A Dilemma?
(John Speaking)

 
 
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A big part of the problem here is that we are now talking about the overall social status of African Americans. When a group is stigmatized, it is given an inferior status, looked down upon, and in the worst cases, despised. To some extent I have to agree with Fred on this. Neither the government nor a group of intellectuals can confer a higher social status on blacks, or Jews, or Slavs, or Evangelical Christians, or Moslems, or any other group.

The process by which the status or prestige of a group is determined is more complicated than any of us can control. Status or prestige follows other factors: secure employment, good paying jobs, better education, more influential positions, and various kinds of achievement recognized as such in our society.

But as a social democrat I disagree with Fred on the role of government. Government cannot confer status directly, but it can influence some of the factors. We can create jobs to bring down black unemployment. We can build better schools to improve black education. We can adopt affirmative action programs to bring more blacks into the better professional schools. We can do lots of things that create the conditions for higher social status or greater prestige. To get back to hate speech, I'll say again that I don't think it has a lot to do with any of this. We should focus on concrete conditions like the ones I've mentioned. If we do our job right, stigma will disappear by itself.

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