tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/white-47622/articlesWhite – The Conversation2023-07-11T20:05:09Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2080092023-07-11T20:05:09Z2023-07-11T20:05:09ZWhat is ‘reverse racism’ – and what’s wrong with the term?<p>“Reverse racism” is sometimes used to describe situations where white people believe they are negatively stereotyped or discriminated against because of their whiteness – or treated less favourably than people of colour. </p>
<p>“Reverse racism” claims have surfaced in the current debate around the <a href="https://theconversation.com/10-questions-about-the-voice-to-parliament-answered-by-the-experts-207014">Voice to Parliament</a> referendum. “The concept looks racist to me,” <a href="https://www.skynews.com.au/opinion/building-a-voice-to-parliament-into-our-constitution-would-divide-us-along-racial-lines-and-do-nothing-to-change-the-past/news-story/794a86f16d664e6a4ebfbed589b27a01">wrote Sky News commentator Kel Richards</a> last August.</p>
<p>Such views misrepresent the Voice as preferential treatment of First Nations peoples, falsely suggesting it would somehow weaken the political say of non-Indigenous Australians.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/far-from-undermining-democracy-the-voice-will-pluralise-and-enrich-australias-democratic-conversation-205384">Far from undermining democracy, The Voice will pluralise and enrich Australia’s democratic conversation</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Complaints of reverse racism can be found in the community more generally, too.
“I think average, working-class, white Australian males have it the hardest out of anyone in society,” said one 23-year-old man in a <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2673-995X/3/1/19">2023 study</a> of Australian men, “we are the victims of reverse racism”. </p>
<p>“Reverse racism” is an idea that focuses on prejudiced attitudes towards a certain (racialised) group, or unequal personal treatment – namely, discrimination. But it ignores one of racism’s central markers: power.</p>
<p>“Prejudice plus (institutional) power” is the widely accepted basic definition of racism. Or, as <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1998-07453-002">two researchers defined it</a> in 1988: “Racism equals power plus prejudice.”</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/jun/04/aamer-rahman-reverse-racism-comedy-tour">famous 2013 sketch</a>, comedian Ahmer Rahman said, yes, reverse racism is possible … if you go back in a time machine and convince the leaders of Africa, Asia and the Middle East to invade and dominate Europe hundreds of years ago, leading to systemic inequality across every facet of social and economic life, “so all their descendants would want to migrate [to] where black and brown people come from”.</p>
<p>Put simply, the concept of “reverse racism” – or “anti-white racism” – just doesn’t work, because racism is more than just prejudice.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dw_mRaIHb-M?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Comedian Ahmer Rahman unpacks ‘reverse racism’, and why making it real would need a time machine.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why ‘reverse racism’ is a myth</h2>
<p>Prejudice and discrimination are inherently tied to historically rooted and entrenched, institutionalised forms of systemic racism and racial hierarchies, injustices and power imbalance. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-systemic-racism-and-institutional-racism-131152">Explainer: what is systemic racism and institutional racism?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The continuing lack of diverse representation in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jul/25/the-47th-parliament-is-the-most-diverse-ever-but-still-doesnt-reflect-australia">political</a>, social and economic positions of influence is just one of many indicators that we’re still a long way from living in a post-racial society. </p>
<p>White people may be called a derogatory name with a reference to their whiteness. They may be discriminated against: for example, by an ethnic business owner who prefers to employ someone from their community background. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532872/original/file-20230620-20-b5ym4j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C5%2C1276%2C712&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532872/original/file-20230620-20-b5ym4j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C5%2C1276%2C712&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532872/original/file-20230620-20-b5ym4j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532872/original/file-20230620-20-b5ym4j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532872/original/file-20230620-20-b5ym4j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532872/original/file-20230620-20-b5ym4j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532872/original/file-20230620-20-b5ym4j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532872/original/file-20230620-20-b5ym4j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Far-right activist Lauren Southern.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Twitter</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This may sometimes be unlawful. At other times, it may be a lawful form of “positive action” or “affirmative action”, aimed at reducing historically entrenched, intergenerational and systemic inequalities. </p>
<p>But in all these instances – and regardless of whether it’s lawful or not – the term racism, or “reverse racism”, would not apply. </p>
<h2>How common are reverse racism claims?</h2>
<p>A representative US survey, conducted by PEW in <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/04/09/race-in-america-2019/">2019</a>, found that around 12% of respondents believed “being white hurts people’s ability to get ahead in the country nowadays”. Among white Republicans, the proportion was 22%. It was only 3% among white Democrats.</p>
<p>A more recent US survey, in <a href="https://theconversation.com/poll-reveals-white-americans-see-an-increase-in-discrimination-against-other-white-people-and-less-against-other-racial-groups-185278">2022</a>, concluded that 30% of white respondents saw “a lot more discrimination against white Americans”. </p>
<p>Representative data on these issues is lacking in Australia. But there is evidence a significant minority of Australians seem convinced anti-white racism is a thing. </p>
<p>A 2018 <a href="https://opus.lib.uts.edu.au/bitstream/10453/128799/4/Reverse%20racism%20and%20white%20victimhood%20in%20Australia%20JIS%20March%202018%20clean.pdf">Australian survey</a> found that around 10% of respondents who stated they had witnessed racism as bystanders said the victim of the allegedly “racist” incident was a white person. </p>
<p>Another recent (non-representative) <a href="https://periscopekasaustralia.com.au/papers/volume-10-2-2023/demarcating-australias-far-right-political-fringe-but-social-mainstream/">survey</a> of 335 Australian men in 2021 showed that one in three respondents agreed with the statement: “white people are the victims these days”.</p>
<p>Australian senator <a href="https://theconversation.com/pauline-hanson-built-a-political-career-on-white-victimhood-and-brought-far-right-rhetoric-to-the-mainstream-134661">Pauline Hanson</a> has been complaining about “reverse racism” since her maiden speech to parliament in 1996, when she described “the privileges Aboriginals enjoy over other Australians”. <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/pauline-hansons-1996-maiden-speech-to-parliament-full-transcript-20160915-grgjv3.html">She said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We now have a situation where a type of reverse racism is applied to mainstream Australians by those who promote political correctness […]</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Gamilaraay man <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2020/mar/12/its-time-to-put-an-end-to-the-gaslighting-that-occurs-every-day-in-australia">Joshua Waters says</a> most First Nations Australians have heard this kind of sentiment, and statements like: “Uh, I’m not racist. You’re racist for calling me racist. Actually, that’s reverse racism!”</p>
<p>But as he has argued, “To be called racist for identifying actual racist behaviours and rhetoric is not OK.”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-believers-in-white-genocide-are-spreading-their-hate-filled-message-in-australia-106605">How believers in 'white genocide' are spreading their hate-filled message in Australia</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Backlash against racial justice</h2>
<p>“Reverse racism” sometimes reflects a naïve but profound lack of racial literacy. But more often, it’s a defensive backlash against societal reckoning with racial injustices, both past and present. </p>
<p>And it’s often an expression of “<a href="https://libjournal.uncg.edu/ijcp/article/viewFile/249/116">white fragility</a>” in the face of an <a href="https://scanloninstitute.org.au/mapping-social-cohesion-2022">increasing awareness</a> of racism in Australia – as epitomised by Hanson’s political career.</p>
<p>“Reverse racism” claims are often strategically adopted by right-wing populist political actors and far-right fringe movements, to garner support and recruit new sympathisers and members. This can manifest in political stunts such as the infamous “<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/15/australia/pauline-hanson-white-australia-intl/index.html">ok to be white</a>” motion Hanson put to the Australian Senate in 2018, which claimed to condemn alleged “anti-white racism”. </p>
<p>The phrase “it’s OK to be white” had <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-17/origins-of-its-ok-to-be-white-slogan-supremacists-united-states/10385716">previously been used</a> by white supremacists in the US.</p>
<p>Anti-white racism claims have also been expressed in more explicit, aggressive and extreme ways: as threats of “<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-believers-in-white-genocide-are-spreading-their-hate-filled-message-in-australia-106605">white genocide</a>”, a core neo-Nazi belief. </p>
<p>In far-right extremist movements, in Australia and globally, these conspiratorial narratives are commonly used to mobilise – and in some cases, have become crucial drivers for – white supremacy terror attacks, like the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand, which killed 51 people and injured 49.</p>
<p>“Reverse racism” is a skewed, reductionist and ultimately inaccurate understanding of racism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208009/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mario Peucker receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) and the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth).</span></em></p>‘Reverse racism’ focuses on prejudiced attitudes towards a certain (racialised) group, or unequal personal treatment. But it ignores one of racism’s central markers: power.Mario Peucker, Associate Professor and Principal Research Fellow, Victoria UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1934492023-01-16T19:04:10Z2023-01-16T19:04:10ZBret Easton Ellis’s ambitious new novel of sex, violence and adolescence in 80s Los Angeles is autofiction for our digital age<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504581/original/file-20230116-20-ayd74x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=29%2C11%2C3964%2C1982&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Image credits: (background) Vlada Karpovich/Pexels; (author photo of Bret Easton Ellis) Casely Nelson.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Halfway through Bret Easton Ellis’s first novel in 13 years, <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Bret-Easton-Ellis-Shards-9781800752450/">The Shards</a>, the 17-year-old narrator, Bret (a fictionalised version of the author) pitches to a producer, Terry Schaffer. </p>
<p>This Bret, who is working on the debut novel the real Bret published in 1985 – <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9915.Less_Than_Zero">Less Than Zero</a> – describes the scenario he has developed.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[A] boy, his friends, young people in L.A.; sexy, a little bi, drugs, someone is killed, there’s a chase, violence and bloodshed, a mystery that the boy solves or maybe not, I preferred the downer ending but could make it upbeat as well, I’d offer, we could negotiate that.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>To a certain extent, this pitch, which the narrator pretty much makes up on the spot, mirrors the plot of Less Than Zero (which, despite some biographical overlap, Ellis has always considered a work of fiction). </p>
<p>With a few changes, the scenario could also double as a summary of The Shards. The crucial difference is that this new novel – in ways Ellis’s debut does not – dissolves the lines between fact and fiction, reality and fantasy. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: The Shards – Bret Easton Ellis (Swift Press)</em></p>
<hr>
<h2>Writerly imagination in overdrive</h2>
<p>The story is set in the autumn of 1981 and revolves around a cluster of wealthy students enrolled at Buckley College, an exclusive Los Angeles prep school.</p>
<p>Bret, who is gay but closeted, is dating Debbie Schaffer (who has justifiable doubts about her boyfriend’s friendships with Ryan Vaughn and Matt Kellner), and is friends with two teenage sweethearts, Susan Reynolds and Thom Wright.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504574/original/file-20230116-62628-czg0zi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504574/original/file-20230116-62628-czg0zi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504574/original/file-20230116-62628-czg0zi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=837&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504574/original/file-20230116-62628-czg0zi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=837&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504574/original/file-20230116-62628-czg0zi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=837&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504574/original/file-20230116-62628-czg0zi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1052&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504574/original/file-20230116-62628-czg0zi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1052&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504574/original/file-20230116-62628-czg0zi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1052&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The ‘real’ Bret Easton Ellis as a high schooler, in his yearbook photo from The Buckley School, Sherman Oaks California.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Bret who is writing this novel then introduces two more characters – a student named Robert Mallory and a serial killer called The Trawler – into the mix.</p>
<p>Not long after, Matt goes missing. The fictional Bret’s writerly imagination goes into overdrive. He suspects Robert is responsible, and that he is The Trawler. Things quickly spiral out of control. </p>
<p>As Ellis’s fans will anticipate, his latest is full of pop culture references (the Buckley clique are big New Wave fans), sex and drugs, and acts of grotesque violence rendered in tonally neutral prose. Some cultural commentary, too, on the purported perils of political correctness. Think: <a href="https://theconversation.com/joan-didion-for-sale-the-auction-of-the-authors-belongings-reveals-the-grand-fiction-of-her-image-194690">Joan Didion</a> meets <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000361/bio">Brian De Palma</a>. </p>
<p>When it comes to content, The Shards, with its cast of hedonistic and disaffected adolescents, aligns with three of Ellis’s earlier L.A. novels: Less Than Zero, 1987’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9912.The_Rules_of_Attraction">The Rules of Attraction</a>, and the sequel to his debut, 2010’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7519866-imperial-bedrooms">Imperial Bedrooms</a>.</p>
<p>In terms of length, however, The Shards, which is 600 pages long, is closer to Ellis’s New York fictions: 1991’s American Psycho (which I believe is the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-case-for-american-psycho-why-this-controversial-book-sold-here-in-shrink-wrap-still-matters-188463">most important novel</a> of the 1990s), and 1998’s <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/bret-easton-ellis-glamorama-book-890620/">Glamorama</a> (easily, for me, the best novel of the 1990s).</p>
<p>What, though, of form? To answer that question, we should turn to what once seemed a relative outlier in Ellis’ fictional oeuvre, 2005’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4031.Lunar_Park">Lunar Park</a>. This is from the first chapter: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It was to deal primarily with the transforming events of my childhood and adolescence, ending with my junior year at Camden, a month before Less Than Zero was published. But even when I simply thought about the memoir it never went anywhere (I could never be honest about myself in a piece of non-fiction as I could in any of my novels) and so I gave up.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In an <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-autofiction-turns-the-personal-into-the-political-192180">autofictional move</a> that prefigures the central conceit of The Shards, Lunar Park’s narrator – a fictional version of Ellis in middle age – is discussing a memoir he didn’t write. This Ellis says he “had even given it a title without having written a single usable sentence: Where I Went I Would Not Go Back”. </p>
<p>Ellis’s interest in the creative treatment of actuality emerges in these extracts, as does his willingness to mine his youth for inspiration.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/g4oPo5BBxA8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Bret Easton Ellis’s debut novel, Less Than Zero, was a 1987 film.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-case-for-american-psycho-why-this-controversial-book-sold-here-in-shrink-wrap-still-matters-188463">The case for American Psycho: why this controversial book (sold here in shrink wrap) still matters</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The ‘fake enclave’ of the novel</h2>
<p>Now consider what Ellis says about that most recognisable of literary forms: the novel. This is from White, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/bret-easton-ellis-interview-smiley-face-killers-b1770127.html">the contrarian essay collection</a> he published in 2019. Pay attention to his descriptions of Lunar Park and Imperial Bedrooms:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The desire to write prose had kept pulsing faintly within me for years but not within what I now saw as the fake enclave of the novel. In fact I’d been wrestling away from the idea of “the novel” for more than a decade, as evident in the last two books I published: one was a mock memoir wrapped within a horror novel, and the other was a condensed autobiographical noir I pushed through painfully during a midlife crisis, a story about my first three years back in Los Angeles futilely working on movies after I’d lived in New York for almost two years. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Ellis’ dissatisfaction with the novel is palpable. “For those past five years I had no desire to write a novel and had convinced myself I didn’t want to be constrained by a form that did not interest me anymore.”</p>
<p>But why, given his apparent lack of interest in the form, did Ellis bother writing another novel? This is the explanation he gives in the “preface” to The Shards, which, to repurpose Ellis, reads as an expansive L.A. noir wrapped up as an ostensibly honest memoir:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It wasn’t until 2020 that I felt I could begin The Shards, or The Shards had decided that <strong>Bret</strong> was ready because the book was announcing itself to <strong>me</strong> – and not the other way round. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Bret speaking here is a fictional, older version of the novel’s narrator. He is reflecting on the traumatic events of The Shards: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I hadn’t reached out to the book because I spent so many years pushing myself away from The Trawler, and Susan and Thom and Deborah and Ryan, and what happened to Matt Kellner; I had relegated this story to the dark corner of the closet and for many years this avoidance worked – I didn’t pay as much attention to the book and it stopped calling out to me. But sometime during 2019 it began climbing its way back, pulsing with a life of its own, wanting to merge with me, expanding into my consciousness in such a persuasive way that I couldn’t ignore it any longer – trying to ignore it had become a distraction.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504578/original/file-20230116-26-xx6srm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504578/original/file-20230116-26-xx6srm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504578/original/file-20230116-26-xx6srm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504578/original/file-20230116-26-xx6srm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504578/original/file-20230116-26-xx6srm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504578/original/file-20230116-26-xx6srm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1164&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504578/original/file-20230116-26-xx6srm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1164&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504578/original/file-20230116-26-xx6srm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1164&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>(I should note, there is also a preface to the “preface”, where the “real” Bret – the one writing the novel in our hands, as opposed to the book within the book – thanks the reader for sticking with him over the years.)</p>
<p>It seems that, try as he might, Bret Easton Ellis - imagined or actual - simply cannot get away from the novel. </p>
<p>He admits this in White, while harking back to his experiences in the 1980s and 90s. “I rarely gave interviews between book publications because part of the process was still mysterious to readers,” Ellis ruminates, “with a kind of secret glamour that added to the excitement with which books were once received, whether negatively or positively.” </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-autofiction-turns-the-personal-into-the-political-192180">How autofiction turns the personal into the political</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Exploring analog v digital worlds</h2>
<p>To his credit, Ellis, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/bret-easton-ellis-thinks-youre-overreacting-to-donald-trump">who is quite cranky these days</a>, appreciates that things are different now. As he argues in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41429819-white">White</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>But novels don’t engage with the public on that level anymore. I’d wistfully noted the overall lack of enthusiasm for the big American literary novels […] but I’d also realized that’s nothing to worry about. It’s only a fact, just as the notion of the great American studio movie or the great American band has become a smaller, narrower idea. Everything has been degraded by what the sensory overload and the supposed freedom-of-choice technology has brought to us, and, in short, by the democratization of the arts. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>For better or worse, there is, in Ellis’s reckoning, no going back. Hence the steps he took:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I started feeling the need to work my way through this transition - to move from the analog world in which I used to write and publish novels into the digital world we live in now (through podcasting, creating a web series, engaging on social media) even though I never thought there was any correlation between the two. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Ellis knows better now. The Shards, which started as a year-long, hour-by-hour performance hosted on <a href="https://www.patreon.com/breteastonellispodcast">Ellis’s podcast</a> is proof there are points of correlation between the analog and digital realms, which he also defines in relation to - of all things - the concept of Empire:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If Empire was about the heroic American figure - solid, rooted in tradition, tactile and analog – then post-Empire was about people who were understood to be ephemeral right away; digital disposability doesn’t concern them – they’re rooted in traditions created by social media, which is solely about exhibition and surface, and they don’t follow a now dated path of cultural development.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This helps us understand The Shards, which is the best and most ambitious novel Ellis has published since <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9913.Glamorama">Glamorama</a>. Forget what Ellis said about being done with the novel. His latest, which unfurls, as the narrator states, across the “deep span of empire”, confirms that Ellis remains committed to the form, and the opportunities it affords him.</p>
<p>The Shards is a bold attempt to understand how the analog and digital interact. This accounts for the novel’s countless, obsessive descriptions of outmoded forms of analogue tech: the cassette, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betamax">Betamax</a>, and, most tellingly, the typewriter. It also explains Ellis’s bravura manipulation of genre (the age of the digital, as we know, is one where once-stable systems of classification tend to collapse).</p>
<p>With his latest, Ellis is, in essence, attempting to refashion and – to crib from the Trawler – <em>remake</em> the (analog) novel in our contemporary (digital) age. I think he succeeds. Others may disagree. Either way, The Shards is a timely reminder this is a writer willing to take risks. </p>
<p>Whatever one thinks about the other Brets floating around, it’s good to have this version of Bret Easton Ellis back.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193449/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Howard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Bret Easton Ellis’s first novel in 13 years blurs fact and fiction, mining his youth for material. The result is Joan Didion meets Brian De Palma.Alexander Howard, Senior Lecturer, Discipline of English, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1628872021-07-06T15:54:07Z2021-07-06T15:54:07ZImplicit bias within Canadian media often means providing excuses for white accused<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407718/original/file-20210622-15-1vml92t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=29%2C0%2C3964%2C2245&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Structural racism in media is deeply embedded, and resolving it will require frank discussions.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Canada celebrates itself as a multicultural and inclusive nation, yet when it comes to media representation, the different portrayals of Muslims and white people disguise a culture of <a href="https://perception.org/research/implicit-bias/">implicit bias</a> and racism.</p>
<p>Take, for example, two high profile crimes in which vehicles were used to kill people.</p>
<p>On Dec. 31, 2020, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/calgary-police-andrew-harnett-1.5859221">a police officer in Calgary was killed when struck by a vehicle trying to flee a traffic stop</a>. On June 6, <a href="https://theconversation.com/muslim-family-killed-in-terror-attack-in-london-ontario-islamophobic-violence-surfaces-once-again-in-canada-162400">four members of a Muslim-Canadian family in were killed</a> when they were out for an evening stroll in London, Ont.</p>
<p>In the Calgary incident, those arrested and charged with first-degree murder were two Muslim teenagers. The suspect in the London attack is a 20-year-old white man.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-child-psychiatrist-who-knew-those-killed-in-the-london-terror-attack-offers-advice-on-helping-kids-deal-with-trauma-162761">A child psychiatrist who knew those killed in the London terror attack offers advice on helping kids deal with trauma</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Canadian news outlets captured these two crimes in very different ways.</p>
<p>In the incident about the killing of the Muslim family members, some news outlets illustrated a story about the accused by using a photo of him <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/06/09/suspect-in-attack-on-muslim-family-laughed-during-arrest-report/">from a recent fishing trip</a>. </p>
<p>While the Crown would add a charge of terrorism <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-terrorism-charge-filed-in-the-london-attack-is-the-first-of-its-kind-in-canada-162739">in addition to the murder charges</a>, news outlets became a channel for the accused’s family and friends to <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/christian-terrorist-mowed-down-muslim-180540029.html">send out their positive thoughts about him, praise him and deny his Islamophobia and racism</a>. </p>
<p>Friends spoke about a recent fishing trip and how the accused was “<a href="https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/who-is-nathaniel-veltman-accused-in-alleged-london-hate-killings">happy as ever</a>,” how he had “trouble with the steering of his truck” and was distraught over a death in the family.</p>
<p>Eventually, news outlets cited the accused’s <a href="https://www.iheartradio.ca/610cktb/news/court-documents-portray-london-attack-suspect-as-prone-to-anger-medicated-for-mental-illness-1.15391880">mental illness, anger management and parent’s separation</a>.</p>
<p>In the Calgary incident, no friends or family of the accused were quoted by the media. No one spoke of their character or offered any other personal information about them. Photos used in media stories were <a href="https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/alberta-s-top-court-reserves-decision-on-bail-for-suspect-in-hit-and-run-death-of-calgary-officer-1.5480543">police mug shots</a>. </p>
<h2>Delegating responsibility</h2>
<p>Research has shown that in cases of mass killings where the accused is white, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0022427818787225">the media often cite mental illnesses as a possible explanation for the crime</a>.</p>
<p>The media’s delegation of responsibility of the crime to mental illness reduces moral panic. It provides peace of mind for readers that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0022427818787225">“normal” white people would not commit such crimes</a>. </p>
<p>At the same time, the sympathetic image of a mentally ill individual becomes an asset for the defence <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0093854818794742">during the trial and sentencing</a>. </p>
<p>Nancy Heitzeg, a professor of sociology and critical studies of race and ethnicity at Saint Catherine University in Minnesota, notes there is a “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10282580.2015.1025630">double standard</a>” when it comes to the white people versus people of colour when they commit the same crime.</p>
<p>When a white individual is committing a crime, she explains, there is always a life story that gives characteristics to the accused. However, when a minority individual is committing the crime, there are no backgrounds, no excuses and no side stories. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/muslim-family-killed-in-terror-attack-in-london-ontario-islamophobic-violence-surfaces-once-again-in-canada-162400">Muslim family killed in terror attack in London, Ontario: Islamophobic violence surfaces once again in Canada</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Journalists are influenced by their own perceptions of race when creating content. They are <a href="https://sophia.stkate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1478&context=msw_papers">embedded within societies that are impacted by racial tensions and misperceptions</a>. This can translate into stories that reinforce stereotyping.</p>
<p>While news outlets should be a neutral source of information, research has indicated that <a href="https://www.crrf-fcrr.ca/en/resources/research-projects/item/23532-racist-discourse-in-canadas-english-print-media-en-gb-1">Canadian media shows implicit biases and racism</a>. In particular, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1748895813476874">articles describe crimes against white victims with significantly more fearful language</a>.</p>
<p>Implicit bias is often in the details left out. <a href="https://www.unlv.edu/news/article/unpacking-how-media-influences-our-views-racism">Structural racism in media is deeply embedded</a>, and resolving it will require frank discussions, diverse workforces and a confrontation of racism’s roots.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162887/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shila Khayambashi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Existing racism and implicit bias in Canadian media downplayed the terrorist attack by a white accused while exaggerating and staying silent on the reasons behind a hit-and-run by Muslim teens.Shila Khayambashi, Ph.D. Candidate, Communications and Culture, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1629852021-07-01T12:14:51Z2021-07-01T12:14:51ZRacism lurks behind decisions to deny Black high school students from being recognized as the top in their class<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408449/original/file-20210625-19-dbn9fw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=50%2C0%2C5547%2C3734&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Was 'white fragility' the reason behind two Black Mississippi high schoolers' losing their valedictorian/salutatorian status?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/teenage-girl-at-her-graduation-ceremony-royalty-free-image/910464948?adppopup=true">Sue Barr/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://mississippitoday.org/2021/06/02/west-point-valedictorian-dispute-sparks-allegations-of-racism/">Two Black students</a> – Ikeria Washington and Layla Temple – were named valedictorian and salutatorian at West Point High School in Mississippi in 2021. Shortly afterward, <a href="https://mississippitoday.org/2021/06/14/west-point-valedictorian-dispute-school-board/">two white parents </a> questioned whether school officials had correctly calculated the top academic honors. </p>
<p>Ultimately, the school superintendent named two white students as “co-valedictorian” and “co-salutatorian” on <a href="https://mississippitoday.org/2021/06/02/west-point-valedictorian-dispute-sparks-allegations-of-racism/">the day of graduation</a>. </p>
<p>High school seniors with the highest GPA in their graduating class are chosen to be valedictorians and are often responsible for delivering the graduating speech. Salutatorians, who are high school seniors with the second-highest GPA in their graduating class, often give the opening remarks. </p>
<p>The superintendent <a href="https://mississippitoday.org/2021/06/02/west-point-valedictorian-dispute-sparks-allegations-of-racism/">attributed the mix-up</a> to a new school counselor who was given incorrect information on how to calculate class rankings. </p>
<p>As an <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=plyMZboAAAAJ&hl=en">educational researcher</a> who focuses on race and inequality, I am aware that the controversy at West Point High School is by no means isolated. </p>
<h2>A history of overlooking Black valedictorians</h2>
<p><a href="https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19910608&slug=1287823">Back in 1991</a> a federal judge in Covington, Georgia, resolved a dispute a Black high school senior had with a white student over who gets to be valedictorian by making them share the honor.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.gainesvilletimes.com/news/gainesville-highs-valedictorian-split-draws-fire/">Then in 2012 in Gainesville, Georgia</a>, another Black valedictorian was also forced to share the honor with a white student. Later, the white student’s family asked the <a href="https://www.gainesvilletimes.com/news/ghs-will-have-1-valedictorian-at-spring-graduation/">school to drop his candidacy</a> from the academic honor. </p>
<p>In 2011, <a href="https://www.theroot.com/black-valedictorian-cant-be-top-student-1790864991">Kymberly Wimberly</a>, a Black student in Little Rock, Arkansas, had her valedictorian honor stripped away by her principal to be given to a white student with a lower GPA. Wimberly’s lowest grade during all four years of high school was a B. In the rest of Wimberly’s courses, honors and Advanced Placement courses, she received A’s.</p>
<p>In her <a href="https://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/arkansas/aredce/5:2011cv00186/86898/1/0.pdf?ts=1376956300">lawsuit</a>, Wimberly claimed that a day after being informed that she was the valedictorian for McGehee High School, the principal told her mother, Molly Bratton, that he “decided to name a white student as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/kymberly-wimberly-black-valedictorian-claims-school-demoted-her-over-race/2011/07/27/gIQAv5tkeI_blog.html">co-valedictorian</a>.” </p>
<p>I became familiar with these kinds of valedictorian disputes when I examined the 2017 lawsuit of <a href="https://casetext.com/case/shepard-v-cleveland-sch-dist-2">Jasmine Shepard</a>. A student at Cleveland High School in Mississippi, Shepard had the highest grade-point average in her class. </p>
<p>However, the day before graduation, she was forced to be co-valedictorian with Heather Bouse, a white student with a lower GPA. </p>
<h2>How ‘white fragility’ plays out</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0895904820986772">my peer-reviewed article analyzing</a> Shepard’s case, I examined it from the standpoint of <a href="https://www.edweek.org/leadership/what-is-critical-race-theory-and-why-is-it-under-attack/2021/05">critical race theory</a>. Critical race theory is a <a href="https://www.edweek.org/leadership/what-is-critical-race-theory-and-why-is-it-under-attack/2021/05">theoretical framework</a> that <a href="https://theconversation.com/critical-race-theory-what-it-is-and-what-it-isnt-162752">examines racism</a> as a social construct ingrained in the American legal and political system. </p>
<p>In my analysis, I conclude that the decisions to force Black students to share top honors with white students result from a psychological discomfort known as “<a href="https://avapl.org/pub/poca_docs/Robin%20DiAngelo_WhiteFragility.pdf">white fragility</a>.” This is <a href="http://www.beacon.org/White-Fragility-P1631.aspx">a state of stress</a> experienced by some white people when they are presented with information about people of color that challenges their sense of entitlement.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0161956X.2017.1403172">I maintain</a> that when students of color are named top students in their graduating class, as Shepard was in 2016, white society may begin to fear that students of color are <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4683454/Black-valedictorian-Mississippi-school-endures-racism.html">encroaching upon their social turf</a>, so to speak.</p>
<h2>A legal perspective</h2>
<p>I believe the disputes that arise when Black students are named valedictorian should be viewed in the context of white fragility.</p>
<p>For example, consider what happened when a federal judge ordered the Cleveland, Mississippi, school district to desegregate in 2017 after having failed to do so in <a href="https://casetext.com/case/cowan-v-bolivar-cnty-bd-of-educ-4">1969</a> after the <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/349us294">Brown v. Board of Education case</a>. </p>
<p>After the 2017 order, The New York Times reported that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/07/us/in-mississippi-town-some-fear-school-desegregation-ruling-may-backfire.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article">many whites in Cleveland “feared”</a> that “dismantling the system would prompt whites to do what they have done in so many other Delta cities: decamp en masse for private schools, or move away.” This is known as “<a href="https://www.housebeautiful.com/lifestyle/a34319800/what-is-white-flight/">white flight</a>.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4683454/Black-valedictorian-Mississippi-school-endures-racism.html">In the instance</a> of Jasmine Shepard, too, I contend that white fragility and the fear of white flight were at play.</p>
<p>A key factor contributing to Heather Bouse’s being named co-valedictorian with Shepard was that Bouse had received credit for an unapproved Advanced Placement course in online physics, according to court transcripts that I examined.</p>
<p>The school policy requires that it publicize all of the courses available to students in the district. Unfortunately, the school administrators failed to inform students, parents and school counselors that the online physics course was available. </p>
<p><a href="https://casetext.com/case/shepard-v-cleveland-sch-dist-2">According to Judge Debra M. Brown</a>, the superintendent and the district’s assistant superintendent for curriculum assessment and instruction “incorrectly believed” that the school district was authorized to offer online courses for credit that would count toward students’ graduation requirements. Bouse’s online physics course was “designated as advanced, which resulted in six rank points.” </p>
<p>Based on the credit awarded for this unapproved online physics course, Bouse’s overall GPA was inflated, while Shepard’s GPA was wrongly calculated. This was because her guidance counselor had re-enrolled her in a desktop publishing course in which she had already received an A. </p>
<p>As a matter of policy it was “<a href="https://casetext.com/case/shepard-v-cleveland-sch-dist-2">contrary to the School District’s practices for student to receive credit for a course she had already completed and earned an ‘A,’</a>” according to the complaint. This re-enrolling led to Shepard’s overall GPA being lowered, which is discussed in her complaint. </p>
<p>A different student filed a very similar lawsuit to Shepard’s in 2018. In that <a href="https://casetext.com/case/james-v-cleveland-sch-dist-3">lawsuit</a>, Olecia James argued that Cleveland School District officials were “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/white-high-school-student-named-salutatorian-over-black-student-with-better-grades-federal-lawsuit-claims/2019/05/01/54fc17a0-6b82-11e9-a213-e9fb0424fd46_story.html">reducing the quality points she earned</a> from courses she had taken.” Quality points are another metric of a student’s grades. </p>
<p>Ultimately this prevented her from becoming Cleveland High School’s first Black salutatorian. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/28/us/dalee-sullivan-gpa-alpine.html">stakes</a> associated with being valedictorian and salutatorian are already high. Competition for <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/covid-has-made-getting-into-a-top-u-s-college-even-more-competitive-and-this-new-normal-looks-here-to-stay-11619390903">college admission increases every year</a>. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, as in the incident involving Ikeria Washington and Layla Temple at West Point High School reveals, when the honorees are African American, there have been instances in which people have questioned the validity of the outcome. </p>
<p>My research suggests that whenever a Black student’s status as valedictorian or salutatorian is questioned, it pays to ask questions. Is it being questioned for a legitimate reason? Or might racism or white fragility be at play? </p>
<p>[<em>Over 106,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p><em>This article has been updated to correct the location of the 2012 legal case from Gainesville, Florida to Gainesville, Georgia.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162985/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jamel K. Donnor is affiliated with the James City-Williamsburg NAACP. </span></em></p>‘White fragility’ plays a strong role in denying Black high school students valedictorian or salutatorian status.Jamel K. Donnor, Associate Professor of Education, William & MaryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1406742020-07-06T12:15:45Z2020-07-06T12:15:45ZHow did ‘white’ become a metaphor for all things good?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345627/original/file-20200704-33931-1l1sf8p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C19%2C1065%2C774&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Jacob's Dream' by Salvador Rosa (c. 1665).</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://d3d00swyhr67nd.cloudfront.net/w1200h1200/collection/NTIV/HACH/NTIV_HACH_1166737-001.jpg">artuk.org</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Leer en <a href="https://theconversation.com/como-el-blanco-se-convirtio-en-una-metafora-de-las-cosas-buenas-143327">español</a></em></p>
<p>Shortly after George Floyd’s death, one of my friends texted me that Floyd wasn’t necessarily a bad person, but, pointing to his prior stints in prison, added that “he wasn’t lily-white either.”</p>
<p>Soon thereafter, I read an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/05/opinion/whites-anti-blackness-protests.html">article</a> in The New York Times written by Chad Sanders in which he noted his agent canceled a meeting with him because he was observing a “<a href="https://www.ajc.com/news/what-blackoutday-day-organized-for-black-people-avoid-online-store-shopping/AmL0SIsTds0VQCmI5lDEKK/">Blackout Day</a>” in recognition of the Black men and women who have been brutalized and killed. </p>
<p>In the first example, white represents purity and morality. In the other, black represents nothingness or absence – similar to the use of “black hole” as a metaphor. </p>
<p>These types of linguistic metaphors – pervasive in speech – <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=dSp9HLsAAAAJ&hl=en">have been a focus of my research</a>. </p>
<p>There are “brighter days ahead” after “dark times.” We want to be whitelisted and not blacklisted for jobs. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/computer-science/black-hat-hacker">Black hats</a> are the bad hackers and white hats the good ones. White lies make stretching the truth okay, while we don’t want to receive a black mark on our records. In picture books, good people, angels and Gods dress in white, but the villains, devils and the Grim Reaper dress in black. </p>
<p>Of course, there are exceptions: We prefer to be “in the black” versus “in the red” in financial statements. But for the most part, the delineation is remarkably consistent.</p>
<p>How do such linguistic metaphors get formed? And do they perpetuate racism? </p>
<h2>Processing a complicated world</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2025464">One theory</a>, proposed by cognitive linguists George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, is that metaphors are a cognitive tool allowing people to comprehend what they cannot see, taste, hear, smell or touch. They help people understand difficult, abstract concepts through simpler, more tangible, paradigms. </p>
<p>These metaphors get formed as people gain experience in the physical world. For instance, the abstract concept of power is connected to the concrete concept of height – perhaps because, as children, we saw adults as taller and more powerful. Then, as adults, we continue to implicitly <a href="http://www.igroup.org/schubert/papers/schubert_jpsp05.pdf">associate height with power</a>. It isn’t just tall buildings or tall people. In multiple studies, participants judged symbols representing people or groups to be more powerful if they simply appeared at a higher position on a page than other symbols. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p><a href="http://aradhnakrishna.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/emotion_up_down.pdf">My research</a> with fellow behavioral scientists Luca Cian and Norbert Schwarz found that vertical position also has an implicit association with emotionality and rationality. </p>
<p>If something is at the top of a page or a screen, we tend to perceive it as more rational, whereas if something is at the bottom, it appears more emotional. One reason may be that we metaphorically tend to connect the heart with emotion and the head with logic, and, in the physical world, our heads are actually higher than our hearts.</p>
<h2>Infusing color with meaning</h2>
<p>In a similar vein, fresh snow and clean water are white or transparent, whereas sullied water turns brown and then black. It is also bright and relatively safer during the day, but dark and more dangerous at night. While observing all of this, we start forming conceptual metaphors – or subconscious connections – between color and goodness. </p>
<p>Experiments have documented the existence of this relationship.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://journal.psych.ac.cn/xlxb/EN/10.3724/SP.J.1041.2014.01331">one paper</a>,
for example, psychologists Brian Meier, Michael Robinson and Gerald Clore showed that the color white is implicitly connected with morality, and the color black with immorality.</p>
<p>In another study, they <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0963-7214.2004.01502002.x">asked participants</a> to evaluate words as positive or negative. The words were shown in black or white font on a computer screen with a program measuring the speed of the classification. </p>
<p>Participants evaluated words with a positive meaning like “active,” “baby,” “clean” and “kiss” faster when they were shown in a white rather than black font. On the other hand, they classified words with a negative meaning – terms like “crooked,” “diseased,” “foolish” and “ugly” – faster when they appeared in black.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345331/original/file-20200702-111333-nklx87.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345331/original/file-20200702-111333-nklx87.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345331/original/file-20200702-111333-nklx87.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=272&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345331/original/file-20200702-111333-nklx87.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=272&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345331/original/file-20200702-111333-nklx87.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=272&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345331/original/file-20200702-111333-nklx87.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=342&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345331/original/file-20200702-111333-nklx87.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=342&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345331/original/file-20200702-111333-nklx87.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=342&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A sample of words used in the experiment by Meier, Robinson and Clore.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Aradhna Krishna</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These studies have been <a href="http://repository.essex.ac.uk/15666/1/Meier,%20Fetterman,%20%26%20Robinson,%202015.pdf">replicated</a>, and the same findings emerge, indicating that they’re not a fluke: The perceptual-conceptual links between color and goodness are ingrained in people.</p>
<h2>The race factor</h2>
<p>Could something as simple as the color-goodness relationship <a href="https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html">drive</a> racial prejudice? </p>
<p>In the color-goodness studies above, black and white colors were connected with good and bad. Implicit race bias tests, on the other hand, look for a connection between Black and white faces and goodness.</p>
<p>There is a subtle but important difference here. The implicit bias race test detects prejudice towards Black people. So besides skin color, it also picks up reactions to other differences in appearance – from hair to facial structure – along with any animosity one may have previously harbored. Still, the color-goodness association is clearly a factor in racial prejudice.</p>
<p>Can these conceptual metaphors – so ingrained in our everyday speech – be upended? What if we wrote that something was as pure as the blackest eyes; as rich as the darkest hair; or as sophisticated as a black dress? </p>
<p>What if Gods and heroes were dressed in black and villains in white? </p>
<p>What if, as Muhammad Ali <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-52988605/muhammad-ali-why-is-everything-white">pointed out</a> in a 1971 interview, we had vanilla devil’s food cake and dark-chocolate angel cake? </p>
<p>Metaphors aren’t ironclad. It’s possible to consciously change the way we write, draw, design costumes – and, yes, bake. Over time, perhaps this could gradually erode some of our implicit biases.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140674/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aradhna Krishna does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>We want to be whitelisted and not blacklisted for jobs. White lies make stretching the truth okay, but you don’t want to receive a black mark on your record.Aradhna Krishna, Dwight F. Benton Professor of Marketing, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1209642019-12-11T13:18:02Z2019-12-11T13:18:02Z5 new ways for schools to work with families<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304474/original/file-20191129-95264-1e5lwmf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A new way is needed for schools to engage with parents.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/home">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Text messages, email alerts, open houses, fundraising appeals, robocalls – parents know the drill. They are inundated with requests from children’s schools.</p>
<p>These missives aren’t really asking for engagement. Rather they can be viewed as ways for educators to tell parents what they should do to support their students or the school. These experiences can <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.3102/0091732x12459718">inadvertently communicate that schools alone know what’s best for children</a> – and parents should listen and follow directions, a dynamic especially present in schools serving working-class communities of color.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://ais.washington.edu/people/megan-bang">scholars</a> and <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/education/michelle-renee-valladares">parents</a>, my colleagues and <a href="https://education.uw.edu/people/faculty/aishi">I</a> research the intersection of families, schools and racial inequities. We have learned new ways for schools and families to work together to help realize children’s potential. And the answer isn’t fundraising, checking the latest school app or listening to robo-calls.</p>
<p>Research tells us that families play a <a href="https://www.nap.edu/catalog/21868/parenting-matters-supporting-parents-of-children-ages-0-8">critically important role</a> in the educational success of their children. We also know from <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Bicultural-Parent-Engagement-Advocacy-Empowerment/dp/0807752649">research that schools</a> typically expect parents and families of color to conform to the values and behaviors of white, middle-class parents.</p>
<p>The hitch is that families of color don’t always participate in the ways schools expect. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1492.2011.01148.x">Histories of distrust and conflict</a> often exist between families of color and schools.</p>
<p>We know, for example, that there are <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/crdc-2015-16.html">well-documented racial disparities in discipline referrals</a>, in <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.3102/0013189X07308253?casa_token=QBNbqzfriG8AAAAA%3AaBBtEm42hm90DyubnZz-jDGxFr6-_qfAC4utlSiTIK9MT_wqkpETLbSo7lFsHIASs4EYRiqmD9zK">access to high-quality</a> teachers and instruction, and in resources and <a href="https://www.apa.org/monitor/2016/11/cover-inequality-school">robust learning opportunities</a>. But when parents raise questions about racial bias and inequities, their questioning, our research <a href="https://faculty.washington.edu/rsoder/EDUC310/310lareauhorvatmomentssocialinclusion.pdf">and other work</a> has shown, it is rarely well received by educators and school leaders.</p>
<p>Rather than acknowledging these well-documented tensions and revising expectations, educators can interpret behaviors that deviate from their expectations as evidence that there’s something wrong or lacking in families of color. <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3651334?read-now=1&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">A study</a> by Dr. John Diamond and his colleagues found that when teachers decide parents don’t care or are interfering with their professional authority, they tend to feel less responsible for those students’ learning. These assumptions rely on age-old narratives that <a href="https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/06/29/blaming-parents-of-color-for-their-own.html?cmp=RSS-FEED">implicitly blame families of color</a> – and have negative consequences, especially for Native American, black, Latinx, Pacific Islander and some Asian students.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305685/original/file-20191206-90609-250e4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305685/original/file-20191206-90609-250e4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305685/original/file-20191206-90609-250e4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305685/original/file-20191206-90609-250e4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305685/original/file-20191206-90609-250e4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305685/original/file-20191206-90609-250e4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305685/original/file-20191206-90609-250e4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A parent-teacher conference.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flickr.com/photos/innovationschool/8048216332/">flickr.com</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Catalyzed by a charge from the 2014 White House Symposium on Transformative Family Engagement, we have been working on a different set of approaches to co-design more “<a href="https://www.tcpress.com/just-schools-9780807763193">just schools</a>” with families. Based on the research of <a href="http://familydesigncollab.org/">our national network of scholars and family leaders, Family Leadership Design Collaborative</a>, schools and policymakers can approach families differently. They can:</p>
<p><strong>1. Start with families’ and communities’ priorities, not the school’s agenda.</strong></p>
<p>Families and communities need to be the architects of their own futures. That means starting with family stories, experiences, knowledge and cultural practices. That might mean recognizing negative histories with schools before jumping to solutions. For example, in Chicago’s urban Indigenous community, families discussed the trauma of boarding schools and the erasure of Indigenous communities. They also shared their ancestral knowledge and stories of raising children to envision what education would be required to raise “good elders.” Parents in another district shared experiences of positive relationships with teachers but also their frustrations dealing with bullying and racism at the school. </p>
<p>After sharing these experiences, they developed <a href="https://education.uw.edu/sites/default/files/programs/epsc/ParentCurriculum-FINAL-Print.pdf">a curriculum for other parents</a> to help them build relationships with each other to address issues of bullying and to support positive racial and cultural identities for their children. </p>
<p><strong>2. Recognize and treat families of color as experts on their own children.</strong></p>
<p>When schools help families build relationships with each other and recognize their expertise, they can become powerful leaders in school change. In Los Angeles, black and Latinx parent leaders with the organizing group <a href="http://cadre-la.org/">CADRE</a> changed the discipline policies in the district. And yet, based on our research, parents of color still felt blamed and judged in everyday conversations with teachers and principals about discipline – and there had been little change in the pipeline from school to prison, especially for black boys. Now those parent leaders are collaborating with faculty at UCLA to help new teachers reshape everyday conversations to be less about blame and more about enabling parents to share their expertise on their own children. </p>
<p><strong>3. Give families and communities the resources, time and space to envision solutions, not just share their pain.</strong></p>
<p>Listening sessions can be powerful but limiting. Families share their traumas with educators, but school leaders ultimately decide what to do with what they heard. <a href="https://nepc.colorado.edu/sites/default/files/publications/PM%20Family%20Leadership_0.pdf">Our research shows</a> how families can be part of designing solutions if they are provided the time, space and resources to do so. For example, in Salt Lake City, a school decision-making body supposedly included parents, but families of color experienced meetings as alienating and exclusionary. We found rather than airing those negative experiences and expecting policymakers to do something, parents, teachers, principals, researchers and district leaders imagined what a productive council would be like and started to enact those changes. They got the legislature to let them use funds for outreach to more diverse families. They created a comic to share with parents whose first language wasn’t English. They are developing a training for educators on the councils to learn how to engage differently. And they envisioned spaces prior to formal council meetings for parents to come together to discuss what their schools need most.</p>
<p><strong>4. Help families and educators learn to facilitate meetings across racial, cultural and other differences.</strong></p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/highered/racial-diversity/state-racial-diversity-workforce.pdf">U.S. Department of Education</a>, most teachers and leaders in the U.S. are white, and a growing majority of students and their families are from communities of color. Collaborating across lines of race, culture and roles requires skillful facilitation. Real tensions emerge between people and ideas in equity work. School and parent leaders need to be able to intervene in tense interactions. That might be as simple as asking educators to slow down, listen more and use fewer acronyms. But imbalances of power often require skilled facilitation, like what to do when one loud voice dominates the conversation or when white parents inadvertently disregard parents of color. </p>
<p>Even parents of color can reinforce these narratives. For instance, one group of immigrant parents in a diversifying suburban district voiced a belief that other immigrant families are focused on meeting their immediate needs and don’t care about their children’s education. The facilitator at this session could have gone with this simplistic explanation that blamed parents for disparate opportunities – a stereotype that empirical research has proven wrong. Instead, the facilitator leaned into the tension and shared her own challenges as a working parent who was often away from her child. Her vulnerability challenged the discourse of blame, and parents began to strategize about how they could better support each other collectively. Such facilitation skills must be learned, and schools and systems need to invest in developing those capacities. </p>
<p><strong>5. Ensure families have real influence on important educational decisions</strong></p>
<p>School and district leaders in our study came to see the routine decisions they made in their jobs as critical opportunities for family and community influence. Educational leaders redesigned key decisions that impacted students and families, especially those marginalized by typical processes. </p>
<p>For instance, one principal supervisor in an urban district redesigned the hiring process for a new principal with students, families and teachers in the school. He enlisted a colleague who helped families discuss the broken trust they felt with the district due to prior decisions, then they collectively designed their own questions for principal candidates. They held separate student, family and teacher interview panels, then proposed their top choice (which was unanimous, in this case). The district hired that principal, and several families wrote letters to the school board about how the process helped repair their broken trust with the district. </p>
<p>These and other actions laid out in our <a href="https://nepc.colorado.edu/sites/default/files/publications/PM%20Family%20Leadership_0.pdf">full policy memo</a> can recast families and communities as essential collaborators in fostering equitable schools and educational systems. </p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120964/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ann M. Ishimaru receives funding from W.K. Kellogg Foundation for the research on which this is based</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Megan Bang receives funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation for research on family engagement.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Valladares receives funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation for the research on which this is based.</span></em></p>School officials can do a better job engaging families of color. Here are five ways for them to start.Ann M. Ishimaru, Associate Professor, University of WashingtonMegan Bang, Professor of Learning Sciences and Psychology, Northwestern UniversityMichelle Valladares, Associate Director of the National Education Policy Center, University of Colorado BoulderLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1195862019-07-09T11:23:25Z2019-07-09T11:23:25ZThe forgotten history of segregated swimming pools and amusement parks<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/282884/original/file-20190705-51284-qnnnb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">When a group of white and African American integrationists entered a St. Augustine, Fla. segregated hotel pool in 1964, the hotel manager poured acid into it.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Florida-United-States-APHS126999-Civil-Rights-Florida-1964/44f1deef9c3f4d3da98611e9f82e5673/5/0">AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Summers often bring a wave of childhood memories: lounging poolside, trips to the local amusement park, languid, steamy days at the beach. </p>
<p>These nostalgic recollections, however, aren’t held by all Americans. </p>
<p>Municipal swimming pools and <a href="http://www.napha.org/LibraryResources/FactsFigures/GreatMoments/tabid/69/Default.aspx#paging:currentPage=0">urban amusement parks flourished</a> in the 20th century. But too often, their success was based on the exclusion of African Americans.</p>
<p>As a social historian who has <a href="http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15035.html">written a book on segregated recreation</a>, I have found that the history of recreational segregation is a largely forgotten one. But it has had a lasting significance on modern race relations. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9780807871270/contested-waters/">Swimming pools</a> and <a href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469628721/the-land-was-ours/">beaches</a> were among the most segregated and fought over public spaces in the North and the South.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/73675/making-whiteness-by-grace-elizabeth-hale/9780679776208/">White stereotypes of blacks as diseased and sexually threatening</a> served as the foundation for this segregation. City leaders justifying segregation also pointed to <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520257474/mean-streets">fears of fights breaking out if whites and blacks mingled</a>. Racial separation for them equaled racial peace. </p>
<p>These fears were underscored when white teenagers attacked black swimmers after activists or city officials opened public pools to blacks. For example, whites threw nails at the bottom of pools in Cincinnati, poured bleach and acid in pools with black bathers in St. Augustine, Florida, and beat them up in Philadelphia. In my book, I describe how in the late 1940s there were major swimming pool riots in St. Louis, Baltimore, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles.</p>
<h2>Exclusion based on ‘safety’</h2>
<p>Despite civil rights statutes in many states, the law did not come to African Americans’ aid. In Charlotte, North Carolina, for example, the chairman of the Charlotte Park and Recreation Commission in 1960 <a href="https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/1003/collection.html">admitted that “all people have a right under law to use all public facilitates including swimming pools.”</a> But he went on to point out that “of all public facilities, swimming pools put the tolerance of the white people to the test.” </p>
<p>His conclusion: “Public order is more important than rights of Negroes to use public facilities.” In practice, black swimmers were not admitted to pools if the managers felt “disorder will result.” Disorder and order defined accessibility, not the law. </p>
<p>Fears of disorder also justified segregation at amusement parks, which were built at the end of trolley or ferry lines beginning in 1890. This was particularly true at park swimming pools, dance halls and roller-skating rinks, which were common facilities within parks. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/282888/original/file-20190705-51253-1qxeoqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/282888/original/file-20190705-51253-1qxeoqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282888/original/file-20190705-51253-1qxeoqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282888/original/file-20190705-51253-1qxeoqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282888/original/file-20190705-51253-1qxeoqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282888/original/file-20190705-51253-1qxeoqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282888/original/file-20190705-51253-1qxeoqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Surrounded by a group of white youths, an unidentified black man grimaces as a policeman tries to halt an attack on him in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1949.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Missouri-United-/f1eabf7439e5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/1/0">AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These spaces provoked the most <a href="http://tupress.temple.edu/book/0701">intense fears</a> of racial mixing among young men and women. Scantily clad bathers flirting and playing raised the specter of interracial sex and some feared for young white women’s safety. </p>
<p>Some white owners and customers <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374523145">believed that recreation</a> only could be kept virtuous and safe by excluding African Americans and promoting a sanitized and harmonious vision of white leisure. However, my work shows that these restrictions simply perpetuated racial stereotypes and inequality.</p>
<p>This recreational segregation had a heartbreaking impact on African American children. For example, in his 1963 <a href="https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html">“Letter from Birmingham Jail,”</a> Martin Luther King Jr. described the tears in his daughter’s eyes when “she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children.”</p>
<h2>Protests at pools</h2>
<p>Major civil rights campaigns targeted amusement park segregation, most notably at <a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/baltimore-county/bs-md-co-gwynn-oak-park-20130707-story.html">Gwynn Oak Park in Baltimore</a> and <a href="https://www.nps.gov/glec/learn/historyculture/summer-of-change.htm">Glen Echo Park</a> outside of Washington, D.C. And other parks, such as <a href="https://www.courier-journal.com/story/opinion/contributors/2014/06/28/struggle-humanequality/11542217/">Fontaine Ferry in Louisville</a>, were sites of major racial clashes when African Americans sought entrance. </p>
<p>By the early 1970s, most of America’s urban amusement parks like Cleveland’s Euclid Beach and Chicago’s Riverview were closed for good. Some white consumers perceived the <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_American_amusement_park_industry.html?id=0ZgkAQAAIAAJ">newly integrated parks as unsafe</a> and in turn park owners sold the land for considerable profit. Other urban leisure sites – public swimming pools, bowling alleys and roller-skating rinks – also closed down as <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/8043.html">white consumers fled cities for the suburbs</a>. </p>
<p>The increase of gated communities and homeowners associations, what the political scientist <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300066388/privatopia">Evan McKenzie</a> calls “privatopia,” also led to the privatization of recreation. Another factor contributing to the decline of public recreation areas was <a href="https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/002784899">the Federal Housing Administration, which in the mid-1960s openly discouraged public ownership of recreational facilities.</a> Instead, they promoted private homeowner associations in planned developments with private pools and tennis courts. </p>
<h2>Lasting legacy</h2>
<p>After the 1964 Civil Rights Act desegregated public accommodations, municipalities followed different strategies intended to keep the racial peace through maintaining segregation. Some simply filled their pools in, leaving more affluent residents the option of putting in backyard pools. Public pools also created membership clubs and began to charge fees, which acted as a barrier to filter out those pool managers felt were “unfit.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/282904/original/file-20190705-51312-mdfcsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/282904/original/file-20190705-51312-mdfcsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282904/original/file-20190705-51312-mdfcsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282904/original/file-20190705-51312-mdfcsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282904/original/file-20190705-51312-mdfcsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282904/original/file-20190705-51312-mdfcsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282904/original/file-20190705-51312-mdfcsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Passengers on the Parachute Jump ride see throngs of people on the boardwalk and beach at the Coney Island Amusement Park in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1957.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-Associated-Press-Domestic-News-New-York-/d91ad1ddf130445c9d2bd4c0e0fe9f7d/15/0">AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Over time, cities defunded their recreational facilities, leaving many urban dwellers with little access to pools. Ironically, <a href="https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/D/bo3640481.html">some blamed African Americans for the decline of urban amusements</a>, disregarding the decades of exclusion and violence they had experienced. </p>
<p>The racial stereotypes that justified swimming segregation are not often openly expressed today. However, we still see their impact on our urban and suburban landscapes. Closed public pools and <a href="https://www.unitedskatesfilm.com/">shuttered skating rinks</a> degrade urban centers.</p>
<p>And there are moments when one hears the direct echo of those earlier struggles. In 2009, for example, the owner of a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/11/us/11pool.html">private swim club in Philadelphia</a> excluded black children attending a Philadelphia day care center, saying they would change the “complexion” of the club.</p>
<p>In 2015 in a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/09/us/mckinney-tex-pool-party-dispute-leads-to-police-officer-suspension.html">wealthy subdivision outside of Dallas, police targeted black teenagers attending a pool party</a>. </p>
<p>These incidents, and our collective memories, are explicable only in the context of a rarely acknowledged history.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119586/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Victoria W. Wolcott does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Municipal swimming pools flourished in the 20th century. But too often, their success was based on the exclusion of African Americans.Victoria W. Wolcott, Professor of History, University at BuffaloLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1158942019-04-30T10:45:05Z2019-04-30T10:45:05ZThe US white majority will soon disappear forever<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270826/original/file-20190424-121241-qa26t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The non-Hispanic white population is not growing as quickly as other groups in the U.S.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/happy-parents-sitting-on-sofa-looking-1056238637?src=1F_esRO-puY2h0O8sBzQwQ-1-86">Lightfield Studios/shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since the settlement of Jamestown in 1607 and the start of the Colonial period, the U.S. has been predominantly white. </p>
<p>But the white share of the U.S. population has been dropping, from a little under 90% in 1950 to 60% in 2018. It will likely drop below 50% in another 25 years.</p>
<p>White nationalists want America to be white again. But this will never happen. America is on its way to becoming predominantly nonwhite.</p>
<p><iframe id="SASad" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/SASad/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Who is white?</h2>
<p>The U.S. federal government uses two questions to measure a person’s race and ethnicity. One asks if the person is of Hispanic origin, and the other asks about the person’s race. </p>
<p>A person is <a href="http://www.niussp.org/article/think-race-and-ethnicity-are-permanent-think-again-surprise/">defined as white</a> if he or she identifies as being only white and non-Hispanic. <a href="http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/05/17/explaining-why-minority-births-now-outnumber-white-births/">A minority, or nonwhite, person</a> is anyone who is not solely non-Hispanic white. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271048/original/file-20190425-121258-etg9bp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271048/original/file-20190425-121258-etg9bp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271048/original/file-20190425-121258-etg9bp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=870&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271048/original/file-20190425-121258-etg9bp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=870&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271048/original/file-20190425-121258-etg9bp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=870&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271048/original/file-20190425-121258-etg9bp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1093&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271048/original/file-20190425-121258-etg9bp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1093&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271048/original/file-20190425-121258-etg9bp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1093&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A planned question for the 2020 census.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/2020/operations/planned-questions-2020-acs.pdf">U.S. Census Bureau</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Whites were not the first people to settle in what is now the U.S. The first immigrants were a people known today as American Indians and Alaskan natives, also commonly referred to as Native Americans. They arrived in North America around 14,000 years ago. </p>
<p>When Christopher Columbus arrived in America in 1492, there were around 10 million American Indians living in the lands north of Mexico. But by the 1800s their numbers had dwindled to about 1 million. They are now the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/population-and-society/D2A98883FE1D04C2D0C0FAF09F211746">smallest race group</a> in the U.S. </p>
<p>The first sizable stream of immigrants to what is now the U.S. were whites from England. Their arrival at Plymouth in 1620 in search of religious freedom marked the start of large waves of whites coming to this land. </p>
<p>When the U.S. was established as a country in 1776, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/population-and-society/D2A98883FE1D04C2D0C0FAF09F211746">whites comprised roughly 80%</a> of the population. The white share rose to 90% in 1920, where it stayed until 1950. </p>
<h2>Declining numbers</h2>
<p>The proportion of whites in the U.S. population started to decline in 1950. It fell to gradually over the years, eventually reaching just over 60% in 2018 – the lowest percentage ever recorded. </p>
<p>Although the majority of the U.S. population today is still white, nonwhites account for more than half of the populations of Hawaii, the District of Columbia, California, New Mexico, Texas and Nevada. And, in the next 10 to 15 years, these half dozen “majority-minority” states will likely be joined by as many as eight other states where whites now make up less than 60% of the population. </p>
<p><iframe id="sYPTj" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/sYPTj/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Census Bureau projections show that the U.S. population will be <a href="https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2015/demo/p25-1143.pdf">“majority-minority”</a> sometime between 2040 and 2050. Our research suggests that this will happen around 2044. Indeed, in 2020, there are projected to be <a href="https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=PEP_2016_PEPASR6H&prodType=table">more nonwhite children than white children</a> in the U.S.</p>
<p>The nonwhite population is growing more rapidly than the white population. Minorities accounted for 92% of the U.S. population growth between 2010 and 2018, with Latinos comprising just under half of the nation’s overall growth.</p>
<h2>Behind the trends</h2>
<p>Why are the numbers of white people declining, and why are nonwhite numbers increasing? The answer is basic demography: births, deaths and immigration. </p>
<p>White women have <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/population-and-society/D2A98883FE1D04C2D0C0FAF09F211746">an average of 1.7 children</a> over their lifetimes, while Latina women average 2.2. The total fertility rates of blacks, Asians and American Indians are in between. So whites have fewer births than all nonwhite groups. </p>
<p>There are also big differences in age structure. Sixty-two percent of Latinas 15 years of age or older are <a href="https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=PEP_2016_PEPASR6H&prodType=table">of childbearing age</a>. Only 42% of white women fall into this group. Latinos also have lower mortality rates than whites. Demographers call this the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-32910129">“epidemiological paradox.”</a></p>
<p><iframe id="aQkHO" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/aQkHO/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>In 2015, for the first time, there were more white deaths in the U.S. than white births. Indeed, as of 2016, in 26 states, <a href="https://apl.wisc.edu/data-briefs/natural-decrease-18">whites were dying faster</a> than they were being born. The states with more white deaths than white births include California, Florida, Pennsylvania and Michigan.</p>
<p>How about immigration to the U.S.? Of the more than 43 million foreign-born people living in the U.S. in 2015, 82% originated in Latin America and Asia. Only 11% were born in Europe. So whites don’t increase their representation in the U.S. via immigration.</p>
<p><iframe id="EIBVW" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/EIBVW/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>The future of whiteness</h2>
<p>The aging white population, alongside a more youthful minority population, especially in the case of Latinos, will result in the U.S. becoming a majority-minority country in around 2044. </p>
<p>The demographic shift in the U.S. has resulted in many whites <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/04/race-rising-anxiety-white-america/">proclaiming that they are losing their country</a>, and that they already are or will soon become a minority group. </p>
<p>In her <a href="https://thenewpress.com/books/strangers-their-own-land">research on working-class whites in rural Louisiana</a>, sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild observes that many whites feel frustrated and betrayed, like they are now strangers in their own land. In Trump, they saw a white man who brought them together to take their country back. Hochschild points out that at a Trump campaign rally, whites held signs with slogans such as “TRUMP: MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN” and “SILENT MAJORITY STANDS WITH TRUMP.” </p>
<p>The decline of the white share of the U.S. population could result in <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781442276239/Racism-without-Racists-Color-Blind-Racism-and-the-Persistence-of-Racial-Inequality-in-America-Fifth-Edition">the shifting of racial boundaries</a> to assign whiteness to some people of color so as to bolster the white numbers. </p>
<p>This has happened before. Groups that were initially seen as very different from whites, such as <a href="https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo3632115.html">the Irish and Italians</a>, once sought to distance themselves from blacks, and eventually were <a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/david-r-roediger/working-toward-whiteness/9781541673472/">accepted as white</a>. </p>
<p>In addition, although persons of Mexican origin largely identified racially as white, in the 1930 census “Mexican” was used as a racial category, at a time when there was heightened hostility against Mexicans due to their growing population size and the Great Depression.</p>
<p>But any future changes cannot override demography. The U.S. will never be a white country again.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115894/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>By 2050, the US will be a ‘majority-minority’ country, with white non-Hispanics making up less than half of the total population.Dudley L. Poston Jr., Professor of Sociology, Texas A&M UniversityRogelio Sáenz, Professor of Demography, The University of Texas at San AntonioLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1115762019-02-15T11:49:46Z2019-02-15T11:49:46ZHow white became the color of suffrage<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368140/original/file-20201108-15-1ga6r7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C95%2C4705%2C3151&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kamala Harris wore white for a reason during her victory speech. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/APTOPIXElection2020Biden/c783793f9c234a7897b5bb52b228f02e/photo?Query=kamala%20AND%20harris&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=4540&currentItemNo=7">AP Photo/Andrew Harnik</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/11/07/kamala-harris-victory-speech-transcript/">During her victory speech</a>, Kamala Harris, the first woman to be elected vice president of the United States, paid tribute to women activists not only in her words, but also in her appearance. </p>
<p>Harris’ decision to wear a white pantsuit was a nod to suffragists and to women politicians like <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/30/fashion/hillary-clinton-democratic-national-convention.html">Hillary Clinton</a> and former vice presidential candidate <a href="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/07/30/style/30OTRc/30OTRc-jumbo.jpg">Geraldine Ferraro</a>. Meanwhile, Harris’ white silk shirt with a pussy bow was a nuanced reference to the women protests that erupted four years ago. </p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=_Zhsg9oAAAAJ&hl=en">As a historian who writes about fashion and politics</a>, I like these types of sartorial gestures. They show the relevancy and power of fashion statements in our political system. Harris, like the suffragists and political leaders that came before her, is using her clothes to control their image and spark a conversation. </p>
<p>However, today’s strong association between the color white and the suffragists isn’t fully accurate. It’s based more on the black-and-white photographs that circulated in the media, which obscured two colors that were just as important to the suffragists. </p>
<h2>Using color to convince</h2>
<p>For most of the 19th century, suffragists didn’t incorporate visuals in their movement. It was only during the early 20th century that suffragists started to realize that, as Glenda Tinnin, one of the organizers of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, <a href="https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:53708534$54i">argued</a>, “An idea that is driven home to the mind through the eye, produces a more striking and lasting impression than any that goes through the ear.” </p>
<p>Becoming aware of the way visuals could shift public opinion, suffragists began to incorporate media and publicity tactics into their campaign, using all kinds of spectacles to popularize their cause. Color played a crucial role in these efforts, especially during public demonstrations such as pageants and parades.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258875/original/file-20190213-181612-6rwf5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258875/original/file-20190213-181612-6rwf5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258875/original/file-20190213-181612-6rwf5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=833&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258875/original/file-20190213-181612-6rwf5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=833&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258875/original/file-20190213-181612-6rwf5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=833&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258875/original/file-20190213-181612-6rwf5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1046&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258875/original/file-20190213-181612-6rwf5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1046&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258875/original/file-20190213-181612-6rwf5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1046&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Suffragist Alice Paul dons a white dress and raises a glass shortly after the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/ds.00180/">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Part of their goal was to convey that they were not devilish Amazons set to destroy gender hierarchies, as some of their critics <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924069224834;view=1up;seq=522">claimed</a>. Rather, suffragists sought to present an image of themselves as beautiful and skilled women who would bring civility to politics and cleanse the system of corruption. </p>
<p>Suffragists deployed white to convey these messages, but they also turned to a much more diverse palette. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://loc.gov/pictures/resource/ppmsca.02946/">1913 Washington, D.C. parade</a> was the first national event that put the cause of the suffragists on front pages of newspapers around the country. Organizers used an intricate color scheme to create an impression of harmony and order. Marchers were divided by professions, countries and states, and each group adopted a distinct color. Social workers wore dark blue, educators and students wore green, writers wore white and purple, and artists wore pale rose. </p>
<p>Being the media-savvy women that they were, suffragists realized that it wasn’t enough to create an appealing impression of themselves. They also needed to come up with a recognizable brand. Inspired by the British suffragettes and their campaign colors – purple, white and green – the National Woman’s Party also adopted a set of three colors: <a href="http://www.crusadeforthevote.org/imagery-and-propaganda/stdi5c3o81lzqb5lrlku7butgioh93">purple, white and golden yellow</a>. </p>
<p>They replaced green with yellow to pay tribute to Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who used the <a href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_507974">sunflower</a> – Kansas’s state flower – when they campaigned for a failed statewide suffrage referendum in 1867.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258877/original/file-20190213-181631-1ysnvmz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258877/original/file-20190213-181631-1ysnvmz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258877/original/file-20190213-181631-1ysnvmz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258877/original/file-20190213-181631-1ysnvmz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258877/original/file-20190213-181631-1ysnvmz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258877/original/file-20190213-181631-1ysnvmz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258877/original/file-20190213-181631-1ysnvmz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258877/original/file-20190213-181631-1ysnvmz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The sunflower was first used during an 1867 campaign for a Kansas state suffrage referendum that failed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_507974">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Crafting a contrast</h2>
<p>These American <a href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_509474">suffrage colors</a> – purple, white and yellow – stood for loyalty, purity and hope, respectively. And while all three of them were used during parades, it was the brightness of the white that left the biggest impression. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2014700130/">In images of suffragists</a> marching in formation, their bright clothing contrasts sharply with the crowds of men in dark-colored suits who line the sidewalks. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258876/original/file-20190213-181619-8qsr72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258876/original/file-20190213-181619-8qsr72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258876/original/file-20190213-181619-8qsr72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258876/original/file-20190213-181619-8qsr72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258876/original/file-20190213-181619-8qsr72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258876/original/file-20190213-181619-8qsr72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258876/original/file-20190213-181619-8qsr72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258876/original/file-20190213-181619-8qsr72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">During parades, the white garments of the marchers contrasted sharply with the onlookers lining the sidewalk.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2014700130/">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This visual contrast – between women and men, bright and dark, order and disorder – conveyed hope and possibility: How might women improve politics if they get the right to vote? </p>
<p>White dresses were also easier and cheaper to attain than colored ones. A poorer or middle-class woman could show her support for suffrage by wearing an ordinary white dress and adding a purple or yellow accessory. The association of white with the idea of sexual and moral purity was also a useful way for suffragists to refute negative stereotypes that portrayed them as <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b000776582;view=1up;seq=436">masculine</a> or sexually deviant. </p>
<p>Black suffragists, in particular, capitalized on the association of white with moral purity. By wearing white, black suffragists showed they, too, were honorable women – a position they were long deprived of in public discourse.</p>
<p>Beyond the struggle for the vote, black women would deploy white. During the 1917 <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/95517074/">silent parade</a> to protest lynching and racial discrimination, they wore white.</p>
<p>As much as white made a powerful statement, it was the combination of the colors – and the qualities that each represented – that reflect the true scope and symbolism of the suffrage movement.</p>
<p>The next time a female politician wants to use fashion to celebrate the legacy of the suffrage movement, it might be a good idea to not just emphasize their moral purity, but to also bring attention to their loyalty to the cause and, more importantly, their hope. </p>
<p>White is a great gesture. But it can be even better if there’s a dash of purple and yellow.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article originally published on Feb. 19, 2019.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111576/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Einav Rabinovitch-Fox does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Being the media-savvy women that they were, suffragists realized they needed to come up with a meaningful, recognizable brand.Einav Rabinovitch-Fox, Visiting Assistant Professor, Case Western Reserve UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/946862018-04-10T13:23:17Z2018-04-10T13:23:17ZSouth African business must tackle its deeply rooted prejudice<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213877/original/file-20180409-114121-fbkjut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The white captains of South African business need to change their ways. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South African business’s biggest obstacle may not be government corruption, economic radicalism or skills shortages. It may be deep-rooted race and gender biases in the mainstream economy – which are more damaging because those who hold them do not know that they do.</p>
<p>A pointed example is a <a href="https://probonomatters.co.za/2018/04/a-racially-charged-environment-propels-the-mark-lamberti-must-fall-campaign/">court action</a> which cost Mark Lamberti, CEO of motor and logistics company Imperial Holdings, his place on the board of South Africa’s state power utility Eskom.</p>
<p>The North Gauteng High Court found that Imperial, under Lamberti’s leadership, passed over Adila Chowan, an experienced and qualified black woman chartered accountant, for the post of chief financial officer (CFO). They gave it to a white man who, the court found,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>had no experience of the motor industry … and little understanding of the Imperial accounting and the complexity of the transactions. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Predictably, Chowan’s professional relationship with the new CFO was not happy, particularly after he made a racially offensive remark about her. She complained and was suspended by the company.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213905/original/file-20180409-114121-zc6ac1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213905/original/file-20180409-114121-zc6ac1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213905/original/file-20180409-114121-zc6ac1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213905/original/file-20180409-114121-zc6ac1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213905/original/file-20180409-114121-zc6ac1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213905/original/file-20180409-114121-zc6ac1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213905/original/file-20180409-114121-zc6ac1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Imperial Holdings CEO Mark Lamberti is in hot water.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Martin Rhodes/Business Day</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Lamberti, a household name in South African business, was actively involved in Chowan’s case. According to the court record, he told her that she was “a female, employment equity” and was “technically competent”. He added that Imperial “would like to keep her but if she wants to go she must go … she required three to four years to develop her leadership skills.” </p>
<p>The “employment equity” label means she belongs to a group historically discriminated against which, in <a href="http://www.labour.gov.za/DOL/legislation/acts/employment-equity/employment-equity-act">employment law</a>, is entitled to preference. Chowan was obviously not impressed and lodged a grievance against Lamberti. The matter was escalated to the High Court and <a href="https://www.ujuh.co.za/chowan-vs-lamberti-former-imperial-chairman-thulani-gcabashe-is-on-slippery-ground/">Chowan won the case</a>.</p>
<p>Lamberti, in an e-mail to Imperial staff, <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2018-04-07-lamberti-quits-eskom-board-after-row-over-black-accountant/">denied</a> that he is racist or sexist. He says that when he mentioned Chowan’s “employment equity” status, he was saying he would like nothing more than to appoint her. He argued that the court did not find that he harboured race or gender prejudice.</p>
<p>Many have rejected Lamberti’s denial and insisted that he is deeply prejudiced. This may miss the point. It may also, ironically, under-estimate how real a problem prejudice in South African business is.</p>
<p>By focusing on Lamberti’s claimed prejudices, we imply that he is somehow abnormal. The reality may be more serious: that there is nothing particularly prejudiced about Lamberti or Imperial, but that the biases which prevented Chowan becoming CFO and cost her a job are normal in South African business.</p>
<h2>Deep-rooted prejudice</h2>
<p>Imperial is no obvious bastion of white privilege. Only two of its four <a href="http://www.imperial.co.za/abt-exec.php">executive directors</a> and half its <a href="http://www.imperial.co.za/abt-exec-non.php">non-executive directors</a> are white; the non-execs include two black women and former ANC cabinet minister Mohammed Valli Moosa. Lamberti is a board member of <a href="https://www.blsa.org.za/">Business Leadership SA</a>, an association of big business which is considered sympathetic to a majority ruled South Africa. </p>
<p>And yet it was this company and this CEO who, the court found, preferred a less qualified white man to a black woman and sided with the man when she complained about him.</p>
<p>If this can happen at Imperial under Lamberti’s watch, it is likely to happens at many other companies. And Lamberti may well genuinely believe that his words and acts were not products of prejudice – even though they were.</p>
<p>Lamberti saw Chowan as an “employment equity” hire, not a colleague with skills. His mention of her “equity” status suggests that he doubted she was up to the job: mentioning that someone is an “employment equity” employee implies that they are only in the job because of their race and gender. </p>
<p>Whether Lamberti recognises it or not, his use of the term implies that he questioned Chowan’s ability even though he acknowledged that she is “technically competent”. His only credible reason, whether he knows it or not, is that she is neither white nor male.</p>
<p>It is this deep-rooted attitude, which assumes that white men are competent while black people and women must prove they are (and usually fail in the attempt), which prompted Lamberti and his colleagues to pass over Chowan for someone less qualified. </p>
<h2>Associating white with merit</h2>
<p>The problem is not that Lamberti and Imperial are unusually prejudiced. It is that, in a society in which one group has <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/race-and-ethnicity-south-africa">used the law</a> to dominate another, it is natural to see the dominating group in skilled positions and to assume that they belong there – and to assume that the dominated groups don’t belong.</p>
<p>These assumptions may be so deeply rooted that people hold them without realising that they do. They explain how people and companies who believe themselves to be prejudice-free can exclude black men and women from roles for which their skills equip them.</p>
<p>One excuse for the prejudice shown to Chowan may be that affirmative action, by preferring some people, creates doubt about whether they are competent. Some who make this excuse insist that business executives cannot be prejudiced because they need to maximise their company’s profits by choosing the best people.</p>
<p>But if people are used to associating white men with merit and everyone else with its lack, how do they know who the best people are? The Imperial case shows that if they are left to decide, white men will continue to choose other white men over everyone else and will remain convinced that they are rewarding merit rather than race or gender. </p>
<h2>Need for change</h2>
<p>So, unless laws and policies insist that employers appoint black people and women, white men will continue to dominate not because they are better than everyone else but because they think they are.</p>
<p>But the case shows too that this is not enough. As long as the attitudes which prompt some to see others as “employment equities” persist, business will exclude talented black people and women. </p>
<p>This is not only unfair: it is costly. It deprives business of the skills of many black people and women. It also entrenches business distrust of government and government distrust of business. And it entrenches a reality in which, throughout society, thinking on the economy is influenced by race – not by what is likely to provide decent livelihoods for all.</p>
<p>In the few years before 1994, many in business leadership were willing to face the racial patterns of the past and seek to change them. Unless businesses revive that quest, South Africa will continue to pay the price of the hidden prejudices the Imperial case reveals.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94686/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Friedman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Mark Lamberti case shows that South African business suffers from deeply rooted racial prejudices.Steven Friedman, Professor of Political Studies, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/928622018-03-05T13:52:06Z2018-03-05T13:52:06ZLand debate in South Africa is about dignity and equality - not the constitution<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208894/original/file-20180305-65507-nl8b14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Angry protests for free higher education by South African students forced the country to search for a solution.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Kim Ludbrook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you want economic change in South Africa, create a crisis – then stand by to negotiate a way out of it. </p>
<p>The country’s current <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2018-02-27-national-assembly-adopts-eff-motion-on-land-expropriation/">debate</a> over land expropriation without compensation, which has now been endorsed by Parliament, is important. Not because, as some fear, it will radically change the constitution. Rather, it tells South Africans how, in the economy and other spheres, the country deals with its minority ruled past: by crisis followed by compromise.</p>
<p>Crises are the only way change happens because, since the 1970s, the goal of the minority which has called the shots in the society for decades has been to ensure that changes alter as little as possible. Which, of course, means clinging to many of the inequalities which existed before all adults were allowed to vote in 1994.</p>
<p>So most businesses – and professional practices and places of learning - do not change until a crisis forces them to look again at what they need to give up to keep things as much the same as possible. Because this means keeping black demands for change at arm’s length, the crises always happen when black people get angry with current arrangements and make demands which force a reaction.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/transition-democracy-timeline-1984-1994">negotiations</a> which produced the 1994 constitution began because the costs of black anger at apartheid were growing. They followed reforms to labour law, which were triggered when angry <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/south-africa-1970s">strikers in Durban</a> demanded pay increases in 1973, and the end of curbs which kept black people out of the cities, a reaction to the anger of the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/june-16-soweto-youth-uprising">1976 Soweto protests</a> and the refusal of angry migrant workers in the same year to live in single-sex hostels.</p>
<p>Recently, it took angry protests on campuses to trigger discussions at universities on how <a href="https://theconversation.com/feesmustfall-the-poster-child-for-new-forms-of-struggle-in-south-africa-68773">to change to</a> meet the needs of black students. Race is debated seriously only when black people get angry over racial prejudices in advertising or company behaviour or on social media.</p>
<p>The crises always end in compromises because none of the country’s key interests can impose what they want on the others without severely hurting themselves. This is particularly so in the economy: forcing change on the owners of capital will kill investment and growth – ignoring demands for reform will trigger costly resistance.</p>
<h2>The land debate’s message</h2>
<p>The land debate illustrates the point.</p>
<p>Moves to change the constitution are dramatic because they threaten the property rights on which the market economy rests. They are, therefore, the most significant expression of black anger at the survival of pre-1994 inequalities since South Africa became a democracy. </p>
<p>Inevitably, they have prompted a crisis: a public debate which has been fixated on former president <a href="https://theconversation.com/zuma-era-lessons-how-democracies-can-be-held-hostage-by-party-machinations-91924">Jacob Zuma</a> is now discussing economic divides. The debate is polarised and heated – but among middle class black people, support for the change seems overwhelming.</p>
<p>Outsiders might be surprised that tensions caused by economic inequalities focus on land – farming has not been South Africa’s key industry for decades. The reason it triggers such heat is that for South Africans, “land” is a symbol of far more than an expanse of soil. For most people, it has nothing to do with agriculture at all. </p>
<p>Historically, the demand by black freedom movements for the return of the land meant the return of the country to its people – it was directed not only at ownership of farms but at minority control of the economy and society . This is why expropriation without compensation has become a rallying cry for many who have no interest in farming but who feel that a quarter century of democracy has not ended <a href="https://theconversation.com/white-people-in-south-africa-still-hold-the-lions-share-of-all-forms-of-capital-75510">white privilege</a>. It symbolises a much broader demand for change.</p>
<p>It is also why no-one has paid much attention to arguments about the technical merits of land expropriation and why there is such support for a constitutional change despite the fact that there is no need for it because expropriation without compensation is <a href="https://www.news24.com/Columnists/GuestColumn/land-expropriation-without-compensation-what-does-it-mean-20180304-5">possible</a> now. </p>
<p>Property rights are protected by Section 25 of the constitution which stipulates that compensation must be paid. But it also says that this may not be used to</p>
<blockquote>
<p>impede the state from taking legislative and other measures to achieve land, water and related reform, in order to redress the results of past racial discrimination. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>So, if the government can show that expropriation redresses race discrimination, it need not pay compensation. </p>
<p>But this has been ignored because the dispute is about dignity and equality, not constitutional clauses.</p>
<h2>Compromises will be made</h2>
<p>Like all South African crises, this one will end in a compromise – its details have been discussed by lawyers and reported by newspapers. It seems likely that Section 25 will be changed to allow for expropriation without compensation. But the clause will specify very clearly that this can only happen in very particular circumstances, which it will carefully define. </p>
<p>If it does this, property rights will be protected because owners will know that they are entitled to compensation unless they act in a way which forfeits their right. It seems likely that investors will not have to do much to retain the right to compensation.</p>
<p>On the surface, this, like all good compromises, will solve the problem by giving both sides some of what they want. Land owners who hold the state to ransom will risk losing compensation; property rights will be protected, making investment safe. But, if that is all that happens, an opportunity will be missed.</p>
<p>The pattern described here – in which the country’s elites are very good at compromising in the face of crisis but just as good at creating the crises which force them to compromise – is hardly the ideal way to build a fairer economy and society. </p>
<h2>Past wrongs need to be addressed</h2>
<p>Crisis drives change because elites have avoided negotiating economic reforms which will redress past wrongs while protecting the assets of investors who play by the rules. This forces black people to get angry if they want to be heard and will create new crises if it is not addressed now. </p>
<p>Since the dispute is really about the economy, the solution lies in negotiating the economic changes which cause the anger in the first place.</p>
<p>The dispute’s importance depends not whether it produces a compromise on land but on whether it begins negotiations on opening the economy to the excluded. This alone will reduce the anger which makes crisis the only mode of change and ensure a less dramatic but more lasting way of addressing economic challenges.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92862/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Friedman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Land expropriation without compensation in South Africa will be resolved by opening up the economy and addressing inequalities.Steven Friedman, Professor of Political Studies, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/920582018-02-26T13:40:20Z2018-02-26T13:40:20ZWhy the dominance of big players is bad for South Africa’s economy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207112/original/file-20180220-116365-19addsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Small economic players stand no chance to thrive in South Africa due to domination of key sectors by monopolies.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Talk of radical economic transformation in South Africa requires a second look if it is to deliver the goods. While the concept has assumed varying definitions in recent times, it’s generally accepted as representing a push for <a href="https://www.ujuh.co.za/zuma-what-do-we-mean-by-radical-socio-economic-transformation/">structural change</a> of the post-apartheid economy in a way that creates space for the black majority to participate fully.</p>
<p>But the idea is missing a critical element – policies to break up historical monopolies and oligopolies and make space for emerging small to medium sized economic players. To fix this, the country needs to make micro-economic policy adjustments: it must remove distortions and imbalances in various sectors of the economy.</p>
<p>The political <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-ramaphosas-moment-of-hope-is-built-on-a-fragile-foundation-92043">winds of change</a> blowing through the country, as represented by the ascension of Cyril Ramaphosa to the presidency, offer a window to address the current policy gaps.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that the South African economy requires <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-in-a-name-towards-genuine-economic-transformation-in-south-africa-81713">radical transformation</a>. Income and wealth <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-needs-a-fresh-approach-to-its-stubbornly-high-levels-of-inequality-87215">inequalities</a> persist and the domination of the mainstream economy, and key industries, by a few big businesses continues to hold back inclusive growth.</p>
<p>Ramaphosa acknowledged this in his widely appreciated state of the nation <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-ramaphosas-moment-of-hope-is-built-on-a-fragile-foundation-92043">address</a>. But even his spirited re-commitment will fail if it neglects the competition issues. The country needs to introduce policies that break down the old and persistent patterns of dominance as a matter of urgency. </p>
<h2>The microeconomic challenge</h2>
<p>Good macroeconomic policies – the levers used to stabilise the economy such as managing inflation and financial markets – are necessary. But they aren’t enough to address South Africa’s anaemic economic growth and debilitating unemployment challenges. </p>
<p>The government has to get its hands dirty by tackling issues on the microeconomic list. At the very top is unbridled concentration in the economy. This has to be tackled head on if the country is going to turn the corner and ignite entrepreneurship, innovation and shared economic growth. </p>
<p>Huge sections of the economy are extremely concentrated. This shrinks the space for successful entrepreneurship and job creation. </p>
<p>Ramaphosa did <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/economy/2017-09-01-competition-policy-can-open-up-sas-economy-says-cyril-ramaphosa/">note</a>, late last year, that for most black people:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>there was very little space to play so they bought up shares in existing companies and became appendages. Competition policy should open up the space so that new companies can be created.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But the problem is bigger and more complex. The basic economic logic is that the higher the number of independent businesses operating in any given industry, the lower the possibility of abuse of market position by a dominant player or a few key businesses. In turn, this reduces the chances of collusion. </p>
<p>There is also evidence that over-concentration tends to <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264999308000825">impede</a> job creation. </p>
<p>But breaking these patterns isn’t easy. The enormity of the task can be seen in the Competition Commission’s <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACT/2010/9.html">efforts</a> to rein in some of the dominant players in key industries, like food and <a href="http://www.compcom.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/March-09-Newsletter-31.pdf">infrastructure development</a>.</p>
<h2>High levels of concentration</h2>
<p>Consider the financial sector. The country only has a handful of financial services companies controlling it entirely. </p>
<p>The banking sector is <a href="https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2014/cr14340.pdf">ruled</a> by five players. Four of them account for 90% of the banking sector’s asset base. The major banks also own many of the fund managers that control the unit trust industry. The banks are also connected to the insurance players through their holding companies. </p>
<p>The insurance industry itself is dominated by five insurers, which <a href="https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2014/cr14340.pdf">account for 74%</a> of the long term insurance market. And the seven largest fund managers control 60% of unit trust investments under management.</p>
<p>In the mobile telephony market, three main players in an already small field <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/general/104249/sa-mobile-market-share-vodacom-vs-mtn-vs-cell-c-vs-telkom/">control 96%</a> of the subscriber base. It’s therefore no wonder that <a href="https://researchictafrica.net/publications/Other_publications/2016_South%20Africa_Cost%20to%20Communicate%20Submission_RIA%20.pdf">voice and data costs</a> are among the highest in Africa. </p>
<h2>Impediments to successful entrepreneurship</h2>
<p>Efforts to encourage people to be entrepreneurial won’t work if key markets remain highly restrictive. For example, why shouldn’t it be possible for artisans in rural areas to produce some staple goods for their local markets? Why shouldn’t it be possible for a grandma, or any person for that matter, in rural Transkei or a township to bake bread and sell to the local community? </p>
<p>It should also be possible for a dressmaker or tailor to set up shop and produce school uniforms for scholars in the local community. Why should a big factory in Pretoria or Cape Town produce <a href="http://satopshops.co.za/2018/02/05/see-how-a-school-uniform-shop-makes-a-killing-and-rips-off-parents/">school uniforms</a> for scholars in rural areas hundreds of kilometres from the city? </p>
<p>This isn’t happening because emerging entrepreneurs face high barriers to entry in the form of regulatory regimes, cost advantages that have accrued to incumbents over the years that cannot be easily duplicated by new and small players as well as capital requirements, among others. The domination by a handful of players in sectors emerging entrepreneurs want to break into, and the covert anti-competitive pricing behaviour, together constitute a formidable barrier. </p>
<p>Community-based income generating activities could be supported with deliberate government policy and action, such as affirmative procurement and set asides, to spur on township and rural economies. A critical mass of these rural and township-based economic activities could generate jobs and incomes. </p>
<h2>What has to be done</h2>
<p>The role of the Competition Commission needs to be redefined and strengthened. The institution requires additional resources to tackle head-on the insidious anti-competitive behaviour associated with almost all the major industries in the country.</p>
<p>A blanket aggressive effort by the Competition Commission to intervene and break up oligopolies may be unwarranted. But a thoughtful (and urgent) case-by-case study of the industrial landscape is required. The questions that need answers include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>what has accounted for the concentration? </p></li>
<li><p>Is it product or market innovation? </p></li>
<li><p>Is it as a result of the historical legacy of isolation due to the existence of the apartheid regime? </p></li>
</ul>
<p>The responses should inform what remedial action needs to be taken. </p>
<p>Other regulatory institutions can also play a role. For instance, the Reserve Bank can make it easier for new players to enter into the financial services sector. This has happened in countries such as Kenya and Ghana, where <a href="https://www.ujuh.co.za/mtnvodacom-allow-cross-mobile-money-transfer-in-east-africa/">mobile money transfers</a> have emerged as major businesses alongside the formal banking sector. Vendors have sprung up in every nook and cranny of these countries, expanding financial inclusion and creating jobs. </p>
<p>Lastly, there should be a deliberate government policy to ring-fence certain markets for small scale businesses, particularly in the rural areas and townships.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92058/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Kofi Ocran receives funding from the NRF. </span></em></p>South Africa’s idea of radical economic transformation is missing a critical element.Matthew Kofi Ocran, Professor of Economics, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/901802018-01-22T15:43:59Z2018-01-22T15:43:59ZTen priorities for getting agriculture moving in Zimbabwe<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202401/original/file-20180118-29903-19b04be.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Agriculture is taking <a href="https://zimbabweland.wordpress.com/2017/12/11/two-speeches-for-new-era-zimbabwe/">centre stage</a> in plans for the revival of Zimbabwe’s ailing economy under the new leadership of Emmerson Mnangagwa.</p>
<p>Getting agriculture moving in Zimbabwe is a big task. The radical land reform of 2000 has left many outstanding challenges; not least the importance of <a href="https://theconversation.com/settling-the-land-compensation-issue-is-vital-for-zimbabwes-economy-89384">compensating</a> former farm owners. But the biggest challenge is that, with <a href="https://theconversation.com/zimbabwe-urgently-needs-a-new-land-administration-system-89387">new ownership patterns</a>, the agricultural sector has a much more diffuse base. Today there are many small to medium sized farms, rather than a few major players. </p>
<p>This has implications for what Mnangagwa does next. What are the top priorities for agriculture, and what can be learnt from the challenges faced since the land reform?</p>
<h2>The research</h2>
<p>Research we’ve done over <a href="http://www.zimbabweland.net/Home.html">the past 18 years</a> provides some useful pointers. We have been tracking what has happened to <a href="http://www.esrc.ac.uk/news-events-and-publications/impact-case-studies/changing-views-on-zimbabwe-s-land-reform/">land reform farms</a> across Zimbabwe, with sites in Masvingo (in the dry south-east), in Mvurwi (north of Harare) and in Matobo (in Matabeleland). We have been looking at both smallholder production (in so-called A1 areas) and medium-scale commercial farms (so-called A2 allocations), as well as outgrower arrangements in <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03057070.2016.1187972">lowveld sugar estates</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://zimbabweland.wordpress.com/2014/03/31/how-have-the-new-farmers-fared-an-update-on-the-masvingo-study-i/">results have been surprising</a>. Despite the woeful lack of support, the smallholders have done reasonably well. Most are producing surpluses and reinvesting in their farms. Around two thirds have produced more food than just for subsistence in nearly all years that we’ve conducted the research. In Mvurwi, tobacco dominates, and the <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joac.12210/full">smallholder-led tobacco boom</a> has brought significant investment, both on and off-farm.</p>
<p>For their part larger landholdings have struggled. Lack of <a href="https://zimbabweland.wordpress.com/2017/07/10/getting-agriculture-moving-finance-and-credit/">finance capital</a> for many has meant they have not got off the ground and some have significant areas of <a href="https://zimbabweland.wordpress.com/2017/03/06/underutilised-land-in-zimbabwe-not-a-new-problem/">under-utilised</a> land, with infrastructure in disrepair. </p>
<p>The exceptions are those operating under contract arrangements with estates. These farmers have done relatively well because they’ve been supported and finance has been guaranteed. New contracting and <a href="https://zimbabweland.wordpress.com/2016/10/31/are-joint-ventures-with-parastatals-the-route-to-reviving-large-scale-commercial-agriculture-in-zimbabwe/">joint venture</a> arrangements are emerging in some areas, but much more needs to be done.</p>
<h2>Ten priorities for agricultural development</h2>
<p>Drawing on this experience, below I suggest ten priorities for getting agriculture moving once the first tasks of paying <a href="https://theconversation.com/settling-the-land-compensation-issue-is-vital-for-zimbabwes-economy-89384">compensation</a>, undertaking a <a href="https://zimbabweland.wordpress.com/2017/03/13/land-audits-a-tricky-technical-and-political-challenge/">land audit</a> and establishing an efficient <a href="https://theconversation.com/zimbabwe-urgently-needs-a-new-land-administration-system-89387">land administration system</a> are complete.</p>
<p><strong>Land tenure</strong></p>
<p>Land tenure security should be assured through issuing 99-year leases for larger land reform farms and permits for smaller farms. This should be complemented by clear regulations to avoid land concentration and to facilitate women’s access to land. This can be achieved through a <a href="https://zimbabweland.wordpress.com/2014/04/28/land-tenure-dilemmas-in-zimbabwe/">multiform tenure system</a> based on trusted, secure property relations. </p>
<p><strong>Finance</strong></p>
<p>Getting private bank finance flowing is essential. <a href="http://source.co.zw/2017/12/banks-say-agreement-in-place-to-accept-99-year-leases-as-collateral/">Bankable leases</a> will help, as will the acceptance of a range of forms of collateral by finance institutions. State assurances and the building of trust will be key.</p>
<p><strong>Partnerships</strong></p>
<p>Partnerships and joint ventures will be significant for some larger farms and certain crops, where external finance and expertise are essential. Already Chinese involvement in <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/17/chinese-farmers-take-over-former-white-owned-farms-in-zimbabwe-t/">tobacco production</a> is proving to be important. Opening opportunities for the return of highly skilled former white farmers will be significant too. Regulations to ensure such partnerships are truly joint and involve the transfer of skills are vital.</p>
<p><strong>Government loans</strong></p>
<p>Government loans for agriculture are currently offered through the <a href="https://zimbabweland.wordpress.com/2017/09/25/command-agriculture-and-the-politics-of-subsidies/">“command agriculture”</a> programme. Focusing on larger farms with irrigation infrastructure, it has shown some success in the past season. But such programmes should not be abused for political ends. And it’s essential that loans are fully repaid.</p>
<p><strong>Access to markets</strong></p>
<p>Linking diverse producers to markets is essential. Too often smallholders get poor value for their products, but ensuring local content purchasing by supermarkets, reduced red tape and support for investment in transport infrastructure will help. Already the reduction in market transaction costs through the removal of many <a href="https://zimnews.net/zrp-police-ordered-abolish-roadblocks/">police roadblocks</a> has had a massive, positive impact, as fewer bribes have to be paid.</p>
<p><strong>Value addition</strong></p>
<p>The country must work on developing value-added activity around the agricultural sector. Local processing and packaging would ensure employment along the value chain. And preservation, processing and selling to niche markets could offset risks, such as a glut in horticultural products.</p>
<p><strong>Smart support systems</strong></p>
<p>Extension advice and market support through IT applications is increasingly feasible, given growing connectivity and the wide ownership of smartphones. This means farmers can be offered more attuned and useful advice. A wholesale rethink of agricultural extension and <a href="https://zimbabweland.wordpress.com/2014/02/03/rethinking-agricultural-extension/">support services</a> is therefore required.</p>
<p><strong>Irrigation</strong></p>
<p>Irrigation is essential to boost production in dryland areas, especially given the increased variability in rainfall patterns due to <a href="http://www.kas.de/wf/doc/kas_44451-1522-2-30.pdf?160308110416">climate change</a>. But this should not involve expensive, large-scale schemes. Instead they should be focused on supporting <a href="https://zimbabweland.wordpress.com/2013/09/30/irrigating-zimbabwe-time-for-some-new-thinking/">farmer-led irrigation</a>, using small pumps and pipes bought locally. External intervention should be focused on improving water use efficiency and management.</p>
<p><strong>Mechanisation</strong></p>
<p>Appropriate mechanisation is another priority. Again this shouldn’t be focused on the large-scale options of the past. Small-scale mechanisation, such as <a href="http://www.cimmyt.org/project-profile/farm-mechanization-and-conservation-agriculture-for-sustainable-intensification/">two-wheeled tractors</a> and motorbike-drawn trailers may be more appropriate and affordable, and less subject to patronage, than large <a href="https://zimbabweland.wordpress.com/2016/01/25/why-tractors-are-political-in-africa/">tractors</a> and combines. For larger equipment, cooperative arrangements or private hire schemes could work, supported by <a href="http://www.hellotractor.com/">online infrastructure</a> and training.</p>
<p><strong>Local economic development</strong></p>
<p>Agricultural development needs to be seen as part of <a href="https://zimbabweland.wordpress.com/2014/11/17/making-markets-local-economic-development-following-land-reform/">local economic development</a>. It must be integrated into wider planning and investment frameworks at a district level, with new farms of varying sizes linked to <a href="https://zimbabweland.wordpress.com/2016/05/01/small-towns-in-zimbabwe-are-booming-thanks-to-land-reform/">small towns near land reform areas</a>, where new employment and service provision opportunities open up. </p>
<p>These ten suggestions together could make a big difference, both to the economy and to farmers’ livelihoods across the country. Let’s hope that President Mnangagwa’s commitment to agricultural development is translated into action - and soon.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90180/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Scoones receives funding from the UK Economic and Social Research Council through the ESRC STEPS Centre at Sussex. </span></em></p>Zimbabwe’s new administration has promised to revive the country’s agricultural sector. Here’s what it needs to do.Ian Scoones, Professorial Fellow, Institute of Development Studies, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/890372017-12-13T14:52:35Z2017-12-13T14:52:35ZSouth Africa’s race relations laid bare in Steinhoff corporate scandal<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198973/original/file-20171213-27597-xa4vda.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africans are fond of debating whether public or private sector failings are the bigger problem. It does not take too long to realise that they are really talking about race.</p>
<p>This is evident as the country faces an unusual scandal – one involving a private company called <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/business/2017-12-08-no-way-back-for-steinhoff-as-share-price-plunge-nears-90/">Steinhoff</a>. The multinational furniture company is in trouble after <a href="https://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/companies-and-deals/not-possible-to-say-when-steinhoff-probe-will-end-german-prosecutors/">German investigators</a> began looking into it, for allegedly doctoring financial information to mislead the markets.</p>
<p>This was not the first time fingers were pointed at a private company. Auditors <a href="https://theconversation.com/lessons-from-kpmg-be-on-guard-south-africans-are-on-your-case-84478">KPMG</a> have been accused of unethical practice on behalf of the Gupta family who are linked to President Jacob Zuma and are accused of using money to influence government appointments and policies. Media conglomerate <a href="https://www.biznews.com/sa-investing/2017/12/06/naspers-links-gupta-corruption/">Naspers</a> is also facing corruption accusations. Its subsidiary MultiChoice is accused of paying large sums to the formerly Gupta-owned television channel ANN7 in the hope of influencing <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2015-05-28-multichoice-accused-of-hijacking-digital-tv">government decisions</a>.</p>
<p>But Steinhoff stands out because it does most to shake the confidence of one side of the argument and to get the other claiming it is vindicated.
For much of the past few years, corruption has been seen almost exclusively as a public sector problem. Attention has focused on Zuma and his <a href="https://www.fin24.com/Opinion/the-gupta-master-plan-meticulously-executed-state-capture-20170830">relationship with the Guptas</a>. The private sector (Gupta-owned firms excepted) has, by default, been painted as a corruption-free zone. </p>
<p>The KPMG and Naspers cases may involve prominent private firms, but are seen by the national debate as yet another sign of the Guptas’ baleful influence. The villains remain the same and so does the problem: public sector corruption.</p>
<p>Steinhoff is a different matter entirely. The state plays no role at all and the company is a pillar of the private economy. Its leadership is <a href="http://www.steinhoffinternational.com/executive-management.php">overwhelmingly white</a> and its attitude to the post-apartheid government seems to range from indifference to scepticism. </p>
<p>No wonder that its failings have been gleefully seized upon by people who insist that <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/mahlobo-corruption-is-corruption-20171211">private sector corruption</a> is as big a problem as its public equivalent. Or that many of the people who usually insist that public corruption is the problem have reacted to Steinhoff with <a href="https://www.fin24.com/Opinion/magda-wierzycka-asks-hard-questions-about-steinhoff-and-asset-managers-20171207">shock</a>.</p>
<p>On the surface, this sounds like the standard debate in most democracies over the past few decades in which one side favours letting business do as it pleases and the other wants it to be reined in by the state. But, in a country in which whites remain dominant in private business while blacks largely control the government, it is really about the country’s racial divides.</p>
<h2>Colour of merit</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">Apartheid</a> was underpinned by strong beliefs in white superiority – these don’t simply melt away because political rules change. People are used to seeing one racial group in skilled jobs, giving orders to the other: inevitably, this becomes seen as natural and so being white is associated with merit, being black with lacking it. </p>
<p>Since 1994, when policies promoting <a href="https://www.thedti.gov.za/economic_empowerment/bee_codes.jsp">black advancement</a> in business and the professions were adopted, this is often expressed in the view that black people in senior positions are there because they were given a free pass by the system, not because they deserve it.</p>
<p>This way of thinking also shapes attitudes to government and business. For those used to the racial pecking order of the past, government is run by people who hold posts because they are black, not because they are competent. Business continues to be run mainly by <a href="https://theconversation.com/corruption-in-south-africa-business-leader-answers-questions-on-how-bad-it-is-85406">people</a> who were judged to be competent in the past and who are therefore assumed now to be honest and to know what they are doing. Calls to assign more government functions to businesses or business people are often a way of saying that white people or black people approved by them should be running the country.</p>
<p>This attitude is particularly evident in how people in the suburbs react to <a href="https://www.fin24.com/Companies/Industrial/construction-cartel-firms-agree-to-pay-r15bn-to-fund-20161020-2">private monopolies</a> or dominant corporations.</p>
<p>Government departments are almost always associated with waiting in long lines for surly officials who have no idea what they are doing. In most cases, this is a caricature; in some, the Department of Home Affairs passport office for example, it is flat wrong. But similar long waits, indifference to customers and incompetence at the dominant digital television corporation or one of the mobile phone companies is accepted cheerfully as normal business practice.</p>
<h2>Delighted black voices</h2>
<p>Black people are perfectly well aware of these attitudes. This is why those who insist that the private sector is as bad if not worse than its public equivalent are almost always black. And why many <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/business/2017-12-07-black-business-condemns-steinhoffs-alleged-unethical-corrupt-behaviour/">black voices</a> are delighted at what has happened at Steinhoff because it shows that a pillar of white business can behave at least as badly as black government.</p>
<p>It also explains why many white people have reacted to Steinhoff with such shock – and why Steinhoff happened in the first place.</p>
<p>The editor of the country’s leading business daily, Tim Cohen, has <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/columnists/2017-12-11-tim-cohen-a-few-saw-it-coming-but-nobody-listened/">pointed out</a> that Steinhoff’s failings should not have been a surprise since several market analysts warned a while ago that something was amiss and were ignored. He offered some explanations but, given the realities described here, the most likely answer is that no-one believed the specialist nay-sayers because they assumed that a major white-owned company must know what it is doing and that the critics must have an axe to grind.</p>
<p>Cohen also ran into <a href="https://twitter.com/tim_cohen/status/938801915105824769">trouble</a> on social media for suggesting that reduced capacity at state regulators allowed Steinhoff to happen. Predictably, black people felt (wrongly in his view) that they were being blamed for white business failings.</p>
<p>There is another explanation for the regulators’ inaction. It is that they were not eager to look into a large white-owned company because they feared that this would be seen as yet another case in which incompetent black people wanted to bully competent whites. It is standard in the South African debate that any attempt by government, however mild, to intervene in business is branded a threat to the market economy so it would hardly be surprising if regulators feared this.</p>
<h2>Correcting wrong perceptions</h2>
<p>The Steinhoff scandal would do South Africa a huge service if it made the point that corruption and mismanagement have nothing to do with race. It would also help if it alerted everyone in the marketplace to watch as carefully over private companies as they do over government departments.</p>
<p>But, given how entrenched racial attitudes are, it is more likely that it will be dismissed as a once-off freak by those who assume that white led business is always competent and as further evidence of white prejudice by black people reacting to the label often stuck to them. If that happens, some private businesses will continue to get away with behaviour which would never be tolerated in government.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89037/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Friedman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Steinhoff corporate scandal will do South Africa a huge service if it makes the point that corruption and mismanagement have nothing to do with race.Steven Friedman, Professor of Political Studies, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.