Shelby Attitude Quotes

You told a depressed, suicidal woman to change her attitude?

There is a second practical limitation to moral outreach, namely, the persistence of ideological racism. Some of the cultural traits attributed to or associated with the ghetto poor (for example, attitudes toward authority, work, violence, parenting, sex and reproduction, school, and crime) closely resemble well-known and long-standing racist stereotypes about blacks (their supposed tendencies toward lawlessness, laziness, dishonesty, irresponsibility, ignorance, stupidity, and sexual promiscuity). These stereotypes have long been invoked to justify the subordination, exploitation, and civic exclusion of blacks. An implication of the cultural divergence thesis is that ghetto conditions have produced a subgroup of blacks who, because of their cultural patterns, exhibit characteristics that racists have long maintained are “natural” to “the black race” and that these cultural traits are at least part of the explanation for why they are poor. To make matters worse, moral reform suggests that the ghetto poor are effectively incapable of altering these suboptimal traits on their own, as it calls for state intervention to change them. Moral reform programs, even voluntary ones, implicitly endorse the idea that poor blacks have personal deficiencies that they alone cannot remedy. In an era when biological racism has been largely discredited and claims that blacks are biologically inferior are not publicly acceptable, moral reform will inevitably strike many as the functional equivalent of classic racist doctrines.

Extrinsic institutional racism occurs when an institution employs a policy that is race-neutral in its content and public rationale but nevertheless has a signicant or disproportionate negative impact on an unfairly disadvantaged racial group. Those who make and apply the policies need not intend this result and may not themselves be racists. What is nonetheless wrong with the institution’s practices is that they perpetuate the negative effects of ongoing or past racist actions and thereby encourage racist attitudes and stereotypes. The underlying idea is that some groups in society are already disadvantaged by racism, and an institution that is not intrinsically racist may nevertheless play a role in keeping these groups in their disadvantaged condition, thus leading some to conclude that they occupy this low station because of the disadvantaged groups’ culpable failings or inherent inferiority.

Some scholars and commentators who are sympathetic to the plight of the downtrodden do emphasize the agency of the oppressed, but only when the oppressed exhibit attitudes or take actions generally regarded as praiseworthy— for example, when they show resilience under hardship, defy their oppressors, or overcome tremendous obstacles. But not all responses to oppression are justifi ed or virtuous. We must admit that the oppressed sometimes respond in ways that are wrong or blameworthy. There can be no ethics of the oppressed (and thus no point in emphasizing the agency of the oppressed) if those who are unjustly disadvantaged can do no wrong. In explaining the content and contours of the relevant princi ples and values, I therefore seek to avoid not only the tendency to view the ghetto poor as inert but also the tendencies to rush to blame them and to romantically celebrate them.

To avoid these limits and pitfalls, I advocate thinking about ghettos through a systemic- injustice framework. When we take up the prob lem using this model, both government and ordinary citizens are viewed as having a duty to ensure that the social system of cooperation we all participate in is just. The presence of ghettos in American cities is a strong indication that just background conditions do not prevail. Ref l ection on ghettos, then, serves not only to focus our energies on relieving the im mense burdens the ghetto poor carry but also to make us think, as fellow citizens, about the fairness of the overall social structure we inhabit and maintain. Were the more affl uent in society to think about the matter this way, they would view the ghetto poor, not simply as disadvantaged people in need of their help or government intervention, but as fellow citizens with an equal claim on a just social structure. They might then come to recognize that achieving social justice will require not only eschewing their paternalistic (and sometimes punitive) attitudes toward the black poor but also relinquishing their unjust advantages.