I recently came across this interesting video (transcript here), which is a segment from the Jim Lehrer new hour on PBS, a television channel in the United States.
The conversation participants are Matt Welch of Rason magazine (who, along with Nick Gillespie, covered a protest march in Washington D.C. on September 12, 2009), Melissa Harris-Lacewell (associate professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton University), John McWhorter of the Manhattan Institute, and Cornell Belcher, a pollster for the Democratic party. The moderator was Gwenn Ifill. As best as I could tell, Matt Welch was the only white person and all the others were black.
What I find interesting about the conversation, as I’ve found about a lot of such conversations, is how it shows the great diversity of viewpoints within the so-called “black community”, and how one’s job and affiliation often reveal more about one’s views than the color of one’s skin. McWhorter’s views are reasonably predicted by the fact that he works for the Manhattan Institute (though, of course, each person has different specific beliefs) — see for instance this very insightful article by him about Harvard or this one about Joe Wilson and opposition to Obama. Harris-Lacewell’s views (as for instance in this article) seem reasonably typical of a person in an African American studies department — a la Henry Louis Gates (who recently acquired fame/notoriety due to a misconception). And Cornell Belcher’s views seem reasonably in line with a pollster for a party who is trying to paint opposition to that party’s agenda as something racist. Finally, Matt Welch’s views seem in line with those of Reason magazine.
Unfortunately, many people try to get away with claiming that the particular political ideology, perspective or viewpoint they hold “represents” their community. It is currently considered taboo in the United States to openly say that something hurts the “white community”, but other equally dubious spokespersons persist — for instance, people who claim to speak for the “black community”, “middle America”, “undocumented workers”, “women”, “the working class”, “Christians”, “Jews”, “ordinary Americans” and so on. The United States is hardly unique in this respect — dubious spokespersonship for religious groups, genders, age groups, racial, ethnic and regional groups exist in plenty. In some cases, conflicting “spokespersons” cancel one another out, leading to the pleasant cacophony of diversity, but in other cases, certain kinds of viewpoints get the upper hand, even though they do not necessarily represent the majority viewpoint within their “minority” community. At times, there may be active ostracism of the minorities within minorities — people within the minority community who fail to toe the line of some self-declared leaders may be considered traitors or sell-outs.
Fortunately, in a free society, such labels cannot be used to suppress such speech. Thus, we see black economists such as Thomas Sowell who works for the Hoover Institution, who describes himself as a libertarian (though he doesn’t toe the libertarian line on torture), is highly critical of the welfare state. Or, Walter Williams of George Mason University, who wrote a book titled The State Against Blacks where he blamed licensing laws, minimum wage legislation, and the welfare state (as opposed to, or much more important than, racism by individuals) for the poverty and crime among blacks (he also made a three-part video series about themes from the book back in the 1980s). This isn’t to say that the views of people like Sowell or Williams are shared by a majority of blacks or whites or any other community, but the existence of such views shouldn’t be viewed as being a “sellout”.
Bonus: Here’s a nice video put together by Reason about a fight for school choice in Los Angeles. Affiliation, rather than skin color, seem to be the determinant of the stand a person takes. Unsurprisingly, teachers and representatives of teacher association are against it, while parents are for it.