I guess the problem is that as a historian and a Christian, I find the various verses in the Bible that talk about the sins of the fathers being visited on the children to the 10th generation appalling not because they are simply cruel (or prescriptive) but because they are so awfully descriptive. An evil like 300+ years of slavery and a post-slavery racial discrimination that was vile and oppressive is a powerful thing to inflict upon a whole people and it is the historical equivilent of nuclear waste, the afterglow will be with you for a very long time.

The other thing that gives this historian pause however is that I don’t think all problems can be fixed – that the deepest tragedy could be that the damage that the poisoned legacies of slavery and racism have inflicted upon both African Americans and perhaps, the “majority” – soon to be plurality Caucasian population in this country are simply irreperable. Race (or more appropriately black-white racial antagonism because almost no one I know loses sleep over the Asian or even Latino minorities in this country) isn’t a red herring, its the elephant in the room, and it seems possible that we might never be free of its negative implications. It could be possible that the damage that has been done is a permanent feature of our national life that no time will heal.

I also don’t think that the historical record will be forgotten in a generation (nor am I convinced it should be – the last thing Americans need is more historical amnesia), because it is a powerful mobilizing tool – for the sake of their careers the Frank Herberts of the world want and need to use the history to their own benefit, and they have many enablers who are not black who, for their own purposes, find the legacy of racism and our country’s original sin of slavery to be a useful if not key sermon point in their all time favorite gerimand – “America in the hands of an angry God” (Jules Michelet, a famous 19th century French historian of England began every lecture with the phrase – remember gentlemen, England is an island. I would submit that our reflection on US history should be similarly informed by the need to remember ladies and gentlemen, our country’s key cultural/religious influence is puritan. We are drawn toward “city on a hill utopianism” and yet fear and despise our successes and intentions no matter how noble – much of the left (and a good part of the right) in this country I would argue can be understood by its embrace of a secularized Calvinism that is both utopian and deeply suspicious of any success in this world like that of our country’s own wealth and influence in the world- hence slavery/racism for the left is an excellent secular substitute for the Calvinist doctrine of total depravity, so many on the left, even if they are the lilliest of lilly white white boys and girls whose pasty faces never take a tan are not going to cease enabling minority race baiters for a very long time if ever because they want and need to believe that all our wealth is ill gotten and deep down inside we are the worst of peoples with an utterly corrupt history. Also if all our history is portrayed as a nightmare of racism it is a great tool for delegitimizing all tradition and culture up to this point so that the revolution in whatever field can proceed apace).

That said, it’s a long way from identifying the differences between the physical characteristics of the races to claiming membership in that race predisposes one to crime, or heart disease, or smoking Marboros and living in trailers.

Unfortunately, we use statistics and we compare those statistics and claim that they should match. A 18% black population should have an 18% representation in prison and if that is not the case, it must be racism. A 60% white population should have a 60% representation in corporate CEOs, and if that is not the case it must be racism.

Seems to me race is the red herring in all of this, that it’s really about everything other than race. Culture, income, education, family support… But those are difficult things to solve, whereas one can easily point to race and remedy the problem via legislation. It’s difficult to legislate that parents assist in school-work. I mean, how would you enforce that?

It’s been, what, six or eight generations since slavery in this country? What will people do when it’s as forgotten as a segregated military?

– Max

I also wonder if we should even allow such research – racialized thinking about social issueshas proven in the past to be evil and would be bad (perhaps worse) even if it were more “scientific” (as if scientists in the past haven’t insisted with absolute arrogance “x must be true” only for it to be discovered later that “x” all too often reflects said scientists prejudices).

I don’t suggest this because I think we should be “afraid” of science, but as Lex implies such approaches undermine the whole idea of an equal citizenry (do we want to start screening people from appalachia? Will we consider anyone below a certain level of IQ as 3/5 of a human being?). We don’t have to turn ourselves into lab rats just because a bunch of scientists in white coats want to test out theories that have produced horrific results when applied to people (see the record of scientific racists during the progressive era for examples).

And daveinboca I’m not trying to paint you (or even Heather M.) with a broad brush but I just think that some things on principal shouldn’t be treated as scientific questions at all – and race ranks very, very high on my list of such things.

If you control for economic circumstances for example, the disproportionate ratios by race largely subside. Because of the overall numbers there are more whites in prison than blacks, just as there are more poor whites than poor blacks. We don’t criminalize poverty per se, but we do accept that economic stresses contribute to lawlessness and other forms of self-reinforcing negative social behaviors.

This is not to suggest anything about Jena – my own conclusions on that are not yet solidified – nor to blind ourselves to the fact that there are profound social issues disproportionately facing African-Americans in this country.

But thinking people have to recognize that when others talk about the legacy of slavery – our national birthstain – and those pernicious social consequences which depend from racist attitudes and laws that aren’t so very far in our past, they are not just making it up. These are real issues.

The question now of course, is what are we to do about them. At least a part of the poverty and crime in our society is generated by those legacies, and we ignore the social consequences at our peril. That’s a tough discussion that we’ve all got to find a way to have amongst ourselves in a reasoned way.

Mr. Hebert’s form of demagoguery doesn’t help.

I wonder if the IQ correlation would fit roughly along those lines. 85 for blacks… 90…Hispanics 100 for whites. There was a very good ABC Evening News piece about how the Black/White divide looks fifty years later in Little Rock Central high. Sort of what you expect… blacks predominate remedial, whites in AP courses and grades. Yet the principal, a white female, was weeping over society’s being at fault…and, oh yeah, she mentioned something about reading not being promoted in black families.