Caveat to Eva's post (too long to post as a comment) - Umer
Hi Eva, great blog post. Thanks for summarizing Taiwo's arguments, it made it a lot easier to understand personally as there is definitely a lot going on in this book.
I just wanted to touch upon something you brought up regarding the distinction between class and race-based issues. On page 23, Taiwo states that:
"Karl Marx succinctly explains in The Poverty of Philosophy: “Direct slavery is just as much the pivot of bourgeois industry as machinery, credits, etc. Without slavery you have no cotton; without cotton you have no modern industry. It is slavery that gave the colonies their value; it is the colonies that created world trade, and it is world trade that is the precondition of large-scale industry. Thus slavery is an economic category of the greatest importance.”
However, from what I understand, Marx's argument, even in The Poverty of Philosophy, is concerned with class-based issues rather than race-based ones, even when it comes to slavery. Therefore, it seems strange to use Marx to reinforce the argument of prioritizing a race-based interest, because Marx himself would likely have prioritized the interest of the working class, regardless of their race. Again, on pages 26 and 27, he discusses the nepotism and favoritism in science, quoting sociologist Robert K. Merton in describing the culture as a stratified "class structure." While there are undeniable crossovers between this type of class structure and race, it seems intuitively misleading to wholly conflate the two. My confusion here is that Taiwo seems to conflate the two when it comes to the source of inequality, but not when it comes to the solution.
I'm also glad you brought up the discussion we had in seminar, but I would contest that Taiwo doesn't really refute the point that I and Josh (I think) were making. While I agree that conceiving of reparations as a "construction project" is certainly a better way of framing it, I am still not convinced that a purely race-based lens is the way to go.
For one, race is such a broad category that it cannot accurately account for and represent the varying levels and sources of struggle of all its members. A construction project that seeks to, for example, increase the opportunities available to black people in America does not account for the varying degrees of struggle within the black community. Again, I would point to the example of Coleman Hughes, who testified in front of Congress to say that he, as a black man, did not deserve reparations because he had grown up priveleged, three generations separated from Jim Crowe. Furthermore, how do we value the struggle of, say, Asian Americans versus black Americans? That is to say, how do we weigh the struggles of other racial and ethnic groups alongside the struggles of black Americans?
There are definitely aspects of American society that warrant a race-based solution. For instance, the justice system needs reworking to address the discrepancy in incarceration and violence against black Americans. My problem with Taiwo is that he seems to not differ enough from other iterations of reparations, in that he seems to present a blanket solution that lacks in nuance. For example, while the justice system clearly requires a race-based solution, healthcare and education likely do not in most cases. However, addressing healthcare and education by making them more affordable for all will likely have the knock-on effect of helping to construct a more fair and just society (key phrase: for all).
Eva, I am 100% with you that complicated problems still require solutions. Just because this is a difficult problem does not mean that we should not attempt to solve it. However, a solution this complicated requires an equally complex solution. The global landscape has evolved far beyond what it was when the slave trade and colonialism shaped it. Race, gender, class and other identity factors are far more intertwined and striated than they used to be, and therefore a solution to the historical injustices that shaped our world today need to match that degree of striation. I like the "construction project" framework, but it cannot be a blanket race-based solution. That just does not accurately reflect the nuance in the most disadvantaged among us.
A caveat on the caveat--In these two chapters, Taiwo is not proposing any solutions, but rather giving a mostly-materialist history of the European colonial, empire-building project that, he maintains, gave the contemporary "world economic/political order" its shape (what he calls "Global Racial Empire").
ReplyDeleteHi Umer, I would second Prof. Martin's comments here in that we're not quite sure yet what scheme of reparations is arguing for (unless you are better at managing your time than I am mine and have managed to get ahead on the reading). I think that even from what we've read so far, however Taiwo's approach fully embraces the complexity you rightly indicate as necessary to a successful reparations project. As Eva pointed out, he emphasizes the complementary rather than substitutive nature of projects aimed at justice. Because the injustices emerged from the same structures of domination, efforts to address racial justice should be accompanied by, and in some respects already are, efforts to address economic and gender injustice as well. Perhaps this is what you refer to as "conflation," but the second chapter provides a very solid argument for why this is not a conflation, but the identification of a real link. Furthermore, the pervasive system of racial and economic domination that Taiwo describes indicates that there are in fact very few parts of society that would not "warrant a race-based solution." For more specific examples than Taiwo's broad historical account, I would point to the wealth of economic and sociological scholarship showing the effects of current and historical racism in almost every aspect of society.
ReplyDeleteRather than rejecting it, Taiwo's framework embraces complexity. My impression from the introduction is that it involves something of an "all of the above" approach. Indeed, his vision is one of a global, multi-generational struggle for distributive justice. A project of that scale would probably have to include race-based policies as well as non-race-based policies and would leave few sectors of society untouched.
Hi Umer and George!
ReplyDeleteI think I would have to agree with Eva and George on this point.
I don’t think that Taiwo necessarily brought up Marx’s quote in order to support Marx’s whole ideology but to emphasize that specific point Marx made. Marx points out that slavery is “an economic category of the greatest importance,” perhaps to show how a class-based system based off of capital can translate into a system of social hierarchies that have been used to justify economic horrors. However, Marx also argues that the only way to get rid of class hierarchies, and thus other institutional forms of prejudices (racism, sexism, etc., as they are a result of labor-based division), is for a global communist revolution. This isn’t necessarily the most realistic of solutions.
Thus, Taiwo introduces his complex understanding of the problem at hand, its complex history, and a complex (but not too difficult to understand) approach to a solution of reparations. I disagree with the fact that one cannot tackle both simultaneously. Especially, as George points out, while the problem is a global one, the solutions necessarily aren’t. Taiwo notes, “...we’ve produced partially contained political structures with connected but distinct histories, and global justice will require justice at the level of these communities” (10). The approach for the United States, whose justice will focus on the populations that slavery and colonialism “wronged,” will differ from a society that may focus on a more class-based approach. As Eva points out, this includes “multiple steps in the process.” As someone stated in our last class seminar, a college can have both an affirmative action program while also providing financial aid. In addition, having programs in spaces where marginalized students have not occupied before can help with assimilation into those spaces. A simple class based approach may only introduce certain groups into spaces they have historically been kept from, but it does not solve the entire problem of integration (ex: of the mind).
This brings me to my last point about how cumulative disadvantage can be a result of both access and biases. Addressing healthcare and education may make it more affordable, but affordability isn’t the entire issue of these systems. Multiple studies have shown that discrimination in the healthcare system can harm black women - this isn’t necessarily an economic issue, but a racially-prejudiced one. In the justice system, better education can help lower-income communities, especially ones that are predominantly BIPOC can mitigate the school-to-prison pipelines. However, the justice system is still colored by human error - racial biases. This is both a race and a class issue. Boiling down the problem to just a class issue erases the intricacy of Taiwo’s approach and the complexity of the history that has created the present we live in today.
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/discrimination-black-womens-health/