Political Notebook - The Victim Olympics

I vividly remember a conversation with my father. I must have been on the cusp of adolescence, beginning to figure out how the world worked -- recognizing that my parents didn't know quite everything and that though my life had been charmed, it really may not be fair for everyone. I had figured out something in my head for the first time and I was about to speak it out loud so that my father could confirm its truth. I said something along the lines of, "I can never be the president, can I?"

"Why not?" my dad must have asked because no good father would allow his son's dreams to start being limited by reality even before reaching high school.

"Because were Jewish," I answered. For the first time in my life I began to understand that the things I had been taught to believe about my country and the world may not be as true as we all wished they were. I was deeply saddened, not because I had a particular interest in being president, but because I recognized for the first time that the American dream seemed to have limits, that sometimes reality got in the way of that dream.

Even as I've gotten older and have sadly grown accustomed to finding limits on the American dream, I retain a healthy sense of disappointment each time I realize that a particular person is being put at a disadvantage. And in our country's history, no traits have been more disadvantageous than being female, black, and/or poor. (my Judaism may have dashed any White House dreams, but it has hardly been a glass ceiling) As I watch the race for the Democratic presidential nomination this year, it is inspiring to me because each candidate is proving that even these most disadvantageous of traits can be overcome.

First, Barack Obama won the Iowa caucuses and sent a shockwave of hope through the country. For a moment, Obama reminded us of the possibilities our country can offer. However, as good as Obama's victory made me feel, I was troubled by the rush coronation of him as our national savior (I'm talking to you Chris Matthews) as well as the sense that his victory as an African American was the only way Iowa could have signaled a new page turned in our history. It was as if they had forgotten that an African American had won presidential primaries before (Jesse Jackson in 1984 and 1988), but a woman had not.

Hillary Clinton is blazing a trail no less important than the one being forged by Barack Obama. I am thrilled as a civil rights advocate to see Obama with a real shot at winning the nomination, but I am also overjoyed as the father of a daughter to see Hillary breaking her own ground. The shame of this primary is that I am being forced to choose between them -- only one page can be turned in 2008. And I am being asked to evaluate whether an African American or a woman in the White House would better represent national progress.

On this question, Hillary Clinton is at a disadvantage, not because she is a woman, but because she is a Clinton. Were Hillary Clinton any other woman, she probably would not be able to mount a viable campaign, for it is her last name and not her resume of decades confronting the status quo that seems to legitimize her candidacy.

In an excellent op-ed in the New York Times, Gloria Steinam wrote that a female with Barack Obama's biography would have no grounds for even running for the Senate, much less the White House. As I see it, the opposite is also true -- a male with Hillary Clintons biography would be so qualified for the White House that he would have run years ago. Looking at it this way, it is hard to dispute Steinam's assertion that, at least when it comes to leadership, the female glass ceiling is lower.

This all boils down to what some call the Victim Olympics -- which group has had it worse? There is no answer to this question and the very fact that two groups that have been historically disenfranchised and extraordinarily underrepresented in American political leadership are competing in this way demonstrates how distant racial and gender equity remains.

With this in mind, I was encouraged to see Hillary triumph in New Hampshire and lengthen the race so that more voters will have the opportunity to make their choice between two ground-breaking, convention-shattering, (insert your own cliche here) candidates that may have once questioned whether they could be barred from serving as president, but are now refusing to accept an American dream with limits.

Are We All Created Equal?

Our society and laws are built upon the premise that all people are created equal. Thomas Jefferson said so back in 1776, even if he meant it only aspirationally. It is upon this assumption that the guarantee of equal rights to all Americans is based. Without it – in a world where society and law hold that some of us are more equal than others – we enter the realm of Orwellian fantasy.

American and world history are marred by examples of individuals and movements attempting to disprove the “all created equal” theory to support an agenda of discrimination, enslavement, or extermination. After all, these people imply, since we are not created equal, what’s the logical basis for respecting equal rights?

In this, the DNA age, this debate has led to studies on the correlation of IQ and genetic continental origin (i.e., race). That debate leapt to the public consciousness earlier this year when Dr. James Watson, who won a Nobel prize for discovering the double helix structure of DNA, suggested that he was “inherently gloomy” about the future of Africa because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really.” In the wake of these comments, Dr. Watson was quickly eased into retirement and then bizarrely learned that 16% of his own genes were of African origin.

What has followed has been a more public debate between hereditarians who think intelligence is genetically determined and environmentalists who think intelligence is affected substantially by environment about who is right and what the implications of that answer are. For instance, if intelligence is genetic and there is a racial disparity that is intractable, then what good does a policy based on fictional equality do? This is what Dr. Watson seemed to be alluding to. On the other hand, if intelligence can be affected by environment, then what can be done to isolate the particular environmental causes in order to shrink racial disparities and lift intelligence across races. (For links that discuss the way-over-my-head science involved, see below)

I do not have Dr. Watson’s genetic pedigree, but after having combed through some of the research, I find myself leaning on the side of the environmentalists. Here’s why:

I am skeptical of the existence of a predetermined, measurable, and static “intelligence.” I am willing to concede that there are genetic capacities for every individual, but I have seen enough examples of people either exceeding or failing to meet their potential to know that there are many factors that determine whether that capacity will be reached. Intellectual capacities cannot be reached without nourishment – mental and physical. If an individual’s “intelligence” depends on whether or not she was fed properly as an infant, then how can their be a measurable number that represents her intelligence?

I am also skeptical of any test that purports to measure intelligence across societies and continents. How useful is a test conceived, designed, and administered by westerners to test the “intelligence” of people who have no contact with or understanding of the western world?

Further, if it is true that the black-white IQ gap shrunk substantially in the mid-1900’s (as studies show), then how can IQ be static? If IQ were static and genetically determined, then there is no proper explanation for such a dramatic decrease in “intelligence” disparity across races.

Finally, I am troubled by the way the debate speaks in such broad racial terms of the intelligence of “Africans,” “Europeans,” or “Asians,” because it is such generalizations that lead to the most trifling of stereotypes and the most egregious of crimes. Even assuming that the studies are accurately measuring “intelligence” and showing genetic differences, that research says nothing about the African, European, or Asian standing in front of me. Averages may be a necessary evil in studies, but they are incapable of evaluating any given individual and I am especially troubled when averages may be used to support agendas of discrimination based on stereotypes.

Perhaps I, myself, am genetically predisposed to side with the environmentalists because I am optimistic that changes in circumstances can affect life outcomes. Although it is troubling for me to believe that all people are not created equal, I am fully cognizant that all people are not born into equal environments. So long as “intelligence” is not static, then improvements to those environments can also improve intelligence. That is certainly what I want to believe and I am sufficiently skeptical of the hereditarians’ science to be comfortable that my conclusion, and Jefferson’s as well, is more than mere wishful thinking.

LINKS for pleasure reading:
Profile of Dr. Watson in Times of London – the article that started the discussion

4-part Review of Scientific Literature by William Saleton (don’t miss the 4th part for an interesting correction/retraction)

Op-Ed by Richard Nisbett of Univ. of Michigan

Malcolm Gladwell reviews James Flynn’s book, What is Intelligence?

“James Watson tells an Inconvenient Truth”

Vaguely related article on Jewish genes and intelligence

There is much much more out there if you are interested and have many spare hours.....

The Trouble with Diversty - Book Review

I have written several times (here, here and here) about the Supreme Court case in which the Court considered the constitutionality of school assignment plans in Louisville and Seattle that used race as a factor in maintaining diverse student populations in public schools. I criticized the Court for ignoring the almost-inevitable consequence of rejecting these plans – the resegregation of schools. However, in a book I’ve recently finished – The Trouble with Diversity, by Walter Benn Michaels – I found myself wondering about that resegregation: so what?

The Trouble with Diversity makes the argument that the focus on diversity as a goal has served as a distraction from increasing inequality in our society. Michaels is not so much against diversity – he is simply troubled by the way in which a room full of millionaires who happen to be of different races is praised as a diverse gathering. The fact that there are millionaires of all races, Michaels argues, makes it difficult to see that there are many more Americans of all races living in poverty with long odds of improving their lot. (Of course, the fact that a disproportionate number of those in poverty are African American only further complicates the balance between diversity and equality)

Michaels makes a compelling case that the focus on ethnic diversity in everything from university admissions to corporate boards has only hidden a system that favors the already-wealthy (regardless of race) at every turn. The danger is that it is hidden in a way that makes us (and by “us,” he means the educated and relatively well off who may be able to do something about the situation) feel better about ourselves: “A world of people who are different from us looks a lot more appealing than a world of people who are poorer than us.”

There is much to admire in The Trouble with Diversity – Michaels’ clarity of thought and writing, and his obsession with a society that is truly (as opposed to merely rhetorically) one of equal opportunity. However, in dismissing the quest for diversity as almost an intentional distraction from the quest for equality, Michaels goes too far.

The quest for diversity does not seek diversity for diversity’s sake. Rather, it is a direct response to discrimination. If personal biases are preventing otherwise qualified individuals from moving forward, then the clamor for more diversity can help take those personal biases out of the equation. Where Michaels fails is in minimizing the degree to which race still does matter to even the African American millionaire. Perhaps diversity proponents have gone too far, but that should not obscure the fact that racial and ethnic discrimination persists.

Ultimately, the debate Michaels weighs in on is a chicken-and-the-egg question. Michaels believes that if we can get to equal opportunity, then diversity will follow, whereas diversity proponents argue that if we have more diversity in our schools and professions, equality will follow. Which brings us back to the resegregating effects of the Supreme Court’s decision: Michaels would not be bothered by schools that are all-black or all-white so long as those schools provided equal educational opportunities (separate, but really, truly equal). Michaels would even go on to say that the litigation about the race-conscious assignment policies may in fact distract from and pull resources away from ever achieving schools that offer equal educational opportunities. In Michaels’ world, there is no inherent problem with the resegregation of schools.

And maybe there is no inherent problem with it. However, Michaels is no less guilty of ignoring reality than the Supreme Court. In our society, there is an unfortunate correlation between a school’s quality and its racial makeup. That correlation is not going to disappear as a result of abandoning effects at diversity – the more likely result is that the correlation with only strengthen. The race-conscious assignment plans that the Supreme Court rejected were designed to offer better educational opportunities (not to mention the social benefits of an ethnically diverse group of peers) to students who would otherwise be learning in racially-isolated schools subject to that unfortunate correlation.

So I have not totally converted to the conclusion that resegregation does not matter. But thanks to this book, I will be careful to keep the underlying goal of diverse schools or workplaces or neighborhoods in mind – opportunity that is not determined by the color of skin.

The Civil Rights Story of the Fall

This fall, a lot of attention has found its way to Jena, Louisiana, where civil rights activists and advocates have descended to condemn a grim reminder of the progress to be made in American race relations. The Jena story exposed the stubborn presence of private racism and disproportionate law enforcement by local officials. That story, however, overshadowed another troubling civil rights story that suggests that the problems in Jena continue to exist even at the upper echelons of the federal government.

John Tanner is the head of the voting rights section in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. This job, head of a section created by the Voting Rights Act of 1965, was specifically designed to protect the voting rights of African American citizens who were being denied registration. As part of his job, Tanner reviews the conclusions of his subordinates regarding questions including whether voter ID requirements discriminate against African American voters. When his subordinates recommended that a particular Georgia voter ID law did so discriminate, Tanner overruled them. Just for the record, the Georgia law has been ruled unconstitutional twice by a federal judge who likened it to a poll tax – a method, it is worth noting, that the Voting Rights Act was specifically enacted to eliminate. In October, we got a glimpse of exactly what Tanner was thinking when making that decision.

In a attempt to make the point that the voter ID law actually discriminated against elderly, and not African American voters (as though that is a testament to the goodness of the law), Tanner explained that “our society is such that minorities don’t become elderly the way white people do.” Inserting his foot further, he said, “They die first.” The argument, then, is that the law does discriminate against the elderly; the elderly are more likely to be white; and therefore, the law does not discriminate against African Americans. Bulletproof logic.

Let’s leave aside the question of whether it is factually accurate to say that black Americans on average die earlier than white Americans – the truth of that statement is irrelevant to what makes Tanner’s comments so reprehensible. Assuming that it is true, it is worrisome that Mr. Tanner found this fact to be an acceptable response to counter the suggestion that voter ID requirements disproportionately disenfranchise minority voters. It is a short step away from advocating early death for African Americans in order to ensure that the voter ID requirement will not discriminate against them.

Now, Tanner certainly is not advocating for this, but he is using a racial disparity in life expectancy and health outcomes as justification for his position, and thus, implicitly arguing that such a racial disparity is acceptable. In a country in which all are created equal and where every citizen is entitled to equal protection, a racial disparity in life expectancy is not acceptable and should not be acceptable to any American.

The only way such a disparate outcome would be acceptable is if one disregards the “all men are created equal” ideal upon which our society supposedly rests. If, for instance, African Americans are not equal to whites, than there really is no problem – African Americans die first because they are inferior. Isn’t this what Tanner is really suggesting when he cited the fact in his answer? And if so, isn’t it a problem that the head of the agency charged with protecting voter rights and making determinations about whether policies like voter ID laws are discriminatory even appears to think this way?

As Representative Artur Davis of Alabama scolded Tanner in a hearing that was unfortunately a distraction from the important and real debate about the wisdom, necessity, and constitutionality of voter ID laws, “If you are basing your conclusions on stereotypes rather than facts, then it suggests to some of us that someone else can do this job better than you can.”

Today, John Tanner remains the head of the voting rights section of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. What does that say about the progress of race relations in this country?

Long Live the Health Care Market

The government does not do everything right.

The preceding sentence was perhaps the least contestable sentence in the history of column writing. But now for the heresy some would like to ignore: sometimes, the government does do things right.

If you are an American who is paying attention (and just by the fact that you are reading this column, you are presumably the latter), you are aware that the current system of health care in this country is floundering. The costs of employer-based health insurance are crippling American businesses, even putting them at a competitive disadvantage in a globalized market. In addition, 47 million Americans do not have health insurance at all, most because it is too expensive and/or their employers are not or cannot help pay for it. This means that there are American families who are one medical situation away from both bankrupting themselves and shifting their health costs onto taxpayers or doctors.

Even those that have health insurance are not thrilled with what they’ve got. Premiums and deductibles seem too high, choice feels restricted, and there is the haunting knowledge that insurance companies have every financial incentive to cover as little as it can get away with.

In sum, the system is disabling employers that pay for health care, leaving those with coverage unsatisfied, and failing to cover millions. All of this may be acceptable if Americans were receiving superior health treatment with better outcomes that people living under other health systems. Largely, however, Americans are not as measured in terms of criteria like life expectancy and infant mortality.

Amidst this wreck are a few programs that do better than the system of private insurers now dominant in our system. Those programs, including Medicare, health care for veterans, and health coverage for poor children, are run by the government. And, at least as compared to the private insurers, the government is doing it right.

Yet this week, as President Bush was presented with an expansion of the popular and successful state children’s health insurance program, or S-CHIP, he found an opportunity to use the fourth veto of his administration. S-CHIP was originally envisioned to cover children in poor families. The program has been successful and as it came up for reauthorization, a bipartisan coalition in Congress agreed on a significant expansion so that it could reach even more of the 9 million American children living without health insurance. Members of Congress are now scrambling to gather the votes needed to override the President’s veto and salvage S-CHIP.

Why is the President so adamantly opposed to the expansion of S-CHIP, an expansion many in his own party support? It presumably is not because he thinks poor children should not be insured. It also is not because he thinks S-CHIP is ineffective. The President proposed his own expansion of the program, albeit a much smaller expansion than what Congress agreed to. The motivation for the veto was in fact precisely the opposite – S-CHIP is very effective. It is so effective and satisfying – like Medicare – that it makes it look as though health care can be successful even without private insurers. It looks as though the government is doing something right.

The President sees S-CHIP expansion as a step along the way toward government-funded health insurance for all Americans. In this, he is correct: the expansion does provide government coverage to more Americans. Where the President is wrong is that this is a bad thing.

In the private market, when one entity does something better than another, it is rewarded with market share. The same should be true where, as here, the government is doing a better job at covering Americans and providing them with coverage for quality health care than is private insurance. S-CHIP is targeted at covering those that private insurers have overlooked or refused to cover. If, based on its effectiveness, it picks up a few families who drop their own private insurance, that is simply the market’s way of punishing private insurers.

The fact is that even if President Bush’s veto is overridden, the United States is not converting to single-payer health insurance anytime soon. None of the major presidential candidates have proposed a plan that goes so far. Where the United States is going it toward a more effective system of coverage by expanding a program that works. Effectiveness is precisely what the market ought to reward, even where it is the government that is doing something right.