• Jonathan Blake is a second year day student and Senior Editor of the Federalists’ Paper.

    Racism in the marketplace.  Conservatives and liberals alike loathe it.  But the solutions provided by each side are as bipolar as… well as bipolar as conservatives and liberals.  Liberals tend to believe that the solution lies in government-funded programs that will correct the attitudes of Americans over time.  Conservatives tend to believe in the age-old maxim: "Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he'll eat forever."  This elementary summation of these competing ideologies, I am sure, and rightly so, evokes images of red-faced congresspersons hashing it out over the pros (by the liberal congresspersons) and the cons (the conservatives) of affirmative action initiatives.  Affirmative action programs, and the like, are solutions endorsed, in large part, by liberals to combat racial economic inequality.  So, naturally, the question then becomes: What do the conservatives endorse--other than opposition to affirmative action--in this arena?

    My attempt with this article is to: (1) identify the conservative vantage in regards to solving problems of racial economic inequality; and (2) illustrate this vantage by example.  Correspondingly, the first section of the article is meant to set out the contemporary conservative philosophy in this context; the second section is intended to serve as an example of a racial conservative activist (though the men discussed in both sections are activists).

1.  Should Race Matter?

    The distinction between "individual rights" and "group rights" is a very important one. Shelby Steele, an African American scholar at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University, recently wrote a phenomenal book in this respect, A Dream Deferred: The Second Betrayal of Black Freedom in America, (Harper Collins, 1998).  The "Second Betrayal" he refers to is the push by African American liberal intellectuals to grant rights to persons based on their collective status as a group, not as an individual.  He points out that the crux of the Civil Rights movement, and indeed the core of Dr. King's activism, was to further the notion that African Americans should be recognized as individuals.  This is not to say that race should be ignored.  Indeed, it should be celebrated.  But it is a betrayal to judge any man first by the color of his skin.  Steele's point is this: by providing a detriment (as was the case in the 1950s) or a benefit (as is the case in the 1990s) to a person based on the racial group that he or she belongs to, is a betrayal of that person.
 

When Cornell West says that 'race matters' in his book of the same name, he is pressing for race to remain alive as a contingency, as a source of profitable and preferential interventions.  He is not simply saying that it matters; he is advocating that it matter.  Would he have said 'race matters' back in the fifties when race still meant segregation, when there was no profit in it for blacks?  Would he have advocated that race matters to that wretched pantheon of southern governors - George Wallace, Orval Faubus, Ross Barnett, Lester Maddox, and their ilk?  They would surely have leaped to agree with him.  And the civil rights leaders of that era, who screamed that race should never be allowed to matter, would have seen West as an enemy collaborator. (p. 65)

    In essence Steele is saying African Americans, by way of this mentality (i.e., by advocating that “race matters”), are not gaining true equality.  In this respect, nothing has changed. What has changed is the differential treatment.  For example, instead of race barring you from a position of employment, it now qualifies you or enhances your opportunity for that position.  This begs the question: Why then do Americans feel so strongly about these programs?  Steele suggests an explanation:
 

A great confusion in American liberalism after the sixties comes from the fact that the white mandate for redemption can only fulfill itself through a concern for black equality.  This has given us a liberalism that treats black equality more as a means to white moral authority than as an end in its own right.  So we often end up evaluating racial reform more by its usefulness to the moral profile of whites than by how well it develops blacks. (p. 32)

    These are strong words.  Could it be true that white America is afraid to recognize the failings of these liberal economic programs because--though they do not particularly benefit African Americans--they make white people feel good?  This seems like a very selfish proposition.  I tend to believe that liberals honestly want to end racism in America, at least as much as conservatives (again, images of red-faced screaming congresspersons are likely evoked).  But Steele's passage warrants some thought doesn't it?

    Shelby Steele's book well represents the modern conservative philosophy in this arena.  The following is an example of activism in light of this philosophy.

2. Economic Equality: Clint Bolick and The Institute  for Justice

    The Institute for Justice (IJ) is a conservative nonprofit public-interest organization based in Washington, which takes on "economic liberty" cases.  The organization's front man is Clint Bolick.  Would it surprise you to know that, on one hand he represents mostly African Americans, and on the other: (1) his legislative proposals inspired a federal version of a California initiative that served to eliminate affirmative action plans; (2) he supports stringent welfare reform; (3) he sank Clinton's nomination of Lani Guinier as the nation's chief civil rights enforcer by inspiring the nickname "the quota queen"; and (4) his son's godfather is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas?

    To conservatives it makes perfect sense.  Affirmative action is an attempt to create economic equality for those of all races.  Bolick believes, as well does Steele, that in reality affirmative action maintains inequality.  The conservative solution is to clear the path of dense government regulation and preference-based policies.  Bolick explains:
 

The battle to curb racial preferences and promote economic liberty… are all different sides of the same coin…. [T]he state should not have the power to classify people on the basis of race, or erect barriers to entrepreneurs, or consign kids to educational cesspools… [T]he racial-preference regime has hurt low-income people. By taking cosmetic action to ensure proportional representation in certain institutions, it makes us think we are solving racial disparities, when, in fact, they are growing larger.

("Welcome to the Clint Bolick Revolution," Los Angeles Times Magazine; April 20, 1997).  Bolick, and the IJ, have done much in the way of eliminating road blocks for its clients - freeing people to pursue, regardless of their race and economic-standing, greater individual freedoms.  For example, the IJ has been instrumental in providing inner city parents a school voucher program that gives the parent, not the government, the right to choose where their children attend school.  Recently, Bolick and IJ have represented African Americans, in multiple state courts and assemblies (including Ohio: he testified in regard to a bill passed by Ohio state Rep. Vermel Whalen (D-Cleveland)), in gaining greater economic equality in the marketplace - to pursue a career as an African hair braider free from ridiculous regulation:

    Ms. Carey-Proctor is an African American hair braider.  The Ohio cosmetology board has told Carey-Proctor to close her business and threatened to charge her with a fourth-degree misdemeanor.  Why?  Because Ohio hair braiders must obtain a license to operate. This requires 1,500 hours of training (it takes only about 450 hours to become a police officer), the training costs thousands of dollars, and it takes nearly a year to complete.  At first blush, this doesn't sound unusual - many trades and professions require licensure.  But here is the kicker: cosmetology school does not teach African hair braiding.  Rather, they train their students how to administer and use chemicals and thermal processing;  the staples of mainstream cosmetology and the antithesis of African hair braiding.

    Carey-Proctor did not call the ACLU.  Instead she elicited the services of the IJ.  "This is a classic example of the government interfering with people's right to earn a living," said Dana Berliner, a lawyer with the IJ, who filed the lawsuit. "Braiding is something my clients love to do, and it gives them a chance to be entrepreneurs. They could go to nursing school and learn as much about braiding as they would in cosmetology school."  ("Hair Braiders Working on License Loosening," New York Times; November 29, 1998).

    So by eliminating pointless regulations, it empowers those interested to more efficiently begin a business in this field.  Though this regulation was not intended to benefit one race over another, it is the philosophy of a conservative activist that has bettered the economic playing field for these African Americans.  Bolick's philosophy relates back to the fish maxim at the beginning of this article.  If the government simply provides for someone, or "gives a man a fish", by racial preferences and the like, that person becomes dependent on the provider.  What you have solved is the meal for that day, and tomorrow the person will again look to the provider for his or her next meal.  But if you provide that person with the means to provide for him- or her- self, or "teach him how to fish", then the cycle of dependency is broken (The African hair braiders are a perfect example that African Americans, or anyone else for that matter, do not actually need to be taught anything; rather, just provided the equal footing and opportunity to fish, so to speak.).  This is what conservatives feel results in true equality--this is best reached, according to Bolick, by providing economic equality and protecting "economic liberties."

    All in all: racism is deplorable.  This we all can agree on.  It is the means employed to reach the end (eliminating racism and its effects) that differentiates the conservative from the liberal.  Authors such as Shelby Steele (as well as those not cited that aided in the research of this article: Thomas Sowell and Stephen Yates), and organizations, such as the Institute for Justice, are making great strides in what many conservatives believe to be the right direction.  Whether you agree with the conservative or liberal vantage is up to you.  But it is imperative that we continue toward this necessary end by thinking and talking about, assessing and reassessing, the means.

    EDITOR'S NOTE: Last semester, Clint Bolick spoke to the Columbus lawyers’ chapter of the Federalist Society.  This semester it is hoped that Dana Berliner, also of the IJ and mentioned in the above article, will speak to the law school.  You can learn more about the IJ by visiting the "links" page of the Federalist Society web site (www.law.capital.edu/student/federalistsociety).  There is a link to IJ on this page.

    REAL AUDIO: You can hear Shelby Steele addressing the The Independent Institute by clicking on the below link. In this address, Steele discusses 3 passages from his book, A Dream Deferred: The Second Betrayal of Black Freedom in America (the book cited in my above article). This lecture coincides very nicely. To listen to the address, your computer must be enabled with a Real Player. (Approximate running time: 38 minutes).