Critical Race Theory and systemic inequalities

[Ken]

In the public school where I attended (Owasso, Oklahoma) the science lab class was in 7th grade. Our classroom was in a skid building. (Was that because the majority of my classmates were Native American? It never occurred to me that we were "under-privileged".)

Well, it sort of depends on what the schools in the wealthier Tulsa suburbs were like.

This is what nearby Jenks HS on the south side of Tulsa looks like today. I don't see any "skid buildings"

[Bootstrap]

I think the phrase "zip code inequality" is really helpful. The zip code you grow up in predicts a lot about how your life will turn out.

Zip Code Matters: Better Neighborhoods Lead to Better Outcomes

As Raj Chetty's work shows, people from lower class backgrounds have a much better chance of succeeding if they grow up in places that have:

• less segregation by income and race;
• lower levels of income inequality;
• better schools;
• lower rates of violent crime;
• higher levels of social capital and civic engagement;
• and a larger share of two-parent households.

Moving children to these better places - the younger the better - has a significant effect on their life outcome - income, incarceration rates, out of wedlock pregnancy rates, etc. Raj Chetty is working with local governments to set up programs where they subsidize housing in better neighborhoods, and that seems to be bearing fruit.

Incidentally, this could be an interesting area for ministry - supporting families and helping them succeed in better zip codes, welcoming them in.

[Bootstrap]

Zip code inequality doesn't account for all of the differences, though. As Chetty's work shows, race is still a factor - particularly for black boys.

Black and white boys have very different outcomes even if they grow up in two-parent families with comparable incomes, education, and wealth, live on the same city block, and attend the same school.

Chetty lists some ideas that are plausible, and should be researched systematically to see what actually works:

Our results suggest that the most promising pathways to reducing the black-white gap are those whose impacts cut across neighborhood and class lines. They also could focus particularly on improving upward mobility for black men. There are many promising examples of such efforts: mentoring programs for black boys, efforts to reduce racial bias among whites, interventions to reduce discrimination in criminal justice, and efforts to facilitate greater interaction across racial groups. We look forward to partnering with organizations and practitioners engaged in such efforts to evaluate their long-term impacts on mobility systematically and build a knowledge base that can lead to scalable ways to increase opportunity for racial minorities.

I think this is the right approach. We need to understand what the real problems are, and some of this is murkier than we would like to think.

[nett]

I think the phrase "zip code inequality" is really helpful. The zip code you grow up in predicts a lot about how your life will turn out.

Zip Code Matters: Better Neighborhoods Lead to Better Outcomes

As Raj Chetty's work shows, people from lower class backgrounds have a much better chance of succeeding if they grow up in places that have:

• less segregation by income and race;
• lower levels of income inequality;
• better schools;
• lower rates of violent crime;
• higher levels of social capital and civic engagement;
• and a larger share of two-parent households.

Moving children to these better places - the younger the better - has a significant effect on their life outcome - income, incarceration rates, out of wedlock pregnancy rates, etc. Raj Chetty is working with local governments to set up programs where they subsidize housing in better neighborhoods, and that seems to be bearing fruit.

Incidentally, this could be an interesting area for ministry - supporting families and helping them succeed in better zip codes, welcoming them in.

"bad" zip codes are the way they are because of the people who live there, if you move them into "better" zip codes, those zip codes will become the "bad" ones.

Since the title of this thread is about CRT, maybe we should dig into it a bit more, and discuss the idea that by defining "success" in a western, white way, we've stacked the deck against lower class people, and basically guaranteed their failure.

Merle Burkholder recently spoke at our church, and he spoke a bit about the western belief that we are rich and successful because we follow christian principles, and that it is basically an indication of God's endorsement of our virtue, which could not be further from the truth.

[nett]

Zip code inequality doesn't account for all of the differences, though. As Chetty's work shows, race is still a factor - particularly for black boys.

Black and white boys have very different outcomes even if they grow up in two-parent families with comparable incomes, education, and wealth, live on the same city block, and attend the same school.

Chetty lists some ideas that are plausible, and should be researched systematically to see what actually works:

Our results suggest that the most promising pathways to reducing the black-white gap are those whose impacts cut across neighborhood and class lines. They also could focus particularly on improving upward mobility for black men. There are many promising examples of such efforts: mentoring programs for black boys, efforts to reduce racial bias among whites, interventions to reduce discrimination in criminal justice, and efforts to facilitate greater interaction across racial groups. We look forward to partnering with organizations and practitioners engaged in such efforts to evaluate their long-term impacts on mobility systematically and build a knowledge base that can lead to scalable ways to increase opportunity for racial minorities.

I think this is the right approach. We need to understand what the real problems are, and some of this is murkier than we would like to think.

Of source it's about race. Affluent white people do not want to see black people in their neighborhoods, it makes them uneasy, and eventually they will move elsewhere.

[Bootstrap]

"bad" zip codes are the way they are because of the people who live there, if you move them into "better" zip codes, those zip codes will become the "bad" ones.

If you concentrate all the poverty in one place, bad things happen. Especially if you decide that place should not have the same quality of schools, policing, etc. You concentrate people into a ghetto and treat them as worthless, and guess what happens?

If you give people the same opportunities that we have in better neighborhoods, that changes the outcome. Christians who live in these better neighborhoods can be part of this process.

Since the title of this thread is about CRT, maybe we should dig into it a bit more, and discuss the idea that by defining "success" in a western, white way, we've stacked the deck against lower class people, and basically guaranteed their failure.

Merle Burkholder recently spoke at our church, and he spoke a bit about the western belief that we are rich and successful because we follow christian principles, and that it is basically an indication of God's endorsement of our virtue, which could not be further from the truth.

I think Christians could really do a lot to help here.

But I'm not sure I know where you are going with this. Can you spell out what you think Christians should be doing? And how we should define success - for ourselves and those we seek to help?

[Ken]

"bad" zip codes are the way they are because of the people who live there, if you move them into "better" zip codes, those zip codes will become the "bad" ones.

It is WAY WAY more complicated than that.

"Bad" zip codes tend to have lots of absentee landlords owning property that they do not properly maintain, cleanup etc. Is that the fault of the people who live there? Nope. It is often out-of-state speculators who are holding onto properties, sometimes for decades and just letting them rot away. This is a consequence of the tax code and laws that allow this sort of anti-social behavior.

"Bad" zip codes tend to get environmental pollution concentrated in them by companies who choose to locate there due to the usually correct perception that they can get away with more pollution and anti-social activities than if they had chosen to locate in wealthier zip codes. Zoning laws tend to aggravate this behavior.

This is an example of a "bad zip code" in Louisiana with a high Black population. Who would you say is making this neighborhood "bad" and "undesirable?". The Black homeowner who is maintaining this home, or the corporate neighbor in their backyard that gives us cheap gas and plastics? If this family should move, where should they move? Who is going to buy their home? What about the Josh types who throw up all manner of structural and systemic economic barriers to prevent poorer families from moving into nicer neighborhoods? That of course have *nothing* to do with race.

[nett]

If you concentrate all the poverty in one place, bad things happen. Especially if you decide that place should not have the same quality of schools, policing, etc. You concentrate people into a ghetto and treat them as worthless, and guess what happens?

If you give people the same opportunities that we have in better neighborhoods, that changes the outcome. Christians who live in these better neighborhoods can be part of this process.

Yes, if you inject lots of resources into lower class people, you can usually bump them up one class, for one generation. But if you do it by moving them into affluent neighborhoods, the long term effect will be to reduce the affluence of those neighborhoods (see white flight)

I think Christians could really do a lot to help here.

But I'm not sure I know where you are going with this. Can you spell out what you think Christians should be doing? And how we should define success - for ourselves and those we seek to help?

You seem to be implying that it's a high calling or at least very virtuous for Christians to try to pull lower class people up to a higher class, but I see no support for this in scripture. When I read the beatitudes, I see nothing in there blessing affluence or high class, in fact I read the exact opposite.

So you ask what Christians should be doing? Stop defining success in worldy, western, white (protestant) terms, and start defining it in Godly terms.

I'll explain with two scenarios.

1. A white family who lives in the suburbs. Dad makes about 250k, mom is stay-at-home, their house cost 750k, they both drive luxury cars, and they around 40k of CC debt. They're up to their ears in debt, and if dad were out of work for 2 months, they would miss most of his payments. Mom takes xanax just to get through the day, their teenage daughter is on boyfriend #3, and she's on birth control + anti-depressants. Both sets of grandparents live over 1000 miles away, along with all of their blood relatives on both sides.Their pre-teen daughter has an instagram account with 15k followers, unbeknownst to her parents she has recently begun engaging in self-harm due to all the pressure from her online popularity. They're teenage son plays video games for 6-8 hours a day, and is addicted to hardcore pornography. The only reason he has any friends is because he's fairly athletic and plays varsity basketball. he has a on-and-off girlfriend from a different school that he's sleeping with. Mom got caught having an emotional affair with the basketball coach, which she promised to end, but the emotional toll has led her to start drinking a bottle of wine every night, which, combined with the xanax puts her in basically a vegetative state each evening, leaving her daughter emotional problems unaddressed. Dad is at work until 7 or 8 each night, unless there is a basketball game, which he never misses. He is having an ongoing affair with his secretary, and the guilt is leading him to drink a lot more after work, but he soothes his conscience by blaming his wife. He usually continues to work in the evening until around 10pm. The closest thing to "family time", would be everyone watching television in the living room while Dad is glued to his laptop. The family attends a mega church in the city every Sunday. The worship team at the church just released a very popular album, and will be going on tour soon. The sermons tend to focus on prosperity, with the theme being, "if you spend time with God, and live by Christian principles, you will be healthy, wealthy and comfortable".

2. A single black woman in her 40s has 3 children with 2 different men. One of the men died in a gang incident. The other is in and out of jail on drug charges. She has full custody, and while she is financially dependent on welfare, she is more dependent on her mother to watch her children while she works as a manager at the local grocery store. She has saved up 5 figures, and is hoping to buy the dilapidated house next door to her mom, on the same street as 3 of her cousins. Her car is worth about 8k, but she owes 12k and her APR is 15% due to bad credit from an unpaid credit card bill 5 years ago. Her 10 y/o son is excelling in school, and being considering for AP classes. Her other two teenage children are below average students, but excel in sports. Her, her children, and a few cousins eat dinner with her mom and grandparents at least 4 evenings a week, and she would describe herself as generally happy. She does have high hopes of marrying a man with a "good job", and settling down as a stay at home mom in the suburbs. Hopefully in a good school district where her youngest can reach his academic potential, and her two teenagers can aspire to a D1 sports scholarship. She doesn't attend church, but a lady who volunteers at the community center has been inviting her to their mission church up the road, and she's signed her kids up for VBS there.

Who is more successful? Would moving the black family into the suburbs to a "better" neighborhood improve their outcomes?

[nett]

"bad" zip codes are the way they are because of the people who live there, if you move them into "better" zip codes, those zip codes will become the "bad" ones.

It is WAY WAY more complicated than that.

"Bad" zip codes tend to have lots of absentee landlords owning property that they do not properly maintain, cleanup etc. Is that the fault of the people who live there? Nope. It is often out-of-state speculators who are holding onto properties, sometimes for decades and just letting them rot away. This is a consequence of the tax code and laws that allow this sort of anti-social behavior.

"Bad" zip codes tend to get environmental pollution concentrated in them by companies who choose to locate there due to the usually correct perception that they can get away with more pollution and anti-social activities than if they had chosen to locate in wealthier zip codes. Zoning laws tend to aggravate this behavior.

This is an example of a "bad zip code" in Louisiana with a high Black population. Who would you say is making this neighborhood "bad" and "undesirable?". The Black homeowner who is maintaining this home, or the corporate neighbor in their backyard? If this family should move, where should they move? Who is going to buy their home? What about the Josh types who throw up all manner of structural economic barriers to prevent poorer families from moving into nicer neighborhoods?

I completely agree. Allowing predatory private land ownership, and ravaging the cities with pollution is a problem that affects lower class people dis-proportionally. Lower class populations are vulnerable because of a lack of agency, simply moving to "better" places will not change that. Evil people will find ways to exploit them there as well, and most affluent people will look to leave when they show up (see white flight).

Meanwhile, by moving them out of the ghetto, you've destroyed what social structure and bonds they do have, making the situation there exponentially worse.

[nett]

What about the Josh types who throw up all manner of structural economic barriers to prevent poorer families from moving into nicer neighborhoods?

Huh? Josh is not a banker nor a policy maker. He personally oversees quality housing for a few lower class people at his own cost. Maybe you should avoid personal attacks on people you don't know.