History of Racial Oppression

Reginald Wilson is Senior Scholar at the American Council on Education. He has written widely on race and education.

W. E. B. DUBOIS WROTE IN 1907 THAT THE PRINCIPAL PROBLEM OF THE 20TH CENTURY would be the color line. He was correct. Derrick Bell undoubtedly believes it will be the problem of the 21st century, continuing into the foreseeable future, as well. That is the predominant thesis of Faces at the Bottom of the Well: the Permanence of Racism and the reason for its notoriety. In an interview in the New York Times, he argued that "America is a racist country and always will be," but rather than finding this a cause for gloom, he insists that, "It reaffirms that it is not [blacks'] fault ... It is an affirmation of themselves and not a basis for despair." Even though he does not, therefore, hold out hope for success in fighting that deep-seated racism, he says, "there is satisfaction in the struggle itself."

Faces at the Bottom of the Well is a powerful recital of the history of racial oppression through a series of fables, usually involving the fictional character, Geneva Crenshaw, first introduced in Derrick Bell's previous book, And We Are Not Saved: The Elusive Quest for Racial Justice. Ms. Crenshaw, a lawyer, serves as the voice of hard-edged reality and the foil in the philosophical dialogues with Professor Bell. For example, in one fable, Ms. Crenshaw proposes the Racial Preference Licensing Act, a new federal law allowing white business owners to discriminate openly (rather than covertly as they do now) against blacks by paying a 3% tax into an "equality fund" that would be used to support education and business opportunities for blacks. The discussion around the Racial Preference Licensing Act is used to make the point that, "it is time to bring hard-headed realism rather than well-intentioned idealism to bear on our long-standing racial problems."

Other provocative fables are used to make additional telling points, the most striking of which is the tale of "The Space Traders." Creatures from another planet agree to solve all of America's economic and social problems, at one cost: the entire black population must be carried off to an unknown destiny in outer space. The story is used to comment on good and evil behavior of blacks and whites; its inevitable conclusion -- yes, the whites agree to sacrifice the blacks -- is nevertheless stunning. Professor Bell concludes that, "in the melding of millions of individuals into a nation -- some within it must be sacrificed, killed or kept in misery so that the rest who share the guilt for this monstrous wrong can bring out of their guilt those qualities of forbearance and tolerance essential for group survival and growth." Thus, the inevitability, indeed, the necessity of racism in society.

"A truly integrated society that is brought into being by the enforcement of laws barring discriminatory conduct, history and -- one would hope -- common sense tells us that dream is never coming true," says Geneva Crenshaw. Bell goes even further. "We must first recognize and acknowledge...that our actions are not likely to lead to transcendent change and may indeed...be of more help to the system we despise." For example, in response to student protests, Harvard hires one or two black token professors, the protest dies down and little is changed.

Yet, despite the provocative fables and striking history lessons, the book ultimately disappoints. Professor Bell examines race relations from a static perspective and, therefore, despite his acute sense of history, cannot see progress. In a New York Times interview, Bell says, "Despite all the changes over the years, blacks are worse off and more subjugated than at any time since slavery." This is demonstrably untrue and lends a bleaker than necessary hue to our present prospects. It is this judgment that underlies Bell's view that racism is permanent and unchanging.

Professor Bell leaves the reader with scant hope for redress against a racism so embedded in and reinforced by its social context that, paradoxically, actions directed against it serve to reinforce it in mutated form. Yet blacks are counseled not to succumb to despair but to take "satisfaction in the struggle itself." How can a struggle which invariably strengthens the forces of oppression or, at best, results in a pyrrhic victory, remain a viable source of motivation? This is not to suggest that the forces of racism are easily overcome; they are deeply rooted in American society -- but that strategies for fighting them are many and varied once they are viewed from other political and social perspectives.

A HINT OF EXPLANATION IS MENTIONED BY BELL BUT, CHARACTERISTICALLY, HE DOES NOT follow up to explore the consequences. He observes that, "throughout history politicians have used blacks as scapegoats for failed economic or political policies." And then goes on to note: "when whites perceive that it will be profitable, or at least cost-free to serve, hire, admit or otherwise deal with blacks on a non-discriminatory basis, they do so." It seems evident that whites are not monolithically racist and can respond positively so long as there is no racially polarizing battle over the limited resources for which capitalism is responsible. This is an opening to what could have been a very enlightening discussion, which Bell does not pursue. Moreover, it could have led to a wider discussion in an even broader framework by examining how racism plays itself out in a world-wide context.

In that regard, Bell quotes Frantz Fanon favorably as saying, "I as a man of color do not have the right to hope that in the white man there will be a crystallization of guilt toward the past of my race." Quite the contrary, there is a growing movement made up of white people willing to wallow in guilt permanently. Many call themselves "anti-racist racists" and spend much of their time in retreat from politics working self-therapeutically against their own racism. As Bertram Gross shrewdly observed, "anger, outrage, confessions of overwhelming guilt may be good therapy; they can also become a barrier to effective action." What is required is whites, committed to work on institutional and societal racism, to transcend self-flagellation for sustained political commitment.

Fanon is cited again, to reinforce Bell's conclusion, to the effect that he "did not believe that modern structures, deeply poisoned with racism, could be overthrown. And yet he urged resistance." But Fanon also recognized deeply insurgent counterimpulses stating that, "no attempt must be made to encase man, for it is his destiny to be set free," and implemented this vision by struggling on the side of Algeria in its war with France, from which it eventually won its freedom. Fanon believed that, in concert with others, he could change seemingly immutable circumstances.

Bell believes that "liberal democracy and racism in the United States are historically, even inherently, reinforcing ... the apparent anomaly is an actual symbiosis ... the permanence of this symbiosis' ensures that civil rights gains will be temporary and setbacks inevitable." In a closely argued analytical chapter on legal history, Bell persuasively shows that this is true. But his analysis is limited by confining it to the United States and to the present. Such limitation does not lend itself to showing how American law was influenced by world events and historical entanglements around the globe. For example, the rapid desegregation of American society does not make much sense simply in the context of United States, but makes enormous sense in the context of decolonization in the Third World accompanied by simultaneous liberation struggles. Racism, in the final analysis, is the social justification of unequal power and oppression, and the world-wide struggle of blacks and other people of color profoundly affects its maintenance and perpetuation in this country.

Despite his brilliant analysis of present day racism sustained by law and society, Derrick Bell's limited vision leaves him with no answer save futile struggle which may only worsen the black condition. This is not to say that confronting the burden of racism is not an awesome task or that there are guarantees that it will be overcome. But the duty of intellectuals is to seek strategies, to place the struggle in the context of the world liberation movements and to provide guidance to those who continue to struggle. On that score, Professor Bell falls short. He gives succor to those who want to keep things just as they are.

Contents of No. 17