Black Patriotism Redux

A speech delivered to the Philadelphia Society

Last month, I was invited by the Philadelphia Society, a conservative organization dedicated to “deepening the foundations of a free and ordered society,” to deliver a lecture on a topic of my choosing. I opted for a familiar theme—black patriotism. I’ve spoken on this subject before, but sometimes it feels like I’m the only black person talking about it, so I thought it worthwhile to reprise and expand some of my ideas about the necessity of patriotism for black Americans.

Below you’ll find the text of the speech. In it, I argue that African Americans should embrace our birthright as citizens of the United States and abjure the view that the past sins of the nation determine our present and future. Only by laying full claim to that inheritance can we move forward as a people and extract ourselves from the quagmire of dysfunction that continues to keep too many of us from fulfilling their potential.

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Civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, 1965. Source: Library of Congress

The Case for Black American Patriotism

A speech delivered before the Philadelphia Society, Cleveland, Ohio, September 22, 2023

Introduction

I have given as a title for this address, “The Case for Black American Patriotism.” I’ve done so because a specter haunts the domestic political landscape in America today. It is the specter of racial conflict growing out of the anger and alienation of too many black American. Pundits say that we’re living in a period of “racial reckoning” in America and, indeed, racial dispute suffuses our public life—from school committee elections to national political contests. The estrangement of intellectuals, politicians, journalists, and activists derives from persisting black underachievement across so many fronts in our country’s economic and social life. The reality here is too familiar, too widely known to require elaborate recitation. Whether concerning health or wealth, education or income, imprisonment or criminal victimization. The relatively disadvantaged status of those Americans who descend from slaves, here in the third decade of the twenty-first century, more than 150 years after the Emancipation, is palpable.

What are we to make of this? That question has bedeviled me for decades—indeed, ever since I began graduate studies in economics at MIT a half-century ago. So it is with heavy heart that I stand before you this evening, a black American economist in this era of racial discontent in my country; an Ivy League professor and a descendant of slaves; a beneficiary of a civil rights revolution—now two generations in the past—which has made possible for me a life that my ancestors could only have dreamed of. More than that, I am a patriot who loves his country. And I am a man of the West, an inheritor of its great traditions. As such, I feel compelled to represent the interests of “my people” here and now. But, and ironically, that reference is not unambiguous, invoking, as it does, both communal and civic antecedents!

What, then, are my responsibilities as a black American intellectual, right here and right now? I declare, for all the world to hear, that, no matter the political turmoil that may envelope us, and regardless of my racial or ethnic identification, my fundamental responsibility is to stay in touch with reality, and to insist that others do as well. As the great Thomas Sowell once put it, given a choice between rhetoric and reality, we are always better served to eschew the former and to embrace the latter. That is what I am about this evening. That, I believe, is what this historic moment requires of all of us. The future of our democratic experiment is at stake.

So at this Philadelphia Society Conference, I will be making the case for unabashed black American patriotism, for the forthright embrace of American nationalism by black people. This ought not to be a controversial position. But it is in many quarters. I speak to you here and now, but I intend that my words should echo beyond this gathering. The currently fashionable standoffishness characteristic of much elite thinking concerning blacks’ relationship to the American project—as was exemplified, for instance, by the New York Times’s 1619 Project—serves the interests, rightly calculated, neither of the country as a whole, nor of black people as a community. Indeed, the “America ain’t so great, and never was” posture popular on campuses and in the liberal newsrooms is a sophomoric indulgence for us blacks in the twenty-first century. Our birthright citizenship in this great republic is an inheritance of immense value.

Let’s begin by noting that Americans of all stripes have a great deal in common. Those commonalities should be the bridges that are undergirded by patriotism connecting blacks and the rest of the nation. We all want the same things at bottom: a legitimate shot at the American Dream, where each generation does better than the one that came before. We want to enjoy personal safety and feel that our property is secure. We all want clean and orderly communities with good services. We want a government that works for us and not the other way around. Connections between various groups in America could be stronger if we focused more on the things that we have in common instead of things that divide us. Left to their own devices, I believe, that is what most Americans would be inclined to do. There are those among us, however, who make their livings by focusing on our differences. They claim that something is fundamentally wrong with America. They are in error. Their grave error threatens to tear us apart. They should be opposed forthrightly, and I intend to do so in these brief remarks. It is too easy to overstate our failures, and to underappreciate what has been achieved.

Racial disparities are real, of course. But inequality in America is not solely or even mainly a racial issue. The many poor and marginalized white people deserve our concern, too. Moreover, this black/white dichotomy is an anachronism. The demographic profile of the country is rapidly changing. The interracial marriage rate has risen. More and more people view themselves as “multiracial,” including the first black president and vice president of this country. We talk incessantly about racial identity, but too seldom about culture or values. And yet, those are things that transcend race.

How, then, are we to understand the disaffection afflicting so many black Americans? I believe this is the result of false narratives being promulgated by demagogues and ideologues, narratives about how something called “white supremacy” threatens them; about how we have, in effect, reverted to the era of Jim Crow; about how the country has its metaphorical knee on our black necks; about how racist cops are supposedly hunting us in the streets to the extent that it is now “open season” on black people.

On Racial Disparity: Rhetoric or Reality

My work has responded to these departures from reality by looking directly at what has happened in our country over the last seventy-five years. Despite the persistence of racial inequality, a great black middle class has emerged with an influence on American culture that is stunning and has worldwide resonance. There are black billionaires. We black Americans have ten times the per capita income of the average Nigerian. And not only that. Culture barons—the powerful people running mainstream media, bestowing prizes and grants, directing human resource departments, heading universities and movie studios—have all signed on as allies in the struggle for “racial justice.” This disproves the premise that the American Dream does not apply to black people. To say so is to lie to our children about their country. This is a crippling lie that, when taken as gospel, robs black people of agency and a sense of control over our fate. And it is a patronizing lie, one betraying profound doubt about the ability of black Americans to face-up to the responsibilities and to bear the burdens of our freedom. That is the true challenge facing black Americans in the twenty-first century: not to throw-off the shackles of our supposed oppression, but rather, to take-up the burdens of our freedom.