties.
If he was concerned for the areas that he represents then his approach to legislation would have more a distinct socio-economic emphasis instead of the promotion of the military/defense sector.
In that interview any talk of him being VP was shredded. He denied racism as though people that experience it are somehow deluded. He knows very well that it's a part of the conditioned culture. He's trying to equate the remant effects of slavery and generations of discrimination as the same as being born in a certain part of the nation.
This coincides perfectly with Hillary's message.
May 22, 2008 1:12 PM | Reply | Permalink