Different Forms
Racial stereotyping, like other kinds of racial animus, operates both underground and in plain sight. Some come out and express their view that members of racial minorities, generally people of color are, by definition, inferior. Others hide their views behind ostensibly race neutral language and attitudes. Either way, perpetrators of stereotypes harbor the idea of what one of us calls “presumed incompetence.” This concept rests on the difficult-to-rebut presumption that the work product of a person of color won’t measure up to the standards of the majority culture. We wrote about this last year in discussing the difficulty black coaches and sports executives have in getting high level jobs in colleges and professional franchises and the tendency of those colleges and franchises not to hire minority candidates if that organization hired one who failed.
Racial stereotyping, like other kinds of racial animus, operates both underground and in plain sight. Some come out and express their view that members of racial minorities, generally people of color are, by definition, inferior. Others hide their views behind ostensibly race neutral language and attitudes. Either way, perpetrators of stereotypes harbor the idea of what one of us calls “presumed incompetence.” This concept rests on the difficult-to-rebut presumption that the work product of a person of color won’t measure up to the standards of the majority culture. We wrote about this last year in discussing the difficulty black coaches and sports executives have in getting high level jobs in colleges and professional franchises and the tendency of those colleges and franchises not to hire minority candidates if that organization hired one who failed.
In higher
education, minority students face a similar challenge. A prominent black federal judge, for example,
recently reported black law students attending elite law schools still experience
hostility from white professors who believe them fundamentally unqualified for
admission to those schools, despite fifty years of successful black graduates
of such schools. We suffered large and
small indignities as students at such schools in the 1970s and 80s. Despite our hope that such behavior would
have ended by now, the problem apparently still exists. It seems the more some
things change, the more some things stay the same.
It is worth
asking why this continues. Conservatives often claim preferential minority admission
policies promote stereotyping. If elite graduate and professional schools
eliminated racial preferences, goes the argument, no one would have a reason to
stereotype since everyone would get admitted solely on merit --- translated,
grades and test scores. This argument
ignores one of the dirty little secrets about higher education admissions – the
tenuous connection between traditional admission criteria (numbers) and success
in a particular field of endeavor. One study of graduates of a prominent state
law school found “no significant relationship” between LSAT scores or undergraduate
grades and achievements after law school graduation.
This study
confirms what one of us intuitively thought while working as a law school
admissions officer. A small group of
applicants looked like sure winners, people who would do well at whatever
endeavor they tried. Another small group
seemed headed for disappointment, at least in terms of practicing law and other
things people do with law degrees. It just wasn’t possible to tell from the
paper record about the vast majority. Which category a given applicant fell
into did not depend on test scores and grades. Applicants with good, bad, and
indifferent admission numbers fell into each of the three categories. Some
studies show admission numbers can predict grades in school, but that is an
entirely different matter than actual life achievement.
Some people,
of course, see no need to dress up their stereotyping with arguments like the suggestion
that it results from racial preferences in things like professional school
admission. These individuals just presume minority group incompetence and assign
the most derogatory characteristics to group members. We’ve lived for over fifty years in a society
in which overt racial discrimination has been illegal. Three generations have
come of age since the civil rights era of the 1960s. We’ve had a black man
occupy the White House. As he pointed
out in one speech, black people now own sports franchises, dominate the
television production world, run major cities as mayors, and serve as CEOs of
corporations. If all that doesn’t change
things, maybe nothing will, but victims of stereotyping still must cope with
it.
What To Do?
Since stereotyping remains with us, what response does it merit? We’ve employed two not necessarily mutually exclusive approaches. One involves working to change the systems that allow stereotyping to flourish, while the other more resembles one of the fundamental principles of golf – play the course as you find it. Henry points out that by practicing civil rights law, advocating for minority rights in various contexts, and supporting organizations that fight prejudice and discrimination, he sought to affect change and demonstrate that blacks and other historically out groups are not presumptively incompetent. He organized his law school life, law practice, and professional career around those principles. Similarly, Woodson obtained major political appointments, became active in civic and professional organizations, and generally sought to place himself in positions where he could exert influence on the broader community. He designed his activities to change institutions and make them more receptive to minority group participation.
Since stereotyping remains with us, what response does it merit? We’ve employed two not necessarily mutually exclusive approaches. One involves working to change the systems that allow stereotyping to flourish, while the other more resembles one of the fundamental principles of golf – play the course as you find it. Henry points out that by practicing civil rights law, advocating for minority rights in various contexts, and supporting organizations that fight prejudice and discrimination, he sought to affect change and demonstrate that blacks and other historically out groups are not presumptively incompetent. He organized his law school life, law practice, and professional career around those principles. Similarly, Woodson obtained major political appointments, became active in civic and professional organizations, and generally sought to place himself in positions where he could exert influence on the broader community. He designed his activities to change institutions and make them more receptive to minority group participation.
Rob,
however, never believed he could achieve significant societal change and
focused on scaling the roadblocks stereotyping placed in his path, in other
words, playing the course as he found it.
His focus remained on surmounting the obstacles presented by
stereotyping by working each and every day to be a better broadcaster, a more
efficient administrator, and to write better briefs as a lawyer. This approach,
as we note, is not mutually exclusive with a change-centered focus, but it does
offer a different emphasis.
As we’ve said, stereotyping has survived revolutions during our lifetime. Objective disproof of presumed incompetence has not eliminated stereotyping. The way individuals in historically out groups deal with it varies by personal choice and attitude. Since it’s not going away, anyone who may confront it will need to pick one of our approaches or decide on others. Ideas?
