Social Justice and the Notion of “Race off the Table”
Plato thought that justice in a society implies a harmonious functioning of all the members of that society under a philosopher-king, whereas justice in an individual implies a harmonious functioning of all aspects of the individual’s personality under reason. Justice implies receiving one’s due, which can refer to distributive sharing of economic rewards, or retributive assignment of punishments. A zeroth-order definition of social justice is the equality of opportunity for individuals who are working in order to obtain economic benefits and prestige in a meritocratic system. In stark opposition to that definition is the Marxist credo, “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” In this essay, we will assume the equality-of-opportunity approach to social justice. Whenever race is held to be irrelevant, as a matter of public policy, to the process of obtaining economic or societal benefits, then we say that “race is off the table” (not a factor that is or should be taken into consideration). “Race being off the table” is consistent with Martin Luther King’s principle of judging individuals by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.
The main problem in social-justice theory considered as equality of opportunity is the accounting for the effects of an individual’s previous family history on his or her opportunity to achieve adequate economic and societal outcomes.
The philosopher John Rawls sought a way to institute “Justice is Fairness,” which is the title of the first chapter in his book, “A Theory of Justice.” Rawls wanted social contract theory on a higher level of abstraction that would connect to a theory of rational choice. One of his basic principles was that inequalities of wealth and authority are just only if they result in compensating benefits for everyone. A Rawlsian government is capable of trading off subsidies to the least advantaged and confiscation of wealth from the most advantaged in order to leave society as a whole better off. Outright confiscation of all property would presumably be harmful to future economic survival, but who knows where a particular legislative body at a particular time will set the ever-changing limit on confiscation of wealth. Indeed, if it is true - - as a celebrated politician once said while critiquing the entrepreneurial class - - that “You [the entrepreneur] didn’t build that!”; then the way seems to be open for a practically unlimited confiscation of individuals’ wealth, whether annually or at death. On the other hand, although there may be a role for some level of government transfer payments, there is an alternative to an exclusive emphasis on “subsidies to the least advantaged,” as seen in the life and work of Robert L. Woodson, Sr.
On page A13 of the print edition of the Wall Street Journal (Oct. 16-17, 2021) there is an interview of Robert L. Woodson, Sr. by Jason Willick. (There was a typographical error in the blog of September 6, 2021: The correct name is Robert L. Woodson, Sr. The name was cited correctly in the blog of October 1, 2020.)
At 84, Robert L. Woodson, Sr. is preparing to retire from a career of promoting social justice. After years of social work that included the foundation of the Woodson Center and a participation in the reform of Washington’s Kenilworth-Parkside public housing project, Woodson helped to influence President Reagan to sign a 1988 reform of federal public-housing laws that emphasized tenant management. At Kenilworth-Parkside, tenant management was successful in ousting oppressive drug dealers and in sending 600 kids to college over the course of 12 to 15 years.
Woodson grew up in Philadelphia and was distressed by the segregation that he saw when a military assignment sent him to the Deep South. He earned math and social work degrees before leading protests against segregation in West Chester, Pennsylvania in the 1960’s and founding the Woodson Center in 1981. The Woodson Center’s objective has been to reinvigorate indigenous civil society in impoverished neighborhoods and to respond to problems of crime, addiction, and family breakdown. Ultimately, Mr. Woodson wants to “deracialize race” by making it an incidental category in social-improvement projects.
The Woodson Center’s most recent project has been “1776 Unites,” which opposes leftist educational programs and offers an educational curriculum that has been downloaded 21,000 times. The leading theme of “1776 Unites” is that the nation’s history of racial oppression should be not merely a source of moral accusation, but a celebration of black Americans’ resilience in the face of oppression. The curriculum stands in “unqualified opposition to any curricula that depict America as irredeemably racist … or fail to provide examples from history of black achievement against the odds.” Clearly, Woodson’s vision of social justice is one of equality of opportunity for individuals who are encouraged by mentors to overcome problems in family history. Mentored individuals work to achieve economic benefits and social prestige in a meritocratic system. Individual achievement occurs without government intervention to create equality of outcome.
Mr. Woodson believes that some progressives’ campaigns to achieve diversity at elite schools via the elimination of standardized tests is a modern-day form of lethal bigotry. Woodson’s hope is that America can get “race off the table, so we can deal with the moral and spiritual free fall that is consuming all races of people.”