Taiwo and King- Dara Schoolcraft
Chapters 3 and 4 of Reconsidering Reparations are heavily influenced by the ideas of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.. Taiwo explicitly quotes him in some parts and in others the ideas and claims are implied. In this blog post I want to examine the ways in which Dr. King’s argument on integration that we read at the beginning of the semester can be seen Taiwo’s work.
In A Testament of Hope, King outlines the distinction between desegregation and integration and explains that integration is only way to achieve true equality. He says, “desegregation is eliminative and negative, for it simply removes these legal and social prohibitions” while “integration is the positive acceptance of desegregation and the welcomed participation of Negroes into the total range of human activities. Integration is genuine intergroup, interpersonal doing” (King 118). He argues that desegregation is only a legal action that takes away boundaries without truly bringing people together. Integration goes a step further and seeks to achieve true human connections where everyone is welcomed and included. While desegregation is physical togetherness, integration is also spiritual togetherness (King 118). Oppression and racism can only find their end in integration.
In his section “Constructing Norms” Taiwo addresses the impact that norms or unofficial practices have on what things are communicated as more or less important or respected. He uses an example of saying “please pass the salt” to show that using the word please communicates that you don’t see the other person as a physical object that you can use or a political object that you can control (Taiwo 95). Using the word please isn’t a law or a required phrase but using it communicates a certain level of respect and acknowledgment of another person. The significance of given norms is inherited and built up over the course of history. Following Taiwo’s argument this means that norms stem from the “same processes that responsible for economic and political injustice” (Taiwo 95). This explains the example given W. E. B. DuBois when a white child refused his card during a classroom card exchange. The social structure and norms within it deemed it acceptable for the white student to refuse his card. I think this connects to King’s point about integration because even when legally there is desegregation, norms can continue to operate based on histories of racism and oppression and keep people apart. Norms are something that desegregation doesn’t address but that integration will. Through bringing people together and forming genuine interpersonal connections norms can shift to reflect newfound respect and inclusion.
In another way in the section titled “The Target: Self-Determination in a Just World” Taiwo explains that reparations are more than just distribution which reflects King’s idea of going deeper to integration. Taiwo explains “if you distribute equal citizenship rights to one hundred people, without paying attention to the li that patterns their interactions, you will be likely to find out that those who previously had citizenship will continue to treat those who previously did not differently” (Taiwo 99). In a similar way to desegregation, the citizenship example that Taiwo provides explains that solely using legal action doesn’t change ideas and attitudes, something more like li or integration is necessary to make substantial change.
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ReplyDeleteHey Dara! I wanted to add to your blog post by seeing how feasible integration is through some cases of chapter 3 and by touching upon the idea of the capabilities approach. I wanted to start with some context on Taiwo's version of "distributive justice" in the section "Distribution of What?" Taiwo discussed the collaboration between Nobel prize-winning economist and philosopher Amartya Sen and philosopher Martha Nussbaum. More specifically, Sen stated that the goal of social justice is freedom, which according to Sen and Nussbaum, can be measured by focusing on the capabilities approach.
ReplyDeleteThere are two focuses when evaluating the capabilities approach, "capabilities and functionings." Taiwo describes functionings as "being and doings" and capabilities as "the capacities to achieve functionings" (88). An example that can help illustrate this is a low-income high school senior applying to colleges; let's say their name is Oli. The functioning in this scenario is the state of being self-accomplished, the action of attending college. The capabilities are the scholarly ability to be a strong applicant, economic status, geographics, etc. In addition, Taiwo discusses capabilities as advantages and disadvantages. Advantages are "things that expand or support a person's capabilities," which for Oli would be class-based programs that aid students in entering college, and disadvantages would be the opposite (88).
In addition, Taiwo used a scenario centered around disability justice that emphasized justice through Divina, a child born deaf. The example concludes that the focus should be on "[participating] in the process of collectively deciding how these differences (being deaf versus hearing) relate to people's capabilities in life" (93). Taiwo wants us to move away from looking at individual marginalization and instead ask how the built environment (world) around us supports or disadvantages those individuals' capabilities, which is distributive justice. And this takes me to Dara's blog, where I question if integration is feasible.
On the citizenship example provided by Taiwo, I wonder if we can change the "li" of individuals to create a "just" world. Taiwo explains that "li habituates us into regulated patterns of behavior, which signal important things to those neighbors and strangers we share the world with" (95). Looking at modern-day United States citizens and their views on immigration in the last years, we can see that their "li" is rooted and is simply xenophobic. On top of that, parts of U.S. politics and government penetrate immigrant stereotypes through their actions (speaking, posting on social media, and campaign strategies) while still depending on their labor and income, which removes immigrants' positive and negative liberty. My main point is that MLK's essay focused on spiritual integration, which should happen before societal integration. However, when a piece of the population or system of government depends on the oppression of others for their functionings and capabilities, it can make Taiwo's or other philosophers' views look infeasible.
Hello Luis and Dara,
ReplyDeleteYou both focus on the spiritual and cultural aspects of integration and reparations. Dara's ultimate conclusion is that for reparations to work, they need to establish a li similar to the spiritual change King advocated for to achieve integration. Luis understandably remains skeptical of this conclusion and by extension Taiwo's arguments in Chapter 3, and I share some of this skepticism. The extent to which we can create societal change significant enough to truly see more "ramps than stairs" being built in the world must be considered. This is one of the foremost challenges Taiwo's work faces. We can pursue reparations in the form of debt repayment and redistribution of resources, whether they are educational, medical, or purely industrial, and we can give greater powers of self-determination to historically oppressed groups, but how can we truly get rid of the esteem hierarchies that exist to hold the global racial empire that Taiwo calls innate, unconscious, and pervasive in place. These are hierarchies that unconsciously and automatically reinforce and protect themselves. Even if the Global North is driven by the calls for justice, which Taiwo uses as his yardstick, to rectify unjust material differences and offer diplomatic and legal restitution, there seems to be a lack of a tangible solution for ensuring the ingrained feelings of cultural superiority, and the power that comes with that is eliminated. Without eradicating these, it seems increasingly plausible that power and wealth imbalances can recreate themselves, even in a world remade justly.
Taiwo offers his solution by correcting patterns of unjust distribution of care, concern, and attention (97). The idea is that once you undertake this endeavor of distributing equal attention in fields like medical research, which he discusses with the example of pregnant women not being researched during vaccine trials causing Ebola to impact pregnant Congolese women disproportionately, we can correct the '"cultural grammar' that systematically excludes and victimizes certain people." Self-determination also contributes to this idea since, hopefully, greater respect emerges once you establish groups with authority to be self-governing and autonomous. This was discussed throughout the chapter with the example of Taifa and her writings on self-determination and the Republic of New Afrika.
Even if the solutions Taiwo puts forward, along with debt repayments and other reparations, cannot dismantle the hierarchies that the global racial empire rests on, they could make great strides at weakening them. Enacting them forces the Global North to be aware of its advantages and injustices it must correct, as well as the feelings of superiority, both conscious and unconscious, and it must eliminate from its "cultural grammar." The book is a philosophical argument for why and how this needs to be done, so the practicality of the proposal as a solution is up for debate.