Dueling Narratives

I want to commend to your attention Glenn Loury’s lengthy and excellent disquisition on what he calls the “bias narrative” and the “development narrative” at Quillette. Here, for example, are his remarks on the suit against Harvard University brought by some Asian students:

Medical school is hard. Law school is hard. It requires real intellectual mastery to be done effectively. Unfortunately, a proportionate number of African Americans have not achieved that mastery. We can go into the reasons why. History has not been entirely kind to black people. There is blame enough to go around. But the fact remains that, relative to population, fewer blacks have developed this mastery, so we are fewer in the venues where the intellectual work is difficult.

Now, there are two things you can do in the face of that. One is to lower standards so as to increase the representation of African Americans and call that “inclusion.” The other is to face these developmental deficiencies and address them, and I mean address them from infancy. So, this is not laissez-faire. I’m not saying there could be no public initiatives; no educational enrichments, and so on. No summer programs, whatever. We can talk about what things need to be done, but can we first understand what the problem is? If our kids are testing poorly, it is because they do not know the material. If a poor Asian kid living in a three-room apartment with four siblings can ace the test, our kids can do it too. Anybody who does not think so is a racist. They have the “racism of low expectations” about blacks. They write us off. They think we are defeated by history. They patronize us, presuming that we can’t actually perform? “Yes, we can’t” becomes their motto.

But black Americans can perform. We just need to do the work. Give us an opportunity to confront the deficits and redress them, maintaining a level playing field. Do not lower the bar for us and we will measure up in the fullness of time. It may not happen tomorrow, and it may not happen the next day, but it will happen in the fullness of time. I say this as a matter of faith.

Although I am in material agreement with just about everything he says in the piece, I also recognize that there are many people who disagree and I wanted to suggest why that might be. When Dr. Loury writes:

So, I am left wanting to know just what they are talking about when they say, “systemic racism.” Use of that phrase expresses a disposition. It calls me to solidarity while asking for fealty, for my affirmation of a system of belief. It frames the issue primarily in terms of anti-black bias. It is only one among many possible narratives about racial disparities, and often not the most compelling one.

I think I can explain how that might be. When you have been radicalized with respect to race every incident in which something bad happens to a black person, the only possible explanation is racism. That is the nature of radicalization. It’s not puzzling. It’s political.

At any rate I recommend you read Dr. Loury’s thoughts.