Racial Inequality and the Rhetoric of Responsibility

Last Spring, Brown University economist Glenn Loury presented at Harvard sociology’s Workshop on Race and Black Youth Culture. He titled his talk “Culture, Causation and Confusion: Why Bill Cosby is Wasting His Time,” engaging with the pervasive “rhetoric of responsibility” frequently applied to blacks in the United States. As Loury argued, our public discourse is saturated with demands on the so-called black community to police its own ranks. This rhetoric of “black communal responsibility” suggests that the solutions to racial inequality are cultural, and the ill-defined “black community” should therefore bear the burden of “fixing” its collective deficiencies.

The rhetoric of black communal responsibility is a common response to discussions of racial inequality, and black folks seem to be hearing it from both sides. From within, you have Bill Cosby, John McWhorter and even President Obama stressing the role of black parents in the cultivation and education of black children. From the outside, you have a slew of white conservatives, wide-eyed and incredulous, wondering why the black community just can’t lift itself out of disadvantage.

The problem, as Loury astutely pointed out, is that categories such as “black community,” “black culture,” and “black leaders” are political constructs void of intellectual definitions. So-called “culture talk” imputes a sense of groupness where no such political collectivity exists. African-Americans, as a race, have no institutional structures to police themselves and bring about the kind of solutions culture critics (like Cosby) demand. They don’t hold conferences or summits—at least, none that all blacks are required to attend by virtue of their racial identity. There aren’t any meeting minutes we can rifle through to make sure they are working to “fix” their collective culture. This notion of an aggregate “black community” was invented ex post facto with a distinctly political motive: impute agency on a racial category where none exists, and wipe our hands clean of any societal responsibility for inequality.

That’s not to say that racial groups don’t share certain histories, privileges, or disadvantages by virtue of their socially constructed racial identity. Moreover, many racial and ethnic groups often share certain traditions, rituals, and affinities. As a Jew, I frequently refer to myself as a “member of the tribe,” implying both a shared allegiance and shared history with my fellow Tribesmen. Such is the general case for other races and ethnicities in the U.S., African-Americans included.

But that doesn’t mean they can be expected to act like a civic collectivity or a civic organization and, by extension, engage in civic action. Who elected Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson to be the spokesmen for the so-called black community? I don’t seem to recall a campaign or election for these self-appointed leaders. Yet the “black culture” rhetoric, purported so frequently in public discourse, assumes their civic appointment. The ability of blacks to act as a distinct group is taken for granted—an assumption of their collective agency. But a racial category is not a group with civic powers. Nor is it a collective body with a unified political or cultural agenda. As University of Chicago sociologist Mario Small has argued on countless occasions, there are multiple black communities and multiple black cultures.

The rhetoric of black communal responsibility imputes collective agency where none exists, assuming group-level cultural deficiencies while ignoring the society-level creation and maintenance of racial inequality. The logic is problematic and condescending at best, dangerous and incendiary at worst. It at once obscures the tremendous diversity among African-Americans and distracts our attention away from the actual causes of inequality. Whatever “the black community” is, we can’t exactly depend on “it” to solve, or do, anything without the institutional means to solve, or do, anything. Assuming communal responsibility is dead-end rhetoric, promoting a self-fulfilling prophecy of disadvantage. It serves a political purpose, but does little to advance our intellectual understanding of inequality.

Individual communities can certainly make important contributions toward greater social equality. But you just can’t expect an artificially constructed group, based on an arbitrarily constructed racial category, to solve inequality at the national level by itself. You can’t expect action where no institutional ability to act exists.

"Don't Let Them Jesse Jackson You"

In last week’s New York Times, Jeremy Peters wrote a thought-provoking article about the lack of visible leadership in the gay rights movement. While Peters is generally fast and loose (read: weak) with his historical analysis, his general point seems accurate: there really isn’t any national spokesperson for gay rights. Sure, Harvey Milk has become somewhat of a household name as of late, but we’d be naive to think that he had any national presence before Gus Van Sant’s award-winning biopic. Not to belittle Milk’s achievements, but let’s be real, he was only a city supervisor.

In the Times article, Peters compares the leadership dynamics of the contemporary gay rights movement with those of past movements for civil rights. According to Peters, social movements of yesteryear were generally associated with a single national leader: Frederick Douglass was the face of the abolitionist movement, Martin Luther King, Jr. defined the Civil Rights Movement, and Betty Freidan epitomized the modern women’s movement. The point here is not that social movements were in fact lead by individuals, but that the general American public looked to these leaders as surrogates for their respective constituencies. Put another way, the media knew exactly who to call for soundbites.

There is no such prominent figure in today’s battles for gay rights. No leader to turn to for direction. No individual to call on for an official statement of purpose or a list of goals. But, is this a bad thing? As usual, Ta-Nehisi Coates offered his own insightful commentary, reflecting on the gay rights movement’s lack of visible leadership:

“And for that, I think my gay brethren should be thankful. There's nothing like media anointing someone as your spokesperson. Don't let them Jesse Jackson you. No disrespect to Jesse. But the notion that one person, in these individualized times, should speak for whole populations is crazy. I think, ultimately, this will be for the best.”

Ta-Nehisi makes a really astute point here. It would be problematic, and perhaps detrimental, for the gay community to define themselves through a single national spokesperson. Associating your movement with a single leader means associating yourself with all of his or her faults, inconsistencies, and contradictions. When an individual represents an entire movement, all of their flaws reflect back on the movement, whether movement participants like it or not.

But there’s another layer of concern here that also deserves analysis. Minority populations are particularly susceptible to criticisms that highlight negative aspects of individuals as indicative of the whole group. Single acts of transgression or immaturity become evidence, or proof, of the cultural inferiority of entire populations. When a black man commits murder, he’s making his entire race look bad, contributing to existing stereotypes. But when a white man commits murder, his act is an individual transgression, rather than a group characteristic. Take acts of domestic terrorism, like this past month’s murder of George Tiller. Or Timothy McVeigh’s bombing in Oklahoma City. No one argued that these actions exemplified a characteristic of an entire racial group, as if domestic terrorism is some sort of a white male trait.

Herein lies the structure of oppression in America. With minority populations, individual-level flaws are interpreted as group-level deficiencies. This common logical fallacy fosters and legitimizes racism and other forms of discrimination. By contrast, when, say, a white male commits some sort of atrocity, his actions are seen as aberrations rather than the norm.

That is not to say that the gay rights movement is better off without formal leadership. Indeed, sustainable social movements require strong leadership and efficient organization. But these leaders don’t need to be the go-to voice when the media is looking for a comment. Sure, a movement needs strong leaders, but maybe they should stay behind the scenes. Maybe the message of the movement would be more powerful if defined by a collective identity, rather than a single national leader.

Still, anointing a national spokesperson may be inevitable. If this happens, the gay rights movement may want to take Ta-Nehisi Coates’ advice, and resist getting Jesse Jackson-ed. No disrespect to Jesse, of course.