{"id":127,"date":"2008-09-16T16:32:04","date_gmt":"2008-09-16T21:32:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/?p=127"},"modified":"2008-09-16T16:32:04","modified_gmt":"2008-09-16T21:32:04","slug":"overcoming-inter-racial-distrust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/2008\/09\/16\/overcoming-inter-racial-distrust\/","title":{"rendered":"Overcoming Inter-Racial Distrust"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Political Theorist <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/url?sa=t&amp;source=web&amp;ct=res&amp;cd=1&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ias.edu%2Fnewsroom%2Fannouncements%2Fview%2F1174479063.html&amp;ei=giPQSOXYH5GUsAPm14yJBw&amp;usg=AFQjCNGmw6pauAunOHUHhcr1nAPROCIkuQ&amp;sig2=_Dx1QQPatI64TUuXLwK7oQ\">Danielle Allen&#8217;s<\/a> wonderful book, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.press.uchicago.edu\/presssite\/metadata.epl?mode=synopsis&amp;bookkey=22719\">Talking to Strangers<\/a>, is particularly compelling read at this point in the presidential election.<\/p>\n<p>But it is a quote from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.press.uchicago.edu\/Misc\/Chicago\/014665in.html\">an interview<\/a> with Allen where she references the famous photos of Hazel Bryan and the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Little_Rock_Nine\">desegregation of the Little Rock Public schools<\/a> that has particular resonance for me in the current political climate:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>If we believe Plato that the images and stories we feed our children affect them for life, then that photo is setting the coordinates of citizenship for the next generation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.northeastdemocrats.org\/e107_images\/newspost_images\/300px-little_rock_desegregation_1957.jpg\" alt=\"Little Rock Desegregation (From Arkansas Art Center Archive)\" \/><\/p>\n<p>As Allen reminds us, we still live in an area that is less characterized by <em>overt racism<\/em> and more reflected by a deep <em>inter-racial distrust<\/em> that prevents us from sacrificing for one another.\u00a0 It&#8217;s hard to separate out the <em>inter-cultural distrust<\/em> that exists between so-called red and blue America.\u00a0 Robert Putnam&#8217;s revealing <a href=\"http:\/\/www.blackwell-synergy.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1111\/j.1467-9477.2007.00176.x\">work<\/a> on inter-racial trust (which I&#8217;ve also done s<a href=\"http:\/\/www.allacademic.com\/meta\/p_mla_apa_research_citation\/2\/3\/7\/9\/6\/p237969_index.html?phpsessid=f27e12423e3414c504c726f9f597ef53\">ome work<\/a> on ) uncovers a troubling, but intuitive, pattern: the greater the racial diversity of an area, the lower the level of social capital.<\/p>\n<p>in her book, Allen cites the city of Charlotte, which is fourth in Putnam&#8217;s study of 40 regions in the level of church attendance, but 39th in the level of inter-racial trust.\u00a0 This ability for in-group citizenship is offset by the inability to engage in inter-group citizenship.\u00a0 The need to bridge these divides was an early theme of the Obama campaign.\u00a0 It is probably what propelled him past his pastor problems into the Democratic nomination.  I wonder whether that early promise could be realized if he managed to capture the white house.  Would an Obama victory have any effect on inter-racial distrust?  How?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Political Theorist Danielle Allen&#8217;s wonderful book, Talking to Strangers, is particularly compelling read at this point in the presidential election. But it is a quote from an interview with Allen where she references the famous photos of Hazel Bryan and the desegregation of the Little Rock Public schools that has particular resonance for me in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/129"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127\/revisions\/128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}