The effects of racialism

In City Journal, Joel Kotkin writes in part,

This newly energized racial consciousness asserts that most white Americans are racist, even as roughly three in four Americans—including whites, Republicans, and independents—regard racial diversity as “very good” for the country. The proportion of Asian, African-American, and Hispanic college graduates has increased since 2000, even as the share of whites has dropped. As Coleman Hughes has observed, the incarceration rate for African-Americans, though much higher than those of other ethnic groups, dropped by 34 percent between 2001 and 2017—and more so among the young.

...And then there’s what journalist Sergio Munoz has called “the multiculturalism of the streets.” Even as the media and political class demand that people identify with their race, everyday life suggests an erosion of racial categories. Nothing illustrates this more than the rise in racial intermarriage, which has soared from barely 5 percent in 1980 to 17 percent today. Such shifts reflect seismic attitudinal changes. The percentage of non-black Americans opposing marriage to an African-American, notes Pew, has dropped from 63 percent in 1990 to 14 percent today. The America of 2050 likely will not be the collection of separate ethnic communities allied against white supremacy, as envisioned by “woke” progressives; it will resemble more closely what Walt Whitman called “a race of races,” with more of the population having two or more ethnic identities.

Progressives assume that policies designed to help certain racial groups automatically benefit them, yet racial identity and economic empowerment are not the same thing. As Tavis Smiley has commented, black America got “caught up in the symbolism of the Obama presidency” but saw its economic fortunes decline under his administration. Indeed, it turns out that, for the most part, progressive politics do not especially help minorities. Due in part to economic and housing polices, notes researcher Daniel Hertz, some of the politically bluest cities— Milwaukee, New York, and Chicago—are also the most segregated. These places may boast socially aware political cultures, but minorities, particularly African Americans, are moving out.

Evaluating factors like income differentials, homeownership, business ownership, migration, and educational achievement, a study by the Center for Opportunity Urbanism (where I’m executive director) found that, ironically, 13 of the 15 best regions for African-Americans are today located in the old Confederacy, while the other two—Washington and Baltimore—were in border states. The worst performers were Democratic strongholds like Boston, Milwaukee, San Francisco, Minneapolis, and Los Angeles. Blue-state policies—including environmental regulations and higher taxes—also drive out blue-collar businesses that tend to hire minorities and raise housing and other costs. The biggest gap between minority and white homeownership rates—a critical component of the persistent divergence in wealth by race—can be found in left-leaning states like Rhode Island, New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.

Racialist ideology may be failing minorities, but it continues to gain adherents in the press and academia. The notion of white privilege has become so embedded on college campuses that schools now hold workshops on the topic, and students subject themselves to programs that accuse them of supporting “racism and white supremacy.” Some schools, worried about unequal minority success rates, even urge professors to consider racial factors over merit-based ones.

...It will be tragic if Americans permit our multiracial society to devolve into ruinous tribalism. Rather than turn inward, great societies thrive by including former outsiders into their system. Rome’s greatness, suggested Edward Gibbon, came about in part because it allowed for religious heterodoxy and gave outsiders, including former slaves, a chance to become citizens and rise above their station. This project has worked marvelously well in America—but its continued success depends on our valuing citizenship itself, which many on the left no longer do.

Read more here.