Some months ago I questioned the famous statement of George Santayana, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” I argued that even if we remember the past we may end up repeating it.
And now, repetition is occurring. This month the Economist called its editorial about today’s racial conditions “The Fire This Time,” echoing James Baldwin’s passionate 1962 denunciation of the American legacy of racism.[1] The editorial also drew a parallel between today and the murderous year of 1968—even to the point of observing that a flu pandemic (called the Hong Kong flu) killed about 100,000 Americans that year.
Could a better understanding of the past have prevented the racial tragedies and tumult we are going through today? To begin answering that, let’s assume that someone did understand the relevant history. I suspect, for example, that Thomas Sowell and Shelby Steele did.
Daniel P. Moynihan may have, too. But Moynihan’s experience indicates that no matter how much you know and how much involved in public affairs you are, your advice may fall on deaf ears.
In 1965, Moynihan (1927-2003) was an assistant secretary of labor in the Lyndon Johnson administration. He wrote a report on the condition of the black family. One reason many African-Americans were poor, even destitute, he said, was that so many families were weak. The legacy of slavery and Jim Crow had made it difficult for black men to become family heads; male youths needed male leadership and that lack led to crime and illegitimacy. “There is considerable evidence that the Negro community is in fact dividing between a stable middle class group that is steadily growing stronger and more successful, and an increasingly disorganized and disadvantaged lower class group,” the report said. [2]
Moynihan wanted the Johnson administration to focus on strengthening the black family.
That didn’t happen. Instead, the War on Poverty set into place means-tested transfer programs and expanded government social-work bureaucracies.
In 1970, Moynihan, then a counselor to Republican president Richard Nixon, wrote another report—a 1650-word memo. [3] In this he stressed that the black family was actually progressing and the best policy would be a period of “benign neglect”—meaning not getting caught up in racial conflict but allowing the progress being made by black families to continue on its own. He did, however, also propose a guaranteed minimum income.
Moynihan’s use of the term “benign neglect” stirred up anger. When questioned, Moynihan explained that the term “benign neglect” had been used in 1839 by a British lord to recommend a mild policy toward Canada, part of the British Empire. However, the conservative Edmund Burke also had recommended such a policy toward the American colonies (he called it “wise and salutary neglect”).
Using the term, with its sinister connection to a British conservative, poisoned whatever chances such a policy might have had. It was not until 1984 (nearly 15 years later) that Charles Murray, supported by the Manhattan Institute, presented a devastating picture of welfare programs, Losing Ground. [4] It was 1996 before President Bill Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich modified those programs. (Moynihan, then a senator, opposed the reform.)
Welfare reform may have benefited the black community by ending the tendency of welfare to encourage illegitimacy. And perhaps the earned income tax credit, a tax-based version of Moynihan’s income plan, also benefited African-Americans. In any case, the improvement in African-American employment over the past few years has been dramatic. (That progress was, of course, halted and reversed by the coronavirus.)
What would a long-time policy of “benign neglect” have brought? Could it have reduced crime, ended police brutality, and channeled white guilt into more constructive activities? I don’t know. The past does not tell us.
[1] James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time (New York: Random House [1962], 1993).
[2]Office of Policy Planning and Research, U. S. Dept. of Labor, “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action,” March 1965, Chapter 2.
[3] Daniel P. Moynihan, Memorandum for the President, Jan. 16, 1970.
[4] Charles Murray, Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950-1980 (New York: Basic Books, 1984).
Your discussion of the problems many black families face (and it could have been more generally poor families) is incredibly important. But as you say powerfully arguments have been made for a long time by incredibly articulate people on how to reduce these problems, and they have never had much effect on policy.
This makes me think about something I have been asking myself recently as I have heard a steady stream of people repeating the advice that we all have to have a conversation on racism if there is to be any hope of improving opportunities for blacks. That something is: Could I have been successful starting a conversation with any of the recent protesters in Atlanta, or anywhere else, on the importance of considering the harm done to poor families by the existing welfare incentives that are undermining poor families by subsidizing the breakup of families, increasing teenage pregnancies, and encouraging dependency on impersonal government programs?
Am I wrong in believing that such an attempt would more likely put me in physical danger than to start a reasonable conversation? I must admit that I have no motivation to do what it would take to get an answer to this question.
Well said. “Discussion” often means either attending a moral lecture or kneeling at a service of atonement and praying forgiveness.
One could also mention that the insistence on discussing the sin of racism divides us into victims and purported perpetrators or the responsible heirs of perpetrators. More useful would be a discussion of our common humanity.
“Could a better understanding of the past have prevented the racial tragedies and tumult we are going through today?” One hallmark of the younger protestors is that they are almost entirely ignorant or ignoring the tremendous progress in the recent past and insist race relations are deteriorating and police abuse of minorities is growing. The only reliable way to measure is to know history and the data it produces.
History and its data is easy to find for anyone interested. Or one could read a few accounts like Theodore Roosevelt’s assessment of the NY City Police department when he served on the board and then as chief. Or one could have lived long enough–as I have–experiencing segregation in the South, Boston riots against school integration, police harassment of long haired youth, etc.
Ignorance is repeating itself. History is not.
Very nicely done, Jane! Ramona