No kidding, blacks will say. Whites, too, may think this sounds vaguely familiar–and it made them uncomfortable the last time they heard it, too. America, Hacker argues, is still a segregated nation, as it was in 1944, when Swedish scholar Gunnar Myrdal’s classic “An American Dilemma” argued that blacks could not escape the caste condition into which they were born. And as it was in 1835, when French visitor Alexis de Tocqueville observed that whites and blacks were “two foreign communities.” Hacker says he hates to use the word racism–“it’s been devalued”–but that’s his root explanation. Another word he tries to avoid is pessimistic–“though people call me that”–but his book is undeniably a downer: all diagnosis and no remedies. The subtitle gives fair warning: “Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal.” So if we’ve heard it all before and the guy hasn’t got the answers, who needs him?
For one thing, we haven’t heard this argument much lately, at least in a form more sophisticated than a chanted slogan. This year’s presidential candidates know talking about white racism can only alienate white voters: Democrats figure blacks have to vote for them anyway, and Republicans … well, remember Willie Horton? Such intellectuals as Shelby Steele urge fellow blacks to stop dwelling on their own victimization; Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas opposes on principle the programs that gave him a leg up. In this context, Hacker has made the front page of The New York Times Book Review by calmly restating the obvious: that " white America continues to ask of its black citizens an extra patience and perseverance that whites have never required of themselves. "
What gives this old argument new vigor is Hacker’s imaginative use of dry statistics from such agencies as the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Whites, he finds, needn’t fret about affirmative action: during the 1980s, black men’s incomes rose from $715 per $1,000 for whites to $716. In fact, income discrepancy between whites and blacks is even worse than it looks (chart). A white family making more than $50,000 is three or four times more apt to consist of a husband making $75,000 and a nonworking wife; in the “equivalent” black family, Hacker notes, “the husband is likely to be a bus driver earning $32,000, while his wife brings home $28,000 as a teacher or a nurse.” Sometimes the oddest figures are the most eloquent. A shortage of black physicists could be explained away. But black dental hygienists’ inability to get jobs suggests, says Hacker, that “while white patients seem willing to be cared for by black nurses, they apparently draw the line at having black fingers in their mouths.”
Hacker admits that where his book departs from statistical scrutiny it becomes “highly speculative.” One chapter purports to explain how it feels to be black, from “bemusement” at the fancifully large number of black doctors and lawyers on TV to lingering suspicion that those crazies of your race who think whites are plotting genocide might not be so crazy. Much of Hacker’s speculation is rooted in his 20 years in the ethnic melting pot of New York City’s Queens College, where he chose to go after a stint at Cornell “teaching my friends’ children.” This experience puts him in daily contact with the people behind his statistics. It also informs the book’s quietly ironic demolition of what he calls, in conversation, “all this pap about multiculturalism. We’ve been multicultural for years. Our students don’t want a multicultural curriculum. They want to get out in the mainstream.”
Such deviations from partyline liberalism make Hacker’s ideology hard to pigeonhole. His book implies that forcing welfare mothers to work is impractical–child care will eat up wages–and that affirmative action is only fair. Still, he won’t speculate on how to fix things–“I wouldn’t know where to begin,” he says–and that may frustrate readers accustomed to upbeat final chapters. We might say that Hacker’s statistics will show whites that they hold the power in this country–and could therefore make it more hospitable to blacks. But as his book also shows, whites figured that out long ago.
BLACK WHITE 14.5% Over $50,000 32.5% 15% $35,000-$50,000 20.8% 14% $25,000-$35,000 16.5% 19.5% $15,000-$25,000 16% 37% Under $15,000 14.2% $21,423 1990 MEDIAN INCOME $36,915
SOURCE: ANDREW HACKER
title: “Apartheid American Style” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-01” author: “Edith Johnson”
No kidding, blacks will say. Whites, too, may think this sounds vaguely familiar–and it made them uncomfortable the last time they heard it, too. America, Hacker argues, is still a segregated nation, as it was in 1944, when Swedish scholar Gunnar Myrdal’s classic “An American Dilemma” argued that blacks could not escape the caste condition into which they were born. And as it was in 1835, when French visitor Alexis de Tocqueville observed that whites and blacks were “two foreign communities.” Hacker says he hates to use the word racism–“it’s been devalued”–but that’s his root explanation. Another word he tries to avoid is pessimistic–“though people call me that”–but his book is undeniably a downer: all diagnosis and no remedies. The subtitle gives fair warning: “Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal.” So if we’ve heard it all before and the guy hasn’t got the answers, who needs him?
For one thing, we haven’t heard this argument much lately, at least in a form more sophisticated than a chanted slogan. This year’s presidential candidates know talking about white racism can only alienate white voters: Democrats figure blacks have to vote for them anyway, and Republicans … well, remember Willie Horton? Such intellectuals as Shelby Steele urge fellow blacks to stop dwelling on their own victimization; Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas opposes on principle the programs that gave him a leg up. In this context, Hacker has made the front page of The New York Times Book Review by calmly restating the obvious: that " white America continues to ask of its black citizens an extra patience and perseverance that whites have never required of themselves. "
What gives this old argument new vigor is Hacker’s imaginative use of dry statistics from such agencies as the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Whites, he finds, needn’t fret about affirmative action: during the 1980s, black men’s incomes rose from $715 per $1,000 for whites to $716. In fact, income discrepancy between whites and blacks is even worse than it looks (chart). A white family making more than $50,000 is three or four times more apt to consist of a husband making $75,000 and a nonworking wife; in the “equivalent” black family, Hacker notes, “the husband is likely to be a bus driver earning $32,000, while his wife brings home $28,000 as a teacher or a nurse.” Sometimes the oddest figures are the most eloquent. A shortage of black physicists could be explained away. But black dental hygienists’ inability to get jobs suggests, says Hacker, that “while white patients seem willing to be cared for by black nurses, they apparently draw the line at having black fingers in their mouths.”
Hacker admits that where his book departs from statistical scrutiny it becomes “highly speculative.” One chapter purports to explain how it feels to be black, from “bemusement” at the fancifully large number of black doctors and lawyers on TV to lingering suspicion that those crazies of your race who think whites are plotting genocide might not be so crazy. Much of Hacker’s speculation is rooted in his 20 years in the ethnic melting pot of New York City’s Queens College, where he chose to go after a stint at Cornell “teaching my friends’ children.” This experience puts him in daily contact with the people behind his statistics. It also informs the book’s quietly ironic demolition of what he calls, in conversation, “all this pap about multiculturalism. We’ve been multicultural for years. Our students don’t want a multicultural curriculum. They want to get out in the mainstream.”
Such deviations from partyline liberalism make Hacker’s ideology hard to pigeonhole. His book implies that forcing welfare mothers to work is impractical–child care will eat up wages–and that affirmative action is only fair. Still, he won’t speculate on how to fix things–“I wouldn’t know where to begin,” he says–and that may frustrate readers accustomed to upbeat final chapters. We might say that Hacker’s statistics will show whites that they hold the power in this country–and could therefore make it more hospitable to blacks. But as his book also shows, whites figured that out long ago.
BLACK WHITE 14.5% Over $50,000 32.5% 15% $35,000-$50,000 20.8% 14% $25,000-$35,000 16.5% 19.5% $15,000-$25,000 16% 37% Under $15,000 14.2% $21,423 1990 MEDIAN INCOME $36,915
SOURCE: ANDREW HACKER
