At first I thought that the opposition to civil rights, a central part of Republican identity, was simply a matter of Whites, heterosexuals and men not wanting to give up their privileged status. But now I think that this phenomena is about more than that.
- I have come to realize that not everyone is comfortable with abstract thinking, not everyone understands statistical concepts ("trend", "likelihood"), and some people think that only atheists talk about people using abstract, statistical terms.
- Government enforcement of civil rights brings up questions about the proper role of government and is the supreme example of government over-reach for many people.
Follow me below the fold for how I got here.
Recently, my son got a traffic ticket, and when he filled-out the part he had to send in, it asked him if he was White, Black, etc. This angered him. His first thought was that if he was Black he would be given easier treatment. I explained that this was just a monitoring tool to insure against racial profiling and wouldn't effect the penalty or his ability to dispute the ticket if he thought it was unfair. But then I remembered a time when I was working with people who weren't familiar with abstraction and statistical thinking. The explanation I gave to my son wouldn't have made any sense to them.
We Kosacks know that without civil rights laws, Blacks would remain excluded from most professions and would continue to be relegated to the most undesirable jobs. Even with these laws, Blacks suffer from lower wages, higher unemployment and harsher treatment by police.
But for people who live a here-and-now concrete existence and are suffering from injustice at every turn (either forced out of a higher-paying job into a lower-paying job or no job at all, or sons earning far less than their fathers without benefits or job security, disrespect from employers who can replace them in a heartbeat) the thought that they are not being treated fairly by a Big Brother government is too much.
I'm not suggesting that we give up advocating for civil rights. But for civil rights, education reform, and many other issues, could a purely top-down approach be a mistake? Are slogans and demands counterproductive? Do we dis-empower local people and preclude solutions tailored to local circumstances? It might be better to support local progressive leaders and grassroots progressive groups rather than militant rhetoric and the requests for ethnic/racial identity on every form. What do you think?