Just Who Loses?: Discrimination in the United States, Volume 2

1. Effects of Discrimination in the United States

1 Effects of Discrimination in the United States W hen people are held down, they tend not to do as well as they otherwise might. This straightforward observation im­ plies that a phenomenon such as discrimination should be expected to have some effect on persons, certainly touching targets of discrimination in possibly many ways. Further, the observation implies that the experiences of nontargets will also be affected by discrimina­ tion. Despite these reasonable expectations, social analysts have been unable to produce even one example of a consensus estimate of the ef­ fect of discrimination for any area of the social world. The dearth of consensus estimates of the effects of discrimination is, from one point of view, utterly surprising, for it is impossible to identify a resource, a class of opportunities, or a good in society whose distribu­ tion might not have been affected by the operation of discrimination. High earnings, good jobs, comfortable homes, solid health, long life, physical safety, and legal equality all may be partially determined by discrimination. Yet in area after area, one is unable to find any range of estimates of the effect of discrimination that does not include zero. What this difficulty means is that, for outcome after outcome, some contend that there may be no effect of discrimination. Theorizing Discrimination excavates the theoretical basis of the approaches social scientists have employed to estimate effects of dis­ crimination. Of course, one may use an analytic approach without elaborating or considering the theoretical foundation of the approach. Yet analyses can be truly coherent only when their use is consistent with Effects of Discrimination in the United States / 5 their theoretical basis. And, of course, the only way their use can remain consistent is if analysts become aware of the basis of the strategy and re­ main critical in their posture toward any approach over time. Thus, to aid the process of critical assessment, in Theorizing Dis­ crimination I outline the theoretical justification for the dominant social scientific definition of discrimination, as well as the methods used to study discrimination, and develop an alternative perspective that effectively ad­ dresses the challenges that the dominant perspective has not been able to surmount. In developing the approach there, I also address several other important issues, linking the approach used here to other social scientific schools, comparing my perspective with that of others, and drawing out the implications for analytic work. The question pursued in this volume is different: Taking the social relational conception of discrimination seriously, and using a measure­ ment strategy consistent with that conception, what are the estimated effects of discrimination? By way of introduction to this estimation task, I briefly sketch the major problems with mainstream approaches and how the approach I adopt serves as a useful response, all the while identifying my claims while suppressing the reasoning that gives credence to the posi­ tion. The fuller explication, including whatever caveats, qualifications, and clarifications that were necessary, is provided in Theorizing Discrimination. However, some brief remarks can serve as an orienting device here. Previously, drawing on critical legal perspectives, critical race theory, and feminist theory, I articulated a social relational conception of discrimination, a conception that is consonant with the actual operation of discrimination in the contemporary period, a period I term an era of contested prejudice. This period contrasts with an earlier, long­lasting regime of condoned exploitation, in which the rights and liberties of targets of discrimination— most notably women and blacks but other groups at various times and places as well—were compromised at will with little or no negative con­ sequences for perpetrators, observers, or authorities that allowed or facili­ tated the destruction of those rights and liberties. History is replete with examples, including the lynchings of blacks, the abuse of women, the im­ prisonment of Japanese during World War II, the theft of Native American lands at whim, the denial of voting rights to Jews (Snyder 2000, 164), and more. There is no question that these acts occurred, and such acts were commonalities, not rarities, prior to the latter part of the twentieth century. Of course, such actions still occur—police brutality, domestic violence, calls for profiling those who “look” to be from certain parts of the globe, the continuing conflicts concerning Native American rights all are still real aspects of the contemporary experience of persons and the terrain of politics. Yet, more recently, the actions are under threat and are no longer unequivocally condoned by constituted authorities when they...