Even after he was forced to address race in the wake of the dust-up over remarks made by his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, Obama played it close to the vest, talking more about how the historic legacy of racism had shaped the contours of racial inequity and had fed the black anger expressed by Wright, which anger was seen as so threatening to much if not most of white America. By speaking in terms of past injuries and the lingering grievances generated by the same, Obama deftly managed to speak about racism without forcing white folks to confront just how real and how present-day the problem is. Sure, speaking of racism even in the past can be risky, especially when you mix it with any discussion of what our obligations are today to address the legacy of that racism. But to make an issue of ongoing racism and presently dispensed privilege—which, after all, would seem to implicate the current generation of white Americans more than is suggested by a backward-looking historical point—would have been infinitely more risky. It is one thing to note that the legacy of slavery, segregation, and other forms of racism has been a massive racial wealth gap—indeed, the typical white family today has about eleven times the net worth of the typical black family and eight times the net worth of the typical Latino/a family,15 and much of this gap is directly traceable to a history of unequal access to capital16 —but it is quite another to point out that this wealth gap continues to grow, not only because of past unequal opportunity, but also because of present-day institutional racism.
And so rather than speak of these matters, Obama avoided them, and when he did engage them, he did so in a way that tended to paper over the ongoing racial inequities that beset the nation, in favor of a narrative far preferred by white folks: the narrative of the color-blind society achieved, or at least, very nearly so. In his book, The Audacity of Hope, for instance, Obama speaks of the obstacles facing black and brown America as little dif-ferent from those facing working-class and middle-class whites. To hear Obama tell it, all are in the same boat, and as he would explain during a speech in Selma, Alabama, during the campaign, the civil rights movement, or what he called the “Moses generation,” had brought the nation 90 percent of the way to racial justice. It was now, according to Obama, time for the “Joshua generation” to carry the load the last tenth of the way.17
Income and Jobs
But in a land where the average black family has less than one-tenth the net worth of the average white family, and the average Latino family has about one-eighth as much, it’s hard to square Obama’s mathematical calculus of progress with the facts. So too when other data is considered, such as the fact that black high school graduates actually have higher unemployment rates than white dropouts;18 or the fact that white men with college degrees earn, on average, a third more than similar black men;19 or the fact that only 7 percent of private sector management jobs are held by African Americans, and another 7 percent by Latinos, while whites hold over 80 percent of all such positions;20 or the fact that middle-class black families have to put in approximately 480 more hours per year—equal to twelve work weeks—relative to similar whites, just to make the same incomes as their middle-class white counterparts;21 or the fact that blacks, Latinos, and Native North Ameri-cans are 2.5 to 3 times more likely than whites to be poor, while Asian Americans are about 30 percent more likely than whites to be poor.22 In the case of Asians, higher poverty rates and lower incomes often remain the norm, despite higher, on average, educational attainment than whites’, thanks to high-skilled immigration. And so, as one study of Asian mobility in Houston, Texas, discovered, although Asian Americans in Harris County are 50 percent more likely than whites in the county to have a college degree, they have considerably lower incomes and occupational status than the lesser-educated whites with whom they compete for opportunities.23
And given some of the data suggesting that things are getting worse for blacks—and in particular for black men—it is especially troubling to think that the public may come to believe the rhetoric about racial equity having been essentially achieved. So consider that at the same time America can make a black man president, data from the labor department indicates that for average young black men today, things are not nearly so rosy. Indeed, the typical young black male growing up today will earn 12 percent less than his father did a generation ago. Furthermore, the data suggests that while most middle-class white kids will grow up to do better, economically, than their parents did at the same age, most middle-class black kids will grow up to find themselves having fallen backwards and actually doing worse than their parents. Indeed, the numbers show that black youth from solidly middle-class families are nearly three times as likely as similar whites to fall to the bottom of the income distribution, and nearly half of all black middle-class youth will do so.24
Naturally some will suggest that this data, however troubling it may be, has little to do with institutional racism in the United States today. Perhaps non-discriminatory factors such as differential qualification levels, unequal educational backgrounds, or family composition could explain economic disparities between whites and people of color. But while it is true that earnings disparities, wealth gaps, and differences in occupational status are not only the result of racism perpetrated by whites, the evidence that discrimination contributes to the phenomenon indi-cated by the data is strong. Even after controlling for such ostensibly race-neutral factors as differential test scores and grades, family background, and other variables that can impact income levels, white males still receive about 17 percent more than their otherwise identical black male counterparts.25 But beyond mere income disparity data, direct evidence of ongoing racial discrimination is also plentiful, however much President Obama may have finessed it on the campaign trail.
So what does it say about how much we’ve transcended race, or rather, failed to do so, that according to a study from just a few years ago, conducted by economists at MIT and the University of Chicago, job applicants with white-sounding names are 50 percent more likely to be called back for a job interview than applicants with black-sounding names, even when all relevant qualifications and experience are indistinguishable?26 Or that, according to the same study, for black-named applicants to have an equal chance at a callback, they must actually have eight more years of experience than those with white names? One thing it surely says, but which has gone unremarked upon by most pundits, and which remained unspoken in the presidential campaign, is that white fears about so-called “reverse discrimination” are based on irrational and nonsensical delusion. After all, if it were really white folks who couldn’t catch a break when looking for a job, then a study such as this would have come to the exact opposite conclusion of what it actually found. When the researchers sent out the résumés to prospective employers, it would have been all the “Tamikas” and “Jamals” who got called in by enthusiastic companies bent on hiring black folks, and it would have been the “Connors” and “Beckys” left out in the cold to wonder what in the world had gone wrong. But this didn’t happen, because it never does. And yet, not only did Obama not speak this fundamental truth—that it is still very much the usual suspects who face the obstacles of race-based discrimination—rather, he pandered to the lie in his Philadelphia speech on race, wherein he mentioned, as though it were perfectly valid, white anger over losing out on a position because of a preference given to a minority.27
What does it say that, according to another study conducted by Princeton sociology professor Devah Pager, white males with a criminal record are more likely than black males without one to be called back for a job interview, even when all credentials, experience, demeanor, and communication and dress style are the same between them?28 Or that according to a massive national study conducted by legal scholars Alfred and Ruth Blumrosen, who examined tens of thousands of businesses, at least one-third of all employers in the nation are racially biased and discriminate regularly against job applicants of color, and at least 1.3 million black and brown job-seekers will face racial bias during their job search in a given year?29 Other research would suggest far higher rates of discrimination than even the Blumrosen study was able to find. So, for instance, according to data from the mid-1990s, compiled by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, as many as three-fourths of all businesses covered by civil rights and affirmative