Racism And Discrimination

Racism As A Zero-Sum Game

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MICHEL MARTIN, host: Now we're going to hear from the author of that study we just told you about. Michael Norton is a professor at Harvard Business School. He and his co-author Samuel Sommers, a professor at Tufts, published an article that says whites see racism as a zero-sum game that they are now losing. The study's authors report that 30 percent of whites surveyed believe they have been the recipient of some kind of discrimination against them. And a significant number of whites believe this problem is more prevalent than racism against blacks. Michael Norton is with us now.

And we're also joined by Tim Wise. He's a lecturer and author whose last book "Color Blind" deals with the state of race relations and affirmative-action in the U.S. and I welcome you both to the program. Thank you both so much for joining us.

TIM WISE: You bet.

MICHAEL NORTON: Thank you.

MARTIN: Professor Norton, why don't I start with you. What gave you the idea for this research?

NORTON: Sam and I had been studying for a number of years the emerging norms of political correctness - this feeling that many white people have that they're not allowed to say what they're thinking or they're not quite sure how to behave in interracial situations. And we realized over time that people were sort of mistaking that feeling of oppression in those situations for actual oppression in the world. As though not being able to say what you think is in some ways similar to being actually oppressed by some system, and we wanted to try to measure that feeling that whites might be having that, of course, black people experienced in the 1950s through today. White people seem to suddenly be feeling this way and we wanted to measure it and see how strong that belief was.

MARTIN: And how strong is that belief?

NORTON: We found some good news, which is that if we asked people what racism was like in the 1950s, blacks and whites agree that racism against blacks was very high back then and there wasn't much racism against whites back then. And everyone agrees also that racism against blacks has gotten better. The problem is that black people think it's decreased a little bit and white people think in some sense it's been solved. And then the other bad news is that if you ask black people about racism against whites they almost don't know how to answer the question because they say there isn't any, there's no such thing.

Racism Legalized in Michigan: Court Overturns Anti-discrimination ...

The amendment passed  58% to 42% , and became section 26 of article 1 in the Michigan constitution.

The amendment was intended to end the practice of taking race and gender into consideration when deciding who gets a state job or into a state university, a practice known as affirmative action.  Affirmative action is by definition racism, but proponents would argue that it is a good racism which has the goal of balancing previous racism.  Maybe their mother never told them that two wrongs don’t make a right.  Racism was wrong then, it is wrong now, the voters of Michigan recognized that.

But in steps the courts, the Federal 6th district to be exact.  Yesterday they overturned the state constitutional amendment 2-1 stating that it was unconstitutional.  Hmm, a constitutional amendment is unconstitutional?  As a federal court they determined that the amendment to the Michigan state constitution was not in line with the federal constitution (maybe they should re-read the 10th amendment).

What exactly do they claim is unconstitutional about an amendment that says you cannot discriminate? They claim that it violates the 14th amendment’s equal protection clause.  Yes, the same constitutional amendment passed shortly after the civil war in an effort to end discrimination, is used to strike down a state amendment prohibiting discrimination.

The 6th district covers Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee and Kentucky, so the decision does not affect the three other states, California, Nebraska and Washington who have laws prohibiting racism through affirmative action.  But the next step is likely the supreme court, which could overturn similar laws nationwide.

If there is any question about whether affirmative action is wrong, just look at your favorite college basketball team and ask yourself, ‘should race be taken into consideration in making the team? Should a white player with less talent replace a black player with more talent in an effort to make the team racial profile more consistent with that of the college campus?’ That same question was posed to affirmative action supporters on campus:

Dustin Krutsinger Dustin Krutsinger is a 3rd year medical student at the University of Iowa.  He met his wonderful wife at church when they were 16 and were united in marriage at 19. He is the proud father of one daughter, Abigail and a son Jacob.  Campaign for Liberty . He also ran for the Iowa House in 2010 as a Libertarian. It was a somewhat symbolic run, as no third party has ever been elected to the Iowa legislature, but it allowed him to discuss limited government solutions to our current problems as well as gave people another option, as the incumbent was running unopposed.

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