Discrimination against Negroes
| Author | Otis Dudley Duncan |
| Published date | 01 May 1967 |
| Date | 01 May 1967 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/000271626737100106 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
85
Discrimination
against
Negroes
By
OTIS
DUDLEY
DUNCAN
Otis
Dudley
Duncan,
Ph.D.,
Ann
Arbor,
Michigan,
is
Professor
of
Sociology
and
Director
of
the
Population
Studies
Center
at
the
University
of
Michigan.
He serves
as
a
member
of
the
Census
Advisory
Committee
on
Population
Statistics
and
of
the
Panel
of
Consultants
on
Social
Measurements,
Department
of
Health,
Education,
and
Welfare.
He
is
coauthor,
with
Beverly
Duncan,
of
The
Negro
Population
of
Chicago
(1957),
coauthor,
with
Peter
M.
Blau,
of
The
American
Occupational
Structure
(forthcoming),
and
author
of
monographs
and
articles
on
human
ecology
and
social
stratification.
ABSTRACT:
The
functions
of
indicators
to
measure
fullness
of
participation
of
minorities
in
American
society
can
best
be
understood
by
relating
them
to
strategic
junctures
in
the
socioeconomic
life
cycle.
Data
for
Negroes,
in
particular,
reveal the
operation
of
two
types
of
handicaps—those
common
to
all
members
of
the
society
subject
to
disadvantages
of
back-
ground
or
misfortune,
and
those
specific
to
minority
status.
To
distinguish
between
them,
and
thus
to
measure
progress
in
reducing
discrimination,
requires
not
only
comprehensive
time
series
but
also
methods
and
models
suited
to
the
analysis
of
causal
sequences.
Despite
the
growing
fund
of
valuable
indi-
cators
of
the
status
of
"nonwhite"
Americans,
a
number
of
statistical
hazards
must
be
circumvented
before
reliable
infer-
ences
and
realistic
recommendations
become
possible.
In
reaching
interpretations
in
this
field,
social
science
should
operate
as
a
"third
force,"
complementing
the
work
of
policy-
makers
and
program-administrators,
on
the
one
hand,
and
civic
action
groups
on
the
other.
Present
knowledge
is
inadequate
to
the
task
of
formulating
specific
proposals
for
redirecting
trends.
It
could
rapidly
become
more
nearly
adequate
with
the
availability
of
sufficient
resources
for
research,
full
co-
operation
of
official
statistical
agencies,
freedom
to
investigate
so-called
sensitive
problems,
and
concerted
attempts
to
im-
prove
analytical
and
interpretive
models.
For
the
moment,
we
can
only
be
sure
that
formidable
obstacles
remain
in
the
way
of
achieving
freedom
from
discrimination.
86
T HERE
is
something
to
be
said
for
phrasing
policy
goals
(as
distin-
guished
from
program
objectives)
in
deliberately
vague
terms.
No
one
can
say
for
sure
what
is
meant
by
health,
welfare,
or
security,
but
it
is
agreed
that
our
afHuent
society
enjoys
a
greater
measure
of
these
desiderata
than
could
have
been
imagined
a
century
ago;
yet
it
falls
short
of
what
we
now
want.
Goals
are
conditioned
by
what
is
known,
or
at
least
suspected,
to
be
feasible.
Social
ideals
gain
and
lose
content
with
the
progress
of
knowledge
and
the
ac-
cumulation
of
experience.
Today
we
recognize
as
forms
of
inequality,
or
manifestations
of
discrimination,
social
patterns
that
were
accepted
only
a
few
years
ago-not
because
they
were
then
deemed
just,
but
simply
because
they
were
still
unidentified.
As
we
bring
knowledge
to
bear
upon
the
achievement
of
&dquo;freedom
from
dis-
crimination,&dquo;
we
shall
inevitably
alter
the
very
concept
of
discrimination.
Indeed,
it
may
not
be
premature
to
forecast
a
decline
in
the
usefulness
of
the
concept
for
deliberations
on
our
society’s
future.
Already
the
operative
meaning
of
this
goal
is
shifting
from
an
emphasis
on
the
mere
elimination
of
various
sanctioned
and
routinized
dis-
criminatory
practices.
What
we
really
want,
I
suppose,
is
freedom
from
the
results
of
discrimination.
But
since
we
can
only
measure-or,
actually,
infer-
some
of
these
results,
our
goal
might
better
be
stated
in
positive
but
open-
ended
terms:
freedom
o
full
participa-
tion.
Remediable
limitations
on
full
participation
will
then
appear
as
un-
desirable,
whether
or
not
one
could
convincingly
attribute
them
to
discrimi-
nation
in
some
fairly
definite
sense
of
the
word.
Fullness
of
participation
might
come
to
mean
the
opportunity
to
share
completely
the
responsibilities,
risks,
and
hazards
of
citizenship,
as
well
as
the
rewards
of
achievement
and
acceptance.
FUNCTIONS
OF
INDICATORS
In
one
sense,
the
measures
of
welfare
and
participation
needed
to
ascertain
the
status
and
changes
of
status
of
a
minority
presumed
to
be
subject
to
dis-
crimination
are
no
different
from
the
measures
required
for
the
population
as
a
whole-save,
of
course,
that
they
must
be
available
specifically
for
the
minor-
ity
as
such.
We
already
have
much
knowledge
about
the
properties
and
uses
of
statistical
indicators
which
we
are
not
applying
fully
to
the
diagnosis
of
dis-
crimination
or
to
the
measurement
of
progress
(or
lack
of
progress)
in
remov-
ing
discrimination.
Many
of
the
sta-
tistics
issued
for
the
total
population
are
also
available
for
the
&dquo;nonwhite&dquo;
segment.
However,
&dquo;nonwhites&dquo;
are
not
a
single
minority,
but
rather
a
congeries
of
minorities-Negroes,
sev-
eral
distinct
groups
of
Oriental
extrac-
tion,
and
Indian-Americans-with
very
different
kinds
of
social
positions
and
life
chances.
If
the
subsequent
discus-
sion
must
rely
heavily
on
contrasts
be-
tween
white
and
&dquo;nonwhite,&dquo;
let
it
be
understood
that
the
latter
is
merely
a
more
or
less
unsatisfactory
substitute
for
Negro-American.
The
possibility
of
a
parallel
discussion
for
other
so-
called
racial
categories,
not
to
mention
national-cultural
or
religious
minori-
ties,
is
severely
limited
by
the
lack
of
comparable
data.
There
is
a
sense,
however,
in
which
the
mere
availability
of
parallel
series
of
indicators
for
the
several
minority
groups
(including
the
&dquo;majority,&dquo;
which
is
simply
the
largest
of
the
minorities)
would
not
be
sufficient
to
reveal
the
incidence
and
effects
of
discrimination.
Limitations
on
fullness
of
participation
may
indeed
be
suspected
from
the
mere
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