The Deep Reach of Racial/Ethnic Stratification
Paper Session
Sunday, Jan. 3, 2021 3:45 PM - 5:45 PM (EST)
- Chair: Robert B. Williams, Guilford College
Armageddon and Reparations: Will The Pandemic Silence the Justice Agenda?
Abstract
The Corona Virus has disengaged ongoing popular struggles owing to the sheer virulence of its propagation. Many powerful, ongoing , movements (in Hong Kong, France, etc.) have been stalled by it. This paper investigates its likely impact on the longstanding Afro-Am struggle for Reparations for Slavery in the US.Federal Wealth Policy and the Perpetuation of White Supremacy
Abstract
Since our nation’s founding, federal government policies have promoted the expansion of white wealth. This support includes Constitutional guarantees for slaveholders and such “manifest destiny” policies as the Indian Removal Act of 1832 and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Even the celebrated Homestead Act and G.I Bill served to expand the opportunities of white households at the expense of households of color. In conjunction with Jim Crow and other exclusionary policies, these laws have created our current racial wealth gap in which whites typically hold ten times the wealth found in either black or Latinx communities. As a source of power, household wealth has few rivals. Further, wealth passes from one generation to the next seamlessly. It serves the perfect vehicle to ensure economic stratification.The tradition continues today. Using a dozen tax deductions, the federal government supports household wealth accumulation by over $800 billion annually. These deductions target wealthier households, thereby perpetuating our racial wealth gap without any overt references to race. Largely designed without caps, these tax deductions foster white wealth with ever-increasing generosity. Over the past generation they have doubled in value. At the same time, estate and gift taxes have largely been removed.
Pairing evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances and the JCT’s Estimates of Federal Tax Expenditures, this paper will document how these policies have favored white over both black and Latinx households. This examination will include the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, itself a stunning example of white supremacy.
Slave Trade and Women Political Participation in Africa
Abstract
Literature relates the slave trades and the temporary shock to the gender ratio to contemporary polygyny, HIV and fertility, as well as contemporary women labour force participation. We study whether present-day women political participation in sub-Saharan Africa can also be linked to the slave trades. We use individual level data from the Afrobarometer surveys and ethnic region slave trade data to evaluate whether the transatlantic and Indian Ocean slave trades are associated to women voting and views on women as political leaders today. Preliminary results suggest that the Indian Ocean slave trade and subsequent increase in the male-to-female gender ratio is positively associated to women political participation. This paper contributes to the literature on the contemporary effects of the slave trades, as well as the historical causes of gender gaps in political participation.How Do Language Differences in Pakistan Manifest Power Differentials?
Abstract
Education is often viewed as a solution to inequality. However, there is also strong evidence that educational processes are not unproblematic and education can reproduce inequality. This is particularly the case in a multilingual postcolonial society such as Pakistan where access to a particular language gives one access to particular resources.Previous efforts to study language policy in Pakistan have tended to stress either the imposition of English by imperial elites, with the connivance of the comprador bourgeoisie within Pakistan (Alavi, 1972), or the efforts by the new leaders of Pakistan to use language policy to forge an Islamic national identity (Nasr 2001, Rahman 1997). The problem with these approaches is that they pay little attention to the motivations of the vast mass of people who use these languages and are directly affected by the policy change, as well as the actors who are involved in advocating for one language or another within Pakistan’s educational institutions. The choice of language has direct implications for students’ access to resources. In addition, even when motivations are aligned it is not that simple to change language in education: economic and human capital resources could emerge as a limiting factor. Taking language as a social institution we investigate how language in education policies have evolved in Pakistan, Analyses of institutional change will allow us to incorporate the motivation of agents/groups and present a more nuanced view of the evolution of language policy in Pakistan and the reasons why the medium of instruction in education still remains a contested terrain.
Racism and Stratification: A Two-Way Relation
Abstract
The paper discusses how stratification economics advances research on the relation between racism and the performance of the economy. Stratification economics stresses that racism is not only an animus that affects the behavior of economic agents but a strategy to achieve a distribution that favors some sections of society at the expense of others. Given an underlying racist animus, this strategy may involve direct or indirect stratification. In the first case, the racist animus provides the criterion to stratify. Indirect stratification, in turn, occurs when the racist animus is only a means to achieve a specific distribution. A racist animus may be a consequence of, rather than a premise for, stratification. Neoliberal economic policies and/or business strategies may achieve social stratification and unequal distribution by disrupting solidarity in general and making people feel that they are just isolated individuals rather than members of a community, thereby preventing them from identifying the causes of their economic problems. Under these circumstances, racial minorities may become the needed scapegoats. Contrary to direct and indirect stratification, racist animus that results from stratification suggests that stratification economics provides a partial, if important, view of the complex relation between racism and the economy.JEL Classifications
- J1 - Demographic Economics
- Z0 - General