Angela Davis at Harvard

FBI Most Wanted

There is more than one Angela Davis.  This worked out well.  

More up close information on one of the great political problems in America: how to talk about race in a way that creates good outcomes.

Readers my age know of Angela Davis.   She is a black woman activist, famous for being a communist, famous for being involved with Black Panthers during their most controversial period in the late 1960s, famous for having a big black afro, famous for having been caught up in a prosecution for supplying guns to people who used them to shoot people in Marin County, California, famous for being on the FBI's Most Wanted list.

A jury found her not guilty of criminal conspiracy.  She had a career teaching in colleges.  

She didn't show up.

Angela J. Davis, author

Another black woman activist showed up:  Angela Davis.   Angela J. Davis.  She is a graduate of Harvard Law School, she teaches at American University in Washington DC.  She isn't a communist or a confederate of the Black Panthers.  She is active in the Public Defenders program in DC.  She spoke to a group of about a hundred law students and Harvard Law School teachers about the policing, prosecution, and sentencing of black men.  She edited and wrote part of a book on that subject. She was at Harvard to promote the book and speak to a friendly group.

Judging from the questions and comments from the audience, people understood the issues the way she did.   Black men face a headwind of prejudice in the criminal justice system.   The Minnesota man, Philander Castile, who was shot by a policeman while reaching for his driver's license at the request of the policeman, had been pulled over for a cracked taillight.  He had been pulled over by policemen 43 times in the previous 13 years, for a succession of minor items.   He was closely monitored.  His mother had a name for it: "Driving while black."

Then Angela J. Davis said he was shot for being black.   His blackness made him considered a dangerous per se, his movements interpreted as threatening, so he could be shot without consequence to the policeman.   Police officers have a right to protect themselves when they feel threatened.  Sitting in the car seat, with his girlfriend and daughter in the car with him, he was dangerous.

The burden of her talk is congruent with a message Hillary Clinton made: there is a widespread racial prejudice in America.   Davis said it shows up most acutely with black men.  Black men are profiled and targeted.

Sometimes, Davis said, the prejudice is acknowledged, sometimes not.  A District Attorney has a great deal of discretion on whether and how to charge a person when a crime has been alleged.  Is a young man found with marijuana sent to a diversion program, or is he charged with a succession of crimes: possession, possession with intent to distribute, drug manufacture.   There need not be overt racism, she said, for there to be disparate racial outcomes.   If the parents of that young man have the capacity to provide him private defense and can get him enrolled in a drug treatment program then the DA has a case where there could be a win-win outcome, a young man whose life is straightened out.  He might not be charged.  The same case, where the young man lacks family resources, looks like a hopeless situation best dealt with by the criminal justice system.  It is more likely that the person without recourse is black.

Questions and comments from the audience demonstrate the political problem with her message.  At the heart of it is an observation  which is experienced as an accusation:  white Americans have racial privilege and they are blind to it.   Or, maybe they see it dimly, but they are not unhappy with having it.  Privilege is nice to have.  People pay extra to airlines to get priority boarding; there is only so much space in the overhead compartments so they are sure to get plenty.   White Americans don't want to hear it.  They resent the implication that they are unfair and they resent the notion that they should feel guilty about something.

It doesn't matter if the argument is true, or if data documents it.  Northern whites were willing to condemn southern whites for overt racism, but the charge that there was housing discrimination taking place in Boston infuriated Bostonians.  It being true doesn't make it better.  If anything, it makes it worse because it forces people to confront the problem.

Race mattered

The Harvard audience did not appear to recognize the political peril that was embedded inside Davis' description of the racial disparity in the justice system.   A question that mentioned Hillary Clinton received grumbles at mention of her name.   One man suggested that since Hillary and Democrats generally didn't sufficiently call out and condemn racial injustice citizens should form a third party, one focused on white prejudice.  This received murmurs of agreement.  I surmise that this audience was uniformly anti-Trump, but Hillary Clinton's comments on deplorable racism were condemned as inadequate, not courageous or suicidal.

An ongoing observation of this blog has been white backlash and resentment over accusations of racial injustice.  Race, not income or gender, was the great predictor of voting behavior in 2016.

 There is a political dilemma: discussing racism in America is simultaneously important and counter-productive.   Whites may know it, but they don't want to hear it.   And when they hear it they push back.