White America: how did we get here?

Since the time of honest racial segregation in America—when whites wrote down race-based rules of exclusion—we have been formulating modes of dishonest segregation: denials of equality and inclusion in areas such as housing, criminal justice, employment, interpersonal relationships, and private organizations.

Once institutionalized, this dishonest segregation becomes subconscious for us whites: we do not create race-based rules, we just live by the status quo. We are not racist, after all, we just call balls and strikes. We're objective when pressing charges, citing criminal statistics, administering standardized tests, drawing political districts, or selecting the best candidate.

Many whites were born into this dishonest America: told that ours is a diverse country, only to be raised in all-white neighborhoods and sent to local property tax-supported, largely white schools, with few opportunities placed in our laps to have black friends.

By the time Rodney King made the news, we had to learn of the goings on of our own country from strangers on the screen—we had no loved ones who experienced institutionally tolerated racial prejudice or violence. We knew no faces on which to see pain. We had no connections.

Twenty years later, and what has changed? Inequality remains. Informal segregation remains. This is still a dishonest America. Whites only know more because there are more cameras, not because of an increase in interracial neighborhoods, places of worship, or other voluntary activities or organizations.

This reality does not create people without tolerance, it creates people without empathy. It is difficult, and perhaps unnatural, to feel empathy for a group excluded from your childhood, education, community, and workplace—especially when you are simultaneously told they are not actually being excluded.

Our crisis today is not that us whites are any more racist than anyone else, it is that we do not engage in empathy. We see a country that functions reasonably well for us and fail to ask how well it works for others. Whites need to view #BlackLivesMatter not as implying other lives do not matter, but as a plea for empathy, a plea to help create a country that works just as well for others as it does for us.

Our crisis tomorrow is that any unrest—any threat to change the status quo, any risk of this country continuing to work as well for us as it did in our childhood—will push white people to increasingly blame others. In accepting the Republican nomination for president in 1968, Richard Nixon stated, “When a nation that has been known for a century for equality of opportunity is torn by unprecedented racial violence … then it's time for new leadership for the United States of America.” Nixon could not have possibly been talking to black America, fresh off the heels of a century of Jim Crow and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was talking to white people—the same people presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump excites by the promise of making America great again.

As we did in 1968, we risk looking to a presidential candidate who promises to restore order and, implicitly, ensure that America continues to work well for us whites.

We do not need to make America great again for us white people. We do not need to tell ourselves that police officers are increasingly targets of violence. We do not need more excuses to dig our heels into the status quo. We need to begin a social evolution in which our influence is real: we must listen to how America works for all minorities—Black, Latino, Muslim, LGBTQIA, Disabled, women, etc. Real understanding will foster empathy between communities, allowing for the creation and promotion of more inclusive spaces, institutions, and policies. Through listening to the voices, pain, and strife of our fellow Americas with whom we may not live, work, or pray, we can begin to create the nation we were raised to believe we already had.  

Safe spaces and court cases: what protesters and professors get wrong on political correctness

The recent protests on college campuses, particularly at the University of Missouri–Columbia and Yale University, targeting insufficient actions to act against racism on the parts of respective administrations, has brought to the fore a complex and important set of questions for all Americans to consider. The rhetoric in both support of, and opposition to, the angered students has made straw men of the arguments on the other side. A more informed and nuanced discussion of the role of free expression in a community with rampant racial tensions could be a step toward understanding between the opposing viewpoints.

The actions at these universities across the country have poured forth stories of the disheartening experiences of black students, both past and present. After a string of high-profile murders of black men at the hands of police officers, the country again finds itself publicly acknowledging the racial tensions that have never truly gone away. However, the story many Americans have received over the past week seems to have been twisted, with those students claiming to be victims of racism being questioned, without similar discourse around those who have been accused of actually creating victims and furthering racial tension. As Virginia Pasley has argued, “Maybe we shouldn't worry so much about the students who ask that others consider their feelings and their histories, the ones who don't want to talk to reporters, the ones who would like people to stop wearing Native American headdresses or blackface to Halloween parties.”

However, the creation of safe spaces by protesting students at Mizzou and the outrage of Yale students toward an administrator’s view on racially insensitive Halloween costumes has put free expression and political correctness in the titles of critical commentaries. Shockingly few of these critics, of course, have acknowledged that students at Mizzou may have good reason to distrust the media and its discourse. Many Americans are uncomfortable with addressing race as such, and instead would rather drip of cowardice by denigrating political correctness; a heuristic for defending racial insensitivity. Indeed, these objections to safe spaces and political correctness often come from positions of privilege: those who have experienced no need for safety and for whom culture need not be corrected.

And so the type of political correctness found on the modern university campus is a public attempt toward empathy. Supporters view the wrongs of history as seeds which bring forth the perennial pain of inequality in American society. Political correctness is one step toward denying nourishment to those seeds, in hopes they will not bloom again. Without this empathic listening and a willingness to understand the realities of others, a person with privilege often cannot see their own advantages. Urging politically correct expression, then, is one way of encouraging and displaying an understanding of the lack of socioeconomic privilege that comes with race, gender, ability, sexual orientation, and other differences. It is a way of saying that society is at least trying to recognize hardships based on these immutable characteristics.

But these realities do not render the protesters infallible. Previously, political correctness dealt exclusively with social and private constraints: violators of these norms would be shunned, boycotted, named, and shamed. However, now those seeking to uphold a more socially just culture call for the imposition of legally or institutionally punitive measures on those who utter undesired expression. This is a fundamental shift.

American law is based on philosophical liberalism, which requires the accommodation of contrary views for consideration in the marketplace of ideas. While free expression is not absolute in the U.S., protections remain broad. When striking down a statute aimed at banning cross burning, the U.S. Supreme Court wrote in a 2003 case that the government can justifiably limit “those statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals”. This “serious expression” of an intent to commit violence is a very specific standard for limiting expression. In 2011 the Court found the Westboro Baptist Church protected by the First Amendment when protesting a soldier’s funeral with outrageous signage. It held that the group had the right to address public issues on public property in a peaceful manner. The police can, at times, punish an expressive act for the potential results or context of that speech, but vanishingly rarely for the content thereof.

Is our legal tradition at odds with state-enforced political correctness? UCLA Law Professor Eugene Volokh seems to think so, objecting to the Mizzou university police’s request for the reporting of “hurtful” speech. University of Chicago Law Professor Geoffrey R. Stone would agree, arguing that no university should take positions on matters of substance. One Mizzou professor has accused the student protesters of having an “a la carte” approach to the First Amendment. So while supporters of these student protesters assert that free expression does not equal the freedom to bully, outraged detractors view their political correctness as a denial of legitimate political discourse, and some have gone to hyperbolically compare it to fascism.

The critics, however, have lost sight of their own context. Almost all people have a list of topics not worthy of public debate. Take miscegenation as an example: most modern-day Americans would be troubled by a university giving prominent speaking time to an individual wishing to convince others of its immorality. In classes, we would be troubled if our children were ‘taught the controversy’ that inter-racial marriage may or may not be morally defensible. We do not need to actively censor these ideas; a vast majority feel that society has resolved these issues and moved beyond these discussions. But this is generational; many Americans felt differently about miscegenation only three generations ago. Thus with present college students: what many of them find unworthy topics of serious public discourse (racially insensitive Halloween costumes, for example), older commentators find to be legitimate political issues about which reasonable people may disagree.

The modern challenge of racism is that few people are consciously or actively engaged in overt discriminatory practices which lead to evidenced subjugation of those who are not straight white males. One could sardonically note that blacks just so happen to be arrested, jailed, and killed at astronomical rates, for example. But even if racism is less legally identifiable, it is no less important to combat. Advocating for political correct expression sets the tone of acceptable discourse in society. However, involving the machinery of the state to compel socially responsible expression creates a conflict between social justice and individual liberty. Resolving that conflict in favor of social justice would require a wider re-cognition of the American legal system, which is largely based on individual liberty.

The institution of American law, of course, has been created, shaped, and maintained nearly exclusively by white males, many of whom view their job as simply calling balls and strikes. This is a problematic claim that one can and should hold inherently objective views, with no subjective reflection of one’s experiences. There rarely exists the recognition that a biased strike-zone renders the mere calling of balls and strikes an act of bias itself. Thus, yelling ‘First Amendment!’ at students of color when they demand safe spaces or institutional condemnation of racist expression comes across as tone deaf to the greater challenge of re-understanding what is fair for all in America. Many of the students making headlines have moved beyond the colorblind fallacy, understanding that race-blind policies entrench the structurally unequal status quo.

Yet here lies the nuance: while the First Amendment was in fact written entirely by white males, many of whom owned slaves, and has been almost exclusively interpreted and applied by white males, it is not inherently void. Rendering it so would be fallacious. It can be considered voidable, and the context of its creation should be understood when assessing it. Such an assessment should subject the First Amendment and the U.S. Constitution itself to debate on college campuses, full of vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp criticisms. Students should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open in their discussion of these documents, so that all races, genders, and experiences have a voice. Indeed, an inclusive discourse, where subjective experiences are expressed, where hot emotions clash with cold reason, would be most fitting for the First Amendment. Because that is all it asks for.

Explaining America: #BlackLivesMatter and CIA Torture

One of the hats I wear is a teacher of English as a new language, mostly to new Americans. They all came here for a reason—for a better shot at happiness—and as such generally have a personal stake in the American Dream not only being a reality, but having room for them and their children, as well.

In order to present a full picture of the United States, however, I try to allow the students to draw their own conclusions from the country’s past: our relations with Native Americans, our Founding, our reactions to the various waves of immigrants, the history of slavery and its role in our governmental development, and the Women’s Rights, Civil Rights, and Gay Rights movements. The 2000 presidential election, for example, is a great lesson on our respect for governance institutions. I try to highlight the pressures and interests which explain what seems bad about American history and note the asterisks which often follow what seems good about American history.

In previous months, I have been asked questions which lead to teachable moments. An individual burning a Quran in Florida leads to a wonderful discussion of free speech and the path of 1^st Amendment litigation during the 20^th Century and where it stands today. A discussion on curbing climate change leads to a mention of the Kyoto Protocol, and therefore a lesson on the concept of dualism in international law. The controversies surrounding the Affordable Care Act can lead to an important lesson on federalism.

This past month has been different. Sure, the grand jury verdict regarding the death of Michael Brown led to a discussion about evidence and the presumption of innocence, but the verdict following the death of Eric Garner made the previous lesson feel hollow. Of course the CIA Torture Report can bring to the fore the separation of powers, but the existence of such programs which are so obviously “contrary to our values” is difficult to present in a non-judgmental way.

I love my country. I view America as a good literary protagonist: she has a complex past and she does make mistakes, but she’s affable and fundamentally good. These terrible news stories, however, have made explaining America more difficult and more troubling. Are Jim Crow and Korematsu really just skeletons in America’s closet, or are they examples of her deep flaws which she refuses to address? December 2014 suggests the latter.

The beauty and frustration of a federal republic is that no single institution can address these flaws alone. But America’s story is not over: We The People must actively engage in all levels of governance in order to write the chapter that we wish to read. Looking forward to 2015, I hope we write for America a better future, so when it eventually becomes the past itself, the job of explaining America will be an easy one.

My American Values: True Mobility

The second installment of the My American Values series focuses on what can be called the ‘American Dream’. While my last post concentrated on American law, the values discussed herein cannot easily be found in our founding documents, but more in the national story that Americans tell themselves. Note again that is post is subjective and personal.

What is it?

First, the ‘American Dream’ must be defined. In 1931 James Adams wrote the following in The Epic of America:

[The American dream is] of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.

This definition implies “better and richer and fuller” for each successive generation, evidenced by the later mention of such possibility existing “regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position”. Thus, there is a generationally progressive element to the Dream. The Dream is both collective and individual; we as a nation dream to be better off than our parents and each individual dreams to be better off than his/her parents.

Note that this Dream isn’t inherently zero-sum: the individual wants more pie (for example) than his/her parents, and the society wants to make available more pie for everyone—no one necessarily wants a larger percentage, or  slice, of the pie—just more in an absolute sense. Yet while it isn’t inherently zero-sum, it often does manifest as such—getting ahead mean more people ‘below’ you and fewer ‘above’ you. This is perhaps most interestingly aided by the American tradition of immigration; immigrants come to make up the ‘bottom’ which has been vacated by the newly mobile. Indeed, the zero-sum version of the American Dream requires immigration. Note that the Statue of Liberty states, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses…” not ‘give me your educated, your English-fluent, your elite’.

Is it a dream?

Yes, it is only a dream. For the American Dream to be a reality, there are a few necessary conditions.

First, the nation’s economy must grow—there must be more ‘pie’ to go around than the previous generation in order for more people to be better off than worse off. If the economy is stagnant, some people may trade places, but in the end each person’s gain is another’s loss. I hope I’m not the first to tell you that our GDP had negative growth in 2008 and 2009, and our growth rate hasn’t been over 4% since 2000.

Second, in order to satisfy the “opportunity for each according to ability or achievement” part of the Dream, there would need to exist an equal opportunity for each U.S. citizen to achieve a measure of success. I don’t feel I need to argue that a child born to a poor non-English speaking single parent, through no fault of his/her own, faces unequal opportunity for success than a child, through no virtue of his/her own, is born into an affluent family with a stay at home parent in suburbia. We have a long way to go here.

Third, each generation must give to their children a world capable of success. The American Dream requires parents to want better for their child; to actively equip them with better tools and lessons for life than available to themselves. Because when a generation is 20-30 years old, that generation can’t command the economy or government. Influential institutions in the U.S. are commanded by those in their 50s and 60s (and increasingly 70s, as well). That generation has failed their children. They have gifted us a world where jobs are less available than when they were our age and where education—even adjusted for inflation—is greatly more expensive then when they went to school. What’s worse is that the generation doing this to their children, the Baby Boomers, was given unprecedented opportunity and growth by their parents! What are their parents called? That’s right—The Greatest Generation. In short, the ‘Baby Boomer’s have given their children a world worse than their parents gave them. In American Dream parlance, they are failures.

Does it exist?

Perhaps. However, in order to be successful (defined in the standard education/profession/economic way), one must behave, dress, and sound a certain way. For example, you’ll find few political, media or business leaders without a strong (and unaccented) command of English, without wearing the typical Euro-centric ‘business’ outfit of a suit and tie, without Euro-American values, Judeo-Christian beliefs, hetero-normal identity, etc. Thus, social mobility is encouraged, but you have to look, sound, and act the part. It’s not only that you have to ‘Americanize’, but you have to ‘elitify’ (a term I have coined to mean ‘to become like the predominant elites’), as well.

Thus, we encourage low-income and low-class born and naturalized Americans and immigrants to work hard and get only at the cost of shedding their previous identities. The working class has put down the beer and pick up the wine. The urban and rural must either lose their respective accents or relegate themselves to a lifetime of code-switching. Immigrants must don suits and learn English quickly. All must learn to value capitalism, education, the institution-centric paradigm, etc. The present elite does not look much different than their parents’ elite—and I can tell you that tomorrow’s elite doesn’t look much different than today’s elite. Thus, to really grab the American Dream, one must give up who one’s parents were. One must elitify.

And it is this elitification process which bothers me the most. Without it, the American Dream would represent true mobility—but instead it is a farce. True mobility would mean being able to retain the values and identities of your parents while still being successful. American stories like The Beverly Hillbillies, The Nanny, and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air are so interesting because the main characters don’t go through this elitification process where everyone expects they would.

Thus, my American value is not the American Dream—but the value of true mobility. America is often called a melting pot, but we must be careful with this metaphor. Elitification is like a fondue—all sorts of cheeses are added but in the end they create one homogeneous flavor. True Mobility is like chili—many ingredients are added, but each retains its individual flavor and identity while still succeeding as part of the whole. This value is more American because it conforms better with the Declaration of Independence; that we are all equal and through liberty—not conformity—can we pursue our happiness.

Whiteness: A Bundle of Privileges

Introduction

This post discusses the scholarship of race in the field of public relations. It begins with the concept of whiteness and how to think of the concept. It then flows to practical outcomes of that concept and the future of such issues. 

Whiteness

Whiteness indeed is invisible to those who exist within it. (Edwards, 2010; p. 206) And for this reason, many young whites don’t understand the important social advantages they are given. Many people in the professional world today grew up in majority white communities, and went to majority white high schools and colleges. In some instances, these institutions aren’t simply white, they are blindingly white. Here, I will consider whiteness a bundle of privileges. At any given time people may have all, some, or none of these privileges. What makes these privileges important is their invisibility to those who have them (Edwards, 2010).

For these reasons, one shouldn’t be surprised that during discussions about race, the ‘white innocence’ defense is often raised. For those inside ‘whiteness’, the white innocence defense sounds like this: ‘to end issues of race, let’s simply treat everyone equally now, and everything will be fair’. To those who have realized the existence of this whiteness, such a defense sounds like this: ‘for centuries people who happen to look like me have set up institutional structures and social norms which implicitly benefit me, and of which I take advantage. While such benefits aren’t afforded to you, I didn’t create those structures, so sorry.’ As Edwards writes, “Recognizing whiteness means recognizing its effects and the unearned advantage it represents” (p. 207).

Merit

Another reaction by those within whiteness that goes hand-in-hand with white innocence is what is often called ‘pretextuality’. This is the simple act of setting ‘color-blind’ criteria for admissions or hiring purposes. The problem here is that people within whiteness don’t realize that most criteria used are skewed toward white applicants. Edwards discussed the discourse of merit here (pp. 210-213). Some issues here are more economic, while others are more cultural. While these biases do affect low income white applicants, there is a disproportionate effect on non-whites.

            Economic issues begin with pre-school programs. Children who learn basic social concepts such as sharing and educational concepts such as their letters and numbers before beginning their compulsory education are advantaged over others. Also, placement in elite private schools or well funded public schools helps to drive these differences.

Extracurricular activities can also be part of this discourse. They can cost money, require parental participation, require transportation, or sometimes simply require time. If a parent must work two jobs, and cannot bring a child to scout meetings, or cannot pay for youth sports, or must rely on the older child to care for the younger children after school each day, the children effected will not appear ‘well rounded’ in applications to colleges.

Moreover, SAT prep courses, ACT prep courses, campus visits, and even college admission consulting firms are available to those who are able and willing to pay for these services. The discrimination here is clear against those who live paycheck to paycheck. The issue of ever-increasing cost of education serves only to chill those who must face debt larger than the yearly income of anyone they know.

Culturally, many communities don’t value education. Simply put, money gets you food and shelter, a job gets you money, and school takes time and money away from a job and thus food and shelter. While one might say, ‘education can get you a better job with more money’, the reality is that food is needed today. The rent is needed tomorrow. Thinking about going to college is often simply too abstract to think about when one fears that if they quit their job, they have nothing left. In addition to that, it is discouraging if you wish to work in fields such as public relations, law or business, and you know no one doing that kind of work. Further, in many non-white communities, simply studying and caring about school may represent ‘acting white’ and be grounds for teasing, bullying, and harassment (Obama, 2004). Additionally it has been shown that admissions tests such as the SAT favor white applicants by making Euro-centric references and assumptions in their questions (Santelices & Wilson, 2010).

The reflexive question is this: how many privileges from the bundle do whites in public relations have?

Affirmative Action

Regarding affirmative action, I would agree with the points made in class that few people of our generation have consciously or actively engaged in overt discriminatory practices which have led to the subjugation of non-whites. However, it is important to note that many take advantage of the above-mentioned privileges of being white. Like running with the wind at one’s back, being white aligns one’s cultural goals, values, and mores with those that are accepted and furthered as worthy for the whole of society.

Edwards argues that for non-whites who have attended prestigious schools (such as Newhouse) or have political or elite connections share cultural capital with their white peers, and may not feel that race is an important identity for them (pg. 215). Essentially, Edwards is saying that non-whites who are able to reap the benefits of society traditionally reserved for white, effectively become white themselves. This discussion is about how many privileges in the bundle one has. How many must one have to be considered in whiteness? How many would put someone outside of whiteness?

To some extent, I agree with Edwards. A white prospective student or employee may have come from a family which does not value education, which is poor, which could be either urban or rural. At the same time, a non-white can come from well-off families who emphasize education, and come from suburbia. This is a possibility, and it needs to be admitted. However, it is not a majority of the time. Many schools and companies seek socioeconomic diversity just as much as they seek racial and gender diversity. A point worth noting here, however, is physical characteristics. The simple act of being a different color is instantly visually noticeable and unchangeable. Social class needn’t be worn on the sleeve, and can be altered. That, I feel, is an important distinction to make here. The color of white skin itself is a privilege in that bundle.

Race in Public Relations and the Future

Simply put, nothing said in the chapters about the current state of race in public relations cannot be said about race in fields such as business, law, math, science, or medicine. Although the point regarding the timing of the development of public relations is well taken, the advancement of non-whites in the fields mentioned above has been similarly woeful (Edwards, 2010). The first step toward improving the state of race in not only public relations, but other fields, is discussion of why racial differences are important. An organization simply cannot assume that their employees have come from diverse enough backgrounds to understand the privileges of whiteness. There needs to be a genuine understanding of why diversity is important for serving publics, especially if the publics themselves are diverse (Waymer, 2010). One may ask, ‘where does it end? When do we need to stop considering diversity when hiring or in admissions?’ This simple answer is never. Colleges, Universities, small companies, large corporations, the government, and even high schools have a legitimate interest in exposing their members and institutional structure to a wide array of world view. As such, factors that may affect one world view should be put on the table when the time to make decisions arises. Factors such as age, prior life experiences, social economic background, country of origin, religion, political ideology, education, interests, ethnicity, culture, and yes race should be honestly considered. In fact, many, if not all, of these already appear on most applications. Like any tool, this information can be used maliciously or benevolently, but if an organization honestly wishes for a wide array of creative discourse and the best output, it will use this information to be inclusive, and to counteract the biases of society and history, albeit in some small way.

Conclusion

            Whiteness is a bundle of privileges. However, in our modern day, there is no dichotomy between ‘whiteness’ and ‘non-whiteness’. It would be more accurate to view this concept as a spectrum. On one end, the power and prestige of educational elitism, political inclusiveness, material wealth, social ‘normality’ and acceptance is occupied primarily by whites of the upper-class. On the other end, the shut doors of political invisibility, minimal job prospects, poverty, social un-acceptance, and educational failure is occupied primarily by non-whites of the lower-class. While most of us are somewhere in the middle, we must be cognizant of the structural difficulties for those from the latter category. Although America has a traditional discourse encouraging individuals to ‘pull oneself up by one’s bootstraps’, we must realize that in order to do so, one must be able to afford bootstraps in the first place.

References

Edwards, L. (2010) “Race” in public relations. In R. L.Heath (Ed.), The SAGE handbook of public relations (pp. 205-221). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Obama, B. "2004 Democratic National Convention Keynote Address" 2004 Democratic National Convention. Boston. 27 July 2004.

Santelices, M.V., & Wilson, M. (2010). Unfair treatment? The case of Freedle, the SAT, and the standardization approach to differential item functioning. Harvard Educational Review, 80(4), 160-134.

Waymer, D. (2010) Does public relations scholarship have a place in race? In R. L.Heath (Ed.), The SAGE handbook of public relations (pp. 205-221). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Personal Safety: Balancing Demographic Propensities and Societal Values

For this post, I bring forth a common question of safety and equality: If a demographic group has a greater propensity to commit a particular crime, is one socially allowed to avoid individuals of that demographic group in the interest of his or her personal safety?

Here, we can think of several examples. Would you trust a male to babysit your young child, as males have a higher propensity for violence? If you are walking down a dark street, are you justified in feeling more threatened based on the gender or race of the person passing by? To this end, I will paraphrase Joshua Dressler, a leading scholar in criminal law:

Even if the typical American believes  that blacks' propensity toward violence justifies a quicker and more forceful response when a suspected assailant is black, this fact is legally significant only if the law defines reasonable beliefs as typical beliefs. Legal reasonableness, however, extends beyond typicality to consider the social interests implicated in a given situation. Hence 'typical' beliefs are not per se reasonable. If we accept that racial discrimination violates contemporary social morality, then an actor's failure to overcome his or her racism for the sake of another's health, safety, and personal dignity is blameworthy and thus unreasonable, independent of whether it is 'typical'.

So, if we value equality as a society, then such discrimination in the interest of personal safety is socially blameworthy. What do you think? Are you willing to put aside statistical propensities in the interest of social equality, or are such things to abstract to ‘risk’ safety?

This quote by Dressler seems to be aimed at the very idea of 'latent racism' or 'racism of the mind'.  This almost institutional racism is in large part our current racial issue in the U.S. We seldom must condemn overt acts or statements of racism. However, this 'subtle racism' is pervasive. I think that, as a society, we value equality quite highly. So highly, in fact, that these considerations must be discouraged. The first step toward curing the racism in the world is to cure the racism in the mind, and this must be done by showing such things are socially unacceptable.