Disparate outcomes measured by race imply that their cause is the inability of the individual to achieve because of their race. Once within that paradigm we are left with whether the cause is internal or external to that individual. Is it their adoption of some societal induced reduced expectation or an undefined external systemic racist structure or some other internal or external racial factor. Regardless of the outcome of the discussion, we are stuck within the framework of race. We are unable to offer a solution that doesn’t involve race which brings with it all the baggage of the racial “victim”.
It seems (at least to me) that if we truly want to solve problems then we need to deracialize the way we think about the issues we are trying to address. If we ignore race and gather data differently then we can deracialize both the problem and the solution. What percentage of convicted felons come from homes living in poverty, what percentage of those felons were raised in urban environments, what percentage of those felons came from single mother households, what percentage of those felons didn’t graduate high school, etc., etc. If we are addressing a societal issue, why would we ever care if the racial percentages of the resulting population differ from their make-up in the overall population. It is our societal problem, not a racial problem, that we are attempting to address.
Perhaps my ignorance is showing and while we can attribute 95% of a particular issue (high school dropout rates, incarceration rates, unemployment rates, etc.) to cross racial factors, there remains a racial disparity that is solely a function of race that as Mr. Thomas argues comes from a racialized world view. For me, that should be the last factor we consider and not the framework within which we approach the problem.
Disparate outcomes measured by race imply that their cause is the inability of the individual to achieve because of their race. Once within that paradigm we are left with whether the cause is internal or external to that individual. Is it their adoption of some societal induced reduced expectation or an undefined external systemic racist structure or some other internal or external racial factor. Regardless of the outcome of the discussion, we are stuck within the framework of race. We are unable to offer a solution that doesn’t involve race which brings with it all the baggage of the racial “victim”.
It seems (at least to me) that if we truly want to solve problems then we need to deracialize the way we think about the issues we are trying to address. If we ignore race and gather data differently then we can deracialize both the problem and the solution. What percentage of convicted felons come from homes living in poverty, what percentage of those felons were raised in urban environments, what percentage of those felons came from single mother households, what percentage of those felons didn’t graduate high school, etc., etc. If we are addressing a societal issue, why would we ever care if the racial percentages of the resulting population differ from their make-up in the overall population. It is our societal problem, not a racial problem, that we are attempting to address.
Perhaps my ignorance is showing and while we can attribute 95% of a particular issue (high school dropout rates, incarceration rates, unemployment rates, etc.) to cross racial factors, there remains a racial disparity that is solely a function of race that as Mr. Thomas argues comes from a racialized world view. For me, that should be the last factor we consider and not the framework within which we approach the problem.