The Anatomy of Racial Inequality by Glenn C. Loury

The Anatomy of Racial Inequality by Glenn C. Loury

Author:Glenn C. Loury
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Harvard University Press


BEYOND DISCRIMINATION

Recall Axiom 2, which constrains this theoretical project by a baseline presumption that I have called “anti-essentialism.” Explaining protracted and durable racial inequality becomes relatively easy if one admits the possibility of inherent racial differences in human attributes that significantly influence the ability of individuals to act effectively (intelligence, for example). I reject this possibility a priori, and I do so for two reasons: It is impossible to prove that no such innate racial differences exist; one can only show this view to be more or less plausible. Not everyone will be persuaded. More to the point, however, in a raced polity committed to democratic values, a public discourse that imputes inherent incapacity to some raced group of citizens is fundamentally inconsistent with the espoused democratic ideals. Policy argument in such a political setting, I have been suggesting, should as a matter of civic duty proceed under the maintained hypothesis of anti-essentialism. (Such a posture inhibits vicious circles of cumulative causation detrimental to the stigmatized group from ever getting started.)

The anti-essentialist position amounts to the assertion that, just as race is a social convention, so too, any widespread, durable, large-scale racial group disparity in status is a socially constructed, not a natural, outcome. It follows from anti-essentialism that a successful and consistent theory of racial inequality will need to account for the relatively disadvantaged position of African Americans by reference to processes that block in a systematic way the realization of the human potential of the members of this racial group. One can do so, it would appear, in only two ways: One can show that the rewards accruing to the members of the disadvantaged group, given their productivity, are lower than the rewards garnered by others. Or one can show that, owing to processes unrelated to their innate capabilities, members of the disadvantaged racial group lack opportunity to realize their productive potential. (These means of argument can, of course, be used in combination; it need not be either one or the other.)

These, then, are two distinct modalities for my project, what I will call an exercise in “racial apologetics.” (The term “apologetics” is borrowed from Christian theology, where a rough definition might be “defending the reasonableness of the faith.” It is the reasonableness of my faith in the racial anti-essentialism postulate that I endeavor to defend here.) In the first mode of argument, one undertakes to show that, systematically, productivity is rewarded differently for members of distinct racial groups. Call this the reward bias argument. In the second mode, one shows that, systematically, opportunity to acquire productivity is unequally available to the members of distinct racial groups. Call this the development bias argument.8 While I believe that both reward bias and development bias characterize the situation of African Americans in the United States, there is a profoundly significant distinction to be drawn between these two modes of argument for both the social-theoretic and the social-philosophic aspects of my analysis.

Another name for the reward bias argument is discrimination. There



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