The Truth About Being Wrong

I think we can all agree that people ought “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” (If you don’t agree with this famous premise, you may stop reading now and you might want to go back to an earlier century where you’ll be more comfortable.) We’ll get back to the word ‘all’ shortly.

Given this premise, the presence of racism in the United States is vexatious–to say the least.

I was listening this morning to two prominent black Conservatives/Republicans on a radio talk show bemoan that so many blacks mistrust Republicans more and more even though less than 30% of blacks characterize themselves as ‘liberal’ while moderates and conservatives make up over 50% of the black population. The subtext of the conversation seemed to question why the Republican Party is viewed as being on the wrong side of so many issues that affect blacks/minorities and that they care deeply about. Further, they seemed to try to explain the behavior of the Republican Party as misunderstood, or even that the Republican Party has lost the ability to differentiate between right and wrong–due to a complicated political situation.

I think they’re missing the boat. Racism comes from a few different sources, and none of them is about being politically confused. People learn about others by drawing upon direct experience, or interpreting data, or are taught at home about other people (other races of people). All three of these input streams are reliably problematic, and, for some people, problematically reliable, indices of character.

Direct experience would be reliable, if only one could meet a class of people as a whole instead of in necessarily unrepresentative samples, and if one could use direct experience in lieu of data and other ‘teachings’ and not in addition to such indirect experience. However, look at this map of the US in 2010 which color-codes minorities in counties that have minority representation above the national average and are therefore ‘highly represented’:

If someone is not living in the Southeast (orange) or in a relatively few Northern urban centers, then it is difficult for most of the country to get significant direct experience of blacks since most people are living where blacks are not ‘highly represented’, or represented at all. Accordingly, most of us only get the occasional experience of interaction. (Incidentally, I spent most of my adult life in the military where minorities are ‘highly represented’, and in my experience all manner of decent character and also human quirks and foibles are represented roughly the same proportionally among all peoples. I found this experience encouraging and, though I realize I was only exposed to a population that self-selected for military service, the experience felt genuinely representative.) Even living in the Southeast outright, where presumably direct experience would be a much more reliable indicator of character due to sheer volume and variety of direct experience, is problematic in that now you are living within an area stained by generations of slavery, prejudice and the institutionalized view that non-whites are inferior. So, direct experience is not the panacea for enlightenment that it ought to be-but it is still the best path to understanding if filtered for historical context.

Data seems to be the largest information stream that many people cite to support their prejudices. Two examples: Look how many are in prison! Look how many are on welfare and have children out of wedlock! But I would argue that the statistics cited are often chosen with a confirmation bias. For example, who cites the fact that the crack epidemic was met with a war on drugs-resulting in mass incarceration-while the (largely white) opioid epidemic is being met with prevention and rehabilitation efforts? For the former, a prison sentence places felons returning to society at a great disadvantage while, for the latter, a trip to ‘rehab’ is becoming de rigueur. And this is before factoring in the socioeconomic factors that might drive certain populations more to despair and consequent drug use than others. As for children out of wedlock, how many people factor in the acceptance of contraception and abortion in society? By making the birth of the child the physical choice of the mother, the sexual revolution has made marriage and child support a social choice of the father. Shotgun weddings are gone, and women who want children can no longer count on pressuring the biological father into marriage under these circumstances; concurrently, the stigma of unwed motherhood has declined. And, welfare is not as related to out of wedlock births as people might choose to believe: welfare benefits could not have played a major role in the rise of out-of-wedlock births because benefits rose sharply in the 1960s and then fell in the 1970s and 1980s, when out-of-wedlock births rose most.

Finally, the weakest argument I have ever heard trotted out to support any position is “That’s how I was raised.” (Amazingly, it is often also used to support one’s religious orientation-another incredibly consequential choice!) Unfortunately, many people are raised in households of prejudice, and don’t question it very much; it is as if supporting the beliefs of your parents is honorable, despite the dishonor of their beliefs. I always respond to hearing this with “Why don’t you do some independent analysis of all religions (or other home-taught beliefs, such as the disparaging of another race) and see if you arrive at the same conclusion?”

It seems like the thread running through all of these ways to arrive at opinion is the overt choice as to whether or not to indulge the instinctive pull toward cherry-picking beliefs that support one’s inclinations- whether those inclinations be beautiful or ugly. Why are we inclined to prejudice? Maybe it is as simple as fear of the different, or the primitive human impulse to feel superior to another.

Or, put another way, maybe it is because we won’t ‘all’ agree that people ought “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Many of us choose not to endorse the premise. For them, the color of the skin is enough to judge character.

And so, if you find yourself in a pickup truck with shotguns chasing a black man down the street while he is jogging, your analysis might be lacking. And that is wrong. Truthfully.