Abstract
Scholars of race tend to measure racial inequality in either absolute or relative terms. How much Blacks have advanced from their historical antebellum status is an absolute measure. How the status of Blacks compares with that of Whites is a relative measure. A more revealing measure might be how much racial equality will be strategically necessary to avoid a major politico-economic crisis like the ones that occurred during the civil war and the 1960s. Though it is easier to measure absolute or relative equality, measures of strategic equality yeild more important information. Using the Current Population Survey, General Social Survey, Center for Education Statistics, Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality, and Census Bureau estimates, I find that, strategically, America is actually declining in racial equality, not advancing.
Introduction
Most advanced societies agree that there is a certain level of social wellbeing below which not even the most undeserving individuals should be allowed to fall. The notion of government-supported well being is inseparable from ideas about democracy, equality, and social stability. Accordingly, nearly all of the nations of the West provide social services that are available to all, based either on need or worker and employer contributions.
Political scientists have argued about how the provision of social services is related to democracy, political stability, and equality. Leibfried and Steffen (2008, xv) write, “Democracy and the welfare state seem to have an elective affinity for each other,” Yet they also note many examples of autocratic, racist, and fascist regimes that provide welfare. Hewitt (1977) found that, while democracy alone was not related to increased equality, use of the voting franchise in a democratic system to elect socialist governments was correlated with increased egalitarianism.
In studying Germany, Jung and Uwe (2014, 69) found that, while democracy is not an automatic outcome of economic development, equitable income distribution is a key to the emergence of democracy. Furthermore, “democracy might fail if income discrepancies and redistributive tensions between the different social groups become too large…. Ongoing technical change and economic development that affects different groups of society in different ways, as well as increasing inequality and polarization may potentially lead to a breakdown of the democratic equilibrium and to the (re)emergence of an oligarchy or a mass dictatorship.”
Economic inequality based on race diminishes the entire society and culture, if only because of the large number of minority citizens who are not being used most productively. This was true in 1969 and it seems to be just as true today (Thurow 1969).
Locking people out of economic advancement means they can have no investment in their future. People without a future for themselves or their families have little reason to support the system. Thus, people outside the system are ripe for dissension and revolt. A large, potentially revolutionary mass in our midst is not good for a stable society.
The prospects for genuine racial equality between America's two largest racial groups, Blacks and Whites, are declining. There are many economic, political, and social reasons for this, but in this essay I want to stress two conceptual reasons: 1) the lack of a word in our society's lexicon for systematic racialization, beyond the level of individual prejudice or personal bias, and 2) the failure of scholars and therefore policy makers to distinguish absolute, relative, and strategic equality from each other.
Race words
Words that define racial politico-economic culture may be divided into three broad groups: words associated with ruling majorities or groups in power, words associated with individual behavior, and words associated with oppressed groups or controlled minorities.
Words associated with ruling majorities or groups in power
The word racism is the most common word used to describe the personal dislike of others because of their racial characteristics. To call someone a racist is generally considered an insult. The words racism and racist are pejorative.
Racism can be used to describe a personal feeling. Most dictionaries provide a definition similar to the following: “the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, esp. so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races. Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on such a belief.” (The New Oxford American Dictionary 2005, 1395)
However, we lack a word for oppression that is not based on antagonism. Some social scientists would like to restrict the term racism to mean the oppression of peoples on the basis of their race, language, or origin (Ture and Hamilton 1967). The ability to oppress groups implies social and collective power (Barrera 1979). This politico-economic and sociological definition of racism differs from the dictionary definition because it links racism with the politico-economic power to oppress.
Miles (1989) objects to proposed redefinition. If we use the word racism to stand for the oppression of people based on their race, what word would we then use to define the familiar (though now discredited) belief that ones degree of humanness is dependent on race? Miles asserts that when social scientists use the word racism to mean oppression, they are really describing racialization, that is, making societal and collective decisions about the distribution of valued goods and services on the basis of race (Miles 1989). This seems like a good distinction.
Bonilla-Silva (2003) cites another race word associated with groups that have power to oppress: projection. Projection in this sense means the tendency of oppressors to accuse the victims of oppression of oppressing the group in power. Richard Morin, writing on October 8, 1995, in the Washington Post, writes that most of the whites surveyed were more concerned about Black discrimination against themselves than white discrimination against Blacks or other minorities.
Sociologist Joe Feagin (2010,101) claims that the reason whites are racists is because “the majority do not believe there is major racial discrimination widespread across this society.” Table 1 shows that two-thirds of whites said that current racial inequality is not caused by discrimination. Blacks are the only racial group in Table 1 who said that racial inequality is caused by racial discrimination. Regardless of what whites may think, the audit studies have consistently shown that Blacks face significant racial discrimination in the labor and housing markets (Turner et al. 1991; Yinger 1995; Bertrand and Mullainathan 2004).
Race, ethnicity and the impact of discrimination on racial inequality, 2012
SourceSmith et al. (1972). “General Social Surveys, 1972–2012. [machine-readable data file]. Principal Investigator, Tom W. Smith; Co-Principal Investigators, Peter V. Marsden and Michael Hout, NORC ed. Chicago: National Opinion Research Center, producer, 2005; Storrs, CT: The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, University of Connecticut, distributor. 1 data file (57,061 logical records) and 1 codebook (3,422 pp).”
This inability of America's largest racial group to accept the reality of America's racial discrimination requires a fourth race word associated with powerful majorities: denial. Denial in this case is the desire to separate the history of oppression based on race from contemporary politico-economic realities (Coleman 2003).
With a definition of racism based on collective oppression firmly in hand, we can address the oft-repeated question, Can Blacks be racists? Using Wilson's definition of racism, “those beliefs and practices that contribute to upholding racial domination,” Quillian answers this question in the negative (Wilson 1973; Quillian 2006). In a political system dominated by whites, no Black person who discriminates against whites, could long remain free from white political forces. White political forces are designed to maintain white supremacy and crush any and all Blacks who try to resist by discriminating against whites.
Words associated with individual behavior
Unlike racism, some “race words” may or may not be related to oppression. To be discriminating is generally taken to be a good thing; a discriminating person is one who appreciates quality. In the racial arena, however, discrimination, as in denying a job or housing to someone on the basis of color, is a kind of oppression.
Apropos of discrimination, Jencks (1992, 40–43) affirmed the need for affirmative action when he said that antidiscrimination laws were designed to stop five types of discriminatory employers: 1) fearful or cowardly discriminators, who are afraid other workers will oppose a diverse workforce; 2) bigoted discriminators, who simply do not like other racial groups, 3) time saving or statistical discriminators, who eliminate all group members because, on average, the group has less skill than white workers; 4) ignorant discriminators, who are not aware of the skill of a particular group; and 5) discriminators driven by employees desire to eliminate competition. These employers or employees need not be members of the ruling group.
Bias is similar to discrimination, the primary difference being that bias usually signifies a natural, rather than a socially driven, tendency. To have a tendency to favor a particular outcome, idea, or person is to be biased. Hiring close relatives is often prohibited in government service simply because it is assumed that a wife will not, or cannot, fairly evaluate her husband, who may be her subordinate. Skrentny (1996, 50) considers it strange that nepotism, a form of bias, is proscribed in government but lauded in business.
Anyone, Black or white, can have bias. When applied to racial equality, the natural bias of the group in power to favor those perceived to be their own can have a devastating effect on those not in power. However, bias may apply to individuals as well as groups.
The word prejudice has judicial connotations. To pre-judge is to make a decision before having adequate information. Both federal and state laws allow for judges to be disqualified from a case because of their bias or prejudice (Blanck 1996).
Prejudice can be good or bad, Black or white. Most consider it a good thing to be able to gauge whether a situation is dangerous or not. We daily make decisions in traffic using our ability to prejudge. This kind of prejudgment ensures physical safety. But with regard to race relations, prejudice combined with oppression of racial groups produces prolonged negative consequences.
Bigotry is hatred of people because of their race or nationality. I am hard pressed to find a positive use of this word. Of course, hatred is part of the human repertoire of emotions, and bigotry may apply to anyone regardless of race. Nevertheless, as negative as bigotry may be, it does not imply racism or racialization. Oppressed peoples may be bigots, but that does not make them oppressors.
Words associated with oppressed groups and controlled minorities
This group of race words applies almost entirely to the oppressed. Alienation is the tendency of the oppressed to avoid the oppressor (Robinson 2000; Bobo and Charles 2009). Randall Robinson says that, out of a sense of psychic self-protection, he never initiates conversations with whites.
The term self-segregation applied to Blacks seems a poor way of capturing the concept of alienation. Who would choose to be daily subjected to insult, humiliation, oppression, and threat? Not many, I would think. The desire to protect oneself and ones children from racism can lead to alienation. Black nationalism and separatist movements are a type of alienation.
I find that alienation is often confused with racism in the media. The Shirley Sherrod incident in 2010 is an example of this confusion.
Ms. Shirley Sherrod is the wife of famed civil rights leader Charles Sherrod, who in 1963 in Albany, Georgia, led the successful marches that crushed white supremacy in the city. Ms. Sherrod was employed as a US Department of Agriculture rural development worker. In a speech before a local NAACP group (http://www.naacp.org/news/entry/video_sherrod/), she described her experience in coming to understand that not all whites were in fact bigots.
Sherrod found that many whites were also poor and oppressed in terms of class and needed her help. Carefully selected excerpts of Sherrod's speech were picked up by a news organization that accused her and the NAACP of racism. Sherrod was heard commenting about a poor white farmer who came to her for help, “So, I didn't give him the full force of what I could do,” and “his own kind would take care of him.” Sherrod was summarily asked to resign from her job without any investigation after carefully edited excepts of the Sherrod speech by blogger Andrew Breitbart were shown on the Fox News Channel. After the White House, NAACP, and USDA heard the full transcript, they apologized to Sherrod and offered to give her job back, which she refused.
The Sherrod incident illustrates not only the concept of alienation, which Sherrod was explaining, but also denial (the refusal of whites to accept the history of discrimination against Blacks generally and discrimination against Black farmers specifically), projection (the desire by whites to find a Black racist, even if it means falsely accusing someone), racism, and discrimination. The USDA settled in Pigford v Glickman, 206 F.3d 1212 (Dist. of Col. Cir. 1999), for discrimination against Black farmers. It is more than ironic that the USDA would so quickly falsely accuse Sherrod for racial discrimination.
Table 2 compares racism and alienation on four dimensions: cause, impact, timing, and extent. The cause of Black alienation is dislike of being oppressed. It would be strange for any people to enjoy receiving the worst of everything society has to offer. Racism, on the other hand, results from the need to supply ideological justification for the oppression of others. In this sense, oppression precedes the development of racism.
Differences between black alienation and white racism
Racism affects nearly every area of Black life in the US and wherever American influence reaches around the world. Black alienation has little economic or social impact on whites, except in individual relationships.
The concepts of scientific and ideological racism are several hundred years old, and they developed after the start of the Atlantic slave trade (Snowden 1970, 1983). Black alienation on a large scale is a post-civil-rights-era phenomenon.
Whether and how racism implicates all whites is a matter of some debate. Feagin and others (Bonilla-Silva 1996, 2003; Bonilla-Silva and Forman 2000; Feagin 2010) assert that racism is nearly universal among whites, even if they support the concept of equality. On the other hand, Black alienation seems to involves relatively few Blacks. Even today, most Blacks do not believe they face wage discrimination, meaning few Blacks may consider themselves alienated (Coleman et al. 2008).
Types of equality
Progress toward racial equality in America is hindered by confusion over what constitutes racism as opposed to alienation. The ways in which equality is measured also frustrate efforts to realize racial unity.
Martin Luther King Jr. talked about the distinction between incremental improvement and substantive equality when he said that most whites think of equality as a loose expression for improvement (King 1968). Until whites can grasp the idea that their own racist ideas and practices are the cause of racial inequality, substantive equality would seem to be politically impossible (Wicker 1988).
I propose that equality be measured not by absolute improvement from the historical past (similar to measuring your yearly income only in current dollars without adjusting for inflation), or even by the economic position of Blacks relative to whites. Incremental improvements could continue indefinitely without ever resulting in substantive equality. Equality is best measured strategically in terms of crises to be avoided (Coleman 2012). However, strategic equality can be hard to visualize.
Absolute equality
Absolute equality is the difference between where a group is now and their status at some point in the past. Conservative think tanks like to measure absolute improvements in the socioeconomic status of Blacks (Meyerson et al. 1998).
As depicted in Fig. 1, high school completion rates for Blacks 25 and older have improved dramatically. In 1940, less than 10 % of Blacks 25 and older had completed high school. By 1960, this rate had doubled. In 1980, over 50 % of Blacks aged 25 or more had completed high school, and, by 2012, 85 %. This is real improvement in absolute terms.
Blacks Age 25 and Over with High School Completion, 1940–2012. SOURCE: U.S. Department of Commerce, Census Bureau, U.S. Census of Population: 1960, Vol. I, Part 1; J.K. Folger and C.B. Nam, Education of the American Population (1960 Census Monograph); Current Population Reports, Series P-20, various years; and Current Population Survey (CPS), March 1970 through March 2012. (This table was prepared October 2012.). Obtained from National Center for Education Statistics, Table 8, accessed on May 21, 2014, URL http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d12/tables/dt12_008.asp
Figure 2 shows Black male life expectancy from 1900 to 2010. In 1900, the average life expectancy for Black men was 32.5 years. Fifty years later, Black men could expect to live to be over 59 years of age. In 2010, the average Black man lived to be 71.8 years of age, an increase from 69.5 years in 2005. Few would deny that is an improvement.
Life Expectancy for Black Males, 1900–2010. National Center for Health Statistics. Health, United States, 2014 with Chartbook on Trends in the Health of Americans. Hyattsville, MD: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2014
Relative equality
Figure 3 depicts the ratio of Black to white, and Latino to white, high school completion from 1940 to 2012. The picture is different from that in Fig. 1. In 1940, Black high school completion rates were only 30 % those of whites. They were 50 % of whites in 1960. By 1980, Black high school completion rates exceeded 70 % the rate of white high school completion, and in 2012, Blacks completed high school at a rate of 92.6 % that of whites. Relatively, if high school completion rates are the measure, Blacks have been gaining on whites.
Ratio of Persons Age 25 and over with High School Completion, 1940–2012. SOURCE: U.S. Department of Commerce, Census Bureau, U.S. Census of Population: 1960, Vol. I, Part 1; J.K. Folger and C.B. Nam, Education of the American Population (1960 Census Monograph); Current Population Reports, Series P-20, various years; and Current Population Survey (CPS), March 1970 through March 2012. (This table was prepared October 2012.). Obtained from National Center for Education Statistics, Table 8, accessed on May 21, 2014, URL http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d12/tables/dt12_008.asp
Figure 3 also contains rates for Latinos versus whites. The most disturbing trend here is that America's fasting growing ethnic group, Latinos, are actually losing ground in high school completion relative to whites.
Figure 4 graphs Black male life expectancy as a ratio of white male life expectancy from 1900 to 2010. In the 50 years from 1900 to 1950, Black men went from having 69.7 % of the life expectancy of white men to 88.8 %, an increase of 19.1 %. From 1950 to 2010, Black male life expectancy increased from 88.8 % that of white men to 93.8 %, an increase of 5 %.
Black Male Life Expectancy as a Ratio of White Male Life Expectancy, 1900–2010. National Center for Health Statistics. Health, United States, 2014 with Chartbook on Trends in the Health of Americans. Hyattsville, MD: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2014
As Black male life expectancy has approached parity with the life expectancy of white males, the relative rate of improvement, Black life expectancy compared to white life expectancy, has almost stopped. As America becomes increasingly nonwhite, this lack of equality, close but still unequal, in life conditions could be a problem.
High school completion and life expectancy are two of the best and most successful measures of relative and absolute racial equality for two reasons: 1. both measures show Blacks and Latinos making substantial progress from their own historical past since the 1940s, 2. both measures show Blacks and Latinos making substantial gains against whites from the 1940s to the present. Still, economic measures show more reversals than gains.
Figure 5 compares nonwhite male incomes, for full-time and all workers, to the incomes of similar white men. The stagnation in nonwhite compared to white income growth prior to the civil rights years, 1948–1960, is apparent. The relatively rapid climb in all nonwhite male income from 51.9 % of all white male income in 1959 to 66.4 % in 1974 contrasts with the lack of growth going forward.
For full-time nonwhite male workers in Fig. 5, the “high water mark” came in 1987 when full-time nonwhite male worker incomes reached 76.7 % those of similar white males. By 2013, full-time nonwhite male worker incomes were only 70 % those of similar white males. If relative racial income is the measure of equality, America is going backwards, not forwards.
Income Ratios for Non-White Male Workers as a Percentage of White Male Workers, 1948–2013. Source: Author's computation. 1948–1987, Current Population Reports (1987). Consumer Income Series P60, No. 162, Bureau of the Census, Money Income of Households, Families, and Persons in the United States: 1987, Table 29, 1948–1987. 1988–2013, CURRENT POPULATION SURVEYS—MARCH 1962–2013 (2013). Washington, D.C., [machine-readable data files]/conducted by the Bureau of the Census for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Washington: Bureau of the Census [producer and distributor], 1962–2013. Los Angeles, CA: Unicon Research Corporation [producer and distributor of CPS Utilities], 2013
The situation for nonwhite females is similar to that for nonwhite males. However, there are differences. First, relative to white females, incomes are the same for nonwhite females who work full-time and for all nonwhite females. Second, in the late 1970s and early 1980s nonwhite females almost reached income parity with their white female counterparts. This should not be taken to mean that nonwhite females were not discriminated against—since Black women had more job tenure and experience than white females in the labor market, nonwhite females should have received more in income, not the 95 % they got in 1979.
The nonwhite to white female income ratio shrunk from 95 % in 1979 to 84 % for all nonwhite female workers and 82 % for full-time nonwhite females in 2013. Unlike nonwhite males, full-time nonwhite females earn less, relative to white females, than their part-time counterparts.
Strategic equality
Some population projections show that as early as 2040, non-Hispanic whites could be less than 50 % of the population. This situation could stress a political system increasingly dominated by nonwhite votes at the presidential level but controlled by white economic and political power at the congressional, state, and even local level.
Therefore, researchers need a new measure of equality: a strategic measure. But unlike absolute and relative equality measures, strategic equality measures are more difficult to present in graph form.
Figure 7 is labeled a “strategic equality model” because it contains relative income ratios and projections, relative population ratios and projections, income trajectories for 100 % equality, and the years in which important politico-economic events occur. Strategic equality is the amount of substantive equality necessary to avoid a crisis (Coleman 2012). Figure 7 divides 1947–2060 into three conditions: 1. historical, 2. critical, and 3. super critical.
Historical conditions were those of the Jim Crow era, before the passage of the major civil rights legislation. During the Jim Crow era the Black vote was small and concentrated in the North; white voters dominated local and national politics and switched parties at the national level depending on the candidate; and Latinos and Asians were not a factor. During the 1940s and 1950s, the fact that Black families had only half the income of white families was an important national issue only for Blacks.
With the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on July 2 of that year, and of the Voting Rights Act on August 6, 1965, Black voters and workers became serious tactical players in US politics. I call this the critical phase. After 1965 it was clear that the white population was on the decline (see Fig. 7). Black family incomes and Black worker incomes (see Figs. 5 and 6), though still lagging far behind those of white families and workers, began one of the steepest climbs since World War II. Urban riots and Black demands were at a fever pitch.
Income Ratios for Non-white Female Workers as a Percentage of White Female Workers, 1948–2013. Source: Author's computation. 1948–1987, Current Population Reports (1987). Consumer Income Series P60, No. 162, Bureau of the Census, Money Income of Households, Families, and Persons in the United States: 1987, Table 29, 1948–1987. 1988–2013, CURRENT POPULATION SURVEYS—MARCH 1962–2013 (2013). Washington, D.C., [machine-readable data files]/conducted by the Bureau of the Census for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Washington: Bureau of the Census [producer and distributor], 1962–2013. Los Angeles, CA: Unicon Research Corporation [producer and distributor of CPS Utilities], 2013
Strategic Equality Model, Black to White Family Income Ratio and Non-Hispanic White Population Percentage, 1947–2060. Source: U.S. Census Bureau
Many have claimed the goals of the First and Second Reconstructions were to institute substantive racial equality, not merely procedural or legal equality (Leiter and Leiter 2011, 7–8). President Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) said he was going to be the president who would finish what Lincoln had started, and LBJ personally identified with the movement when he himself used the rallying cry of the civil right marchers, “We shall overcome,” on national TV. The Gallup poll listed civil rights as the most important issue facing America (1972). The safest equality route is to institute substantive racial equality as quickly as possible before America is composed mostly of people of color. This “safest equality route,” as a response to the crisis conditions which created affirmative action (Skrentny 1996), is marked in Fig. 7 by the dotted line which extends the increases in Black family income past 2040.
According to the highest projection estimates available from the Census Bureau, non-Hispanic whites will cease to be a majority in 2040. The “safest equality route” is designed to continue Black family income increases so that Black family income will equal that of white families at or before the earliest point at which the white population no longer controls the popular vote at the national level.
The year 2040 shifts the nation from critical conditions to super critical conditions. Figure 7 shows that in 2040, Black, and by implication Latino, family incomes will still lag as much as 30 % behind those of white families, using the rates of increase and decrease from 1966 to 2012 as a very conservative family income projection guide.
It is possible that Blacks and Latinos will control the vote at the national (presidential) level with only a small minority of white allies. Then the Nation could face a very angry nonwhite electorate after 2040 that deeply resents their low incomes compared to those of the white minority. This new nonwhite majority could have the voting power to change the constitution and the entire economic apparatus to suit them. If the new white minority, which would still control the nation's economy, congress, and politics at the state and local level, frustrates the will of the majority, the political systems, which America now regards as democratic, could be threatened.
Will a Black and Latino Non-white coalition hold?
Vaca (2004) considered whether the growing Latino population and the traditional Black minority could work together in political coalitions. Vaca examined Latino and Black alliances in Miami, Compton, Houston, and New York. Vaca describes the resentment many Blacks have toward Latinos who compete for the same jobs, as well as the bitterness that Latinos feel when Blacks control urban jobs and school districts.
Table 3 contains the presidential vote by race and year. As expected, Blacks have consistently supported the Democratic Party from the earliest year in the table. Regardless that slighly less than half of those who identify as Latino/Hispanic also identify themselves as white (Smith et al. 1972, racecen1 tabulated on racecen2), of the past 11 presidential elections, Latinos have opposed Blacks only three times, in 1972, 1980, and 2000.
Presidential vote by race and ethnicity—1948–2012
Sources: 2008, American National Election Studies (ANES). “American National Election Study, 2008: Pre- and Post-Election Survey [Computer File]. Icpsr25383–V1. Ann Arbor, Mi: Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research [Distributor], 2009-06-10. Doi:10.3886/Icpsr25383.” (2008). 2012, American National Election Studies, (ANES; www.electionstudies.org). The ANES 2012 Time Series Study [dataset]. Stanford University and the University of Michigan [producers].(2012). 1948–2004, Sapiro, Virginia, and Steven J. Rosenstone. “American National Election Studies Cumulative Data File, 1948–2004 [Computer File]. Ann Arbor, Mi: University of Michigan, Center for Political Studies [Producer]. Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research [Distributor], 2007-09-25. Doi:10.3886/Icpsr08475.” 2004
The issue is not whether Blacks and Latinos could march in lockstep. The issue is whether Blacks and Latinos could have enough of a coalition to challenge white control. Table 3 shows that Blacks, Latinos and Asians effectively out-voted whites as early as 1960 and again in 1976, 2008, and 2012. In those years, most whites voted for the losing candidate.
Nevertheless, as Table 1 shows, most Latinos do not accept discrimination as Blacks' main disadvantage; neither do Asians or Native Americans for that matter. However, if you ask Latinos, How much discrimination is there that hurts the chances of Latinos to get good paying jobs? 54.4 % say there is “a lot” of discrimination and 11 % say “only a little.” While Latinos may have little sympathy for Blacks, they themselves feel the sting of discrimination, and it seems this alone could align them with Blacks in voting (Multi-City et al. 1998).
The strategic imperative
Racial equality between America's largest racial and ethnic groups is decreasing, not increasing, if we use strategic measures. Strategic equality is the amount of equality necessary to avoid a major politico-economic crisis that could threaten the existence of the state. While more difficult to model than absolute or relative equality, only a strategic equality measure can indicate how much reform is necessary and how much time we have to institute such reform.
The political polarization that America's largest racial and ethnic groups are now experiencing could erupt into class warfare once there is a divide between those who have the voting majority and those who hold most of the economic and political power. Such conditions could exist as early as 2040 and will place stresses on the politico-economic system that have never been experienced before.
This essay proposed two solutions: 1) Understand the lexicon of race words and begin to use them precisely in the media, popular writing, and in academia, 2) Take into account not just absolute and relative, but also strategic measures of equality.
The rates of Black high school completion for those 25 years of age or older, and life expectancy for Black men, reflect increases in absolute equality. Both high school completion and life expectancy for Blacks have increased over the past century. However, most people do not regard absolute improvements as meaningful for their lives today.
Relative improvement was portrayed in three ways: 1) Black and Latino high school completion compared to whites, 2) Black male life expectancy compared to white male life expectancy, and 3) relative wages for nonwhite males and females. When Black and Latino advances are compared to those of whites, most of the advances in absolute terms disappear.
In high school completion, Blacks made gains against whites from 1940 to the 1980s. Since the mid-1980s, relative gains by Blacks compared to whites in high school completion and life expectancy have nearly stalled.
Relative to whites, high school completion for Latinos has actually declined steadily since the mid-1970s. This is not a good sign for America's fastest growing minority group. Relative wages for nonwhite men and women have also seen reversals since the 1980s.
Using the highest rate of white population decline projections, 2040 will see non-Hispanic whites as a minority for the first time in American history. When I combine the nonwhite majority in 2040 with a conservative projection of family income disparities, I find that racial inequality could present a potentially state-threatening crisis, which I call a super critical condition. Unless researchers and policy makers begin to think in terms of strategic measures, rather than relative or absolute measures, of equality, the nation may find itself in super critical conditions with no easy solutions.