On Wisconsin labor: a compromise proposal.

So I've been reading the news from Wisconsin, as well as editorials on the Wisconsin labor situation from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Economist. I think both sides have a point.

On the one hand, I think it's ridiculous to try to take away collective bargaining rights from the unions. Why should unions, or any bargaining agent, not be able to bargain for whatever they want? In no way is the legislature forced to agree.

However, I think the opposition has a point too. The WSJ (and others) claim that the unions are "on both sides of the bargaining table", because they raise a lot of union dues, which are automatically collected by the state and given to the unions, who then funnel them to Democratic politicians. I support the Democratic party, but that's my choice. I don't accept that any organization should make it for me.

As a theoretical exercise, I propose the following compromise:

(1) Split union dues into two parts, and make half of them opt-in rather than opt-out. You can quit the union, but you can't get out of paying union dues. Apparently, if you make a big fuss, you can get some of your dues back -- those that go to Democratic politicians, or perhaps those that go to beer.

It seems the fair thing to do is to require employees represented by unions (I'm thinking of the TAA specifically, but I imagine other unions are similar) to pay only the bare minimum which actually pays for the TAA's specific expenses in negotiating and dealing with the legislature. Any money that goes to politicians, to social events, or to national labor organizations should not be automatically deducted from paychecks, except from those TAs and employees that specifically decide to join the union. This would come with the understanding that it's purely optional, and comes with higher paycheck deductions.

(2) Require unions to be recertified periodically by secret ballot. Walker wants this, and I think this part is fair. Maybe not annually, but at least every two or four years. Require, say, a quorum of at least a third of those represented by the union, and a majority vote to retain the union.

As it is now, there is no way the unions are going anywhere. There's no real mechanism for them to be disbanded (except by the legislature), and there is enormous social pressure against speaking out against the unions. I get the impression that the unions enjoy overwhelming support. I think it is reasonable that Republicans ask that the unions prove it.

On the storm in Wisconsin.

And not a blizzard! The news from Wisconsin has been incredible. In brief -- control of both houses of the state legislature has passed to Republicans, along with the new Republican governor Scott Walker. He is determined to crush the public-sector unions, and he has proposed a budget that will not only require public sector workers to pay substantially more in contributions to pensions and health insurance, but will also eliminate most of the unions' collective bargaining rights, and make Wisconsin a "right-to-work" state -- i.e., public sector workers will be able to choose whether or not to join the union, and nonmembers won't be obliged to pay union dues.

And here is what has happened so far: Thousands of people, including several of my friends, have marched on the Capitol, in the bitter Wisconsin winter, to protest. They filled the capitol building to the gills, and have brought sleeping bags and stayed overnight to speak for two minutes each. The governor intends to announce his budget at some agricultural feed warehouse in Fitchburg, rather than in the Capitol as is traditional. (Seriously?!) He pushed through his budget in an astonishing hurry, and scheduled a vote today. However, all of the Democratic state senators have left the state (!!), leaving the senate without a three-fifths quorum. Walker ordered state agencies to track them down and bring them in, but they refused, and now that the senators are out of state, these agencies lack jurisdiction anyway.

Incredible! Some of the most vigorous protesting that has been seen in a long time, this side of the Middle East.

Something interesting I've learned, mostly from watching my friends' Facebook pages, is how ideologically important these issues are to many of my friends. I tend to be a little bit queasy about public-sector unions for various reasons. I have seen them overreach, and the people who would like to make Wisconsin "right-to-work" have some good arguments on their side. But overall I support the TAA's efforts, and I would support them even if their opponents were being reasonable. (Which now, they certainly are not.)

If I were in Madison now, I would have probably marched on the Capitol to make sure that UW remained a good university, capable of attracting excellent professors and grad students as it has in the past. But I see that many of my friends care passionately about the union, and the collective bargaining process, itself. As one of my friends said:

Okay, I'm sorry, but I'm tired of people claiming that Gov. Walker's bill is a good proposal is clearly missing out on why the protests are happening. TRY and understand that we are not here protesting because we're unwilling to pay into our pensions and pay more for our health insurance. We are protesting because his bill strips us of our collective bargaining rights. Should this bill passes, we would not be able to bargain for anything BUT wages, and even then it would be capped to the rate of inflation. Anything above that has to be put to a voter referendum. It's incredibly frustrating that people can't seem to understand that it's not that we are unwilling to "cinch our belts" in this economy. Should this bill passes, not only will we be paying more but we will be unable to bargain back anything that we've lost. EVEN when the economy gets better.

Rather astonishing, and anyone who is paying any kind of attention ought to be moved. My friends have little stake in this, from a purely selfish point of view. After all, they're going to graduate soon. They are fighting for collective bargaining because they believe in it.

When I was a grad student at Wisconsin, I didn't understand why people felt so passionately about the TAA. Honestly, I still don't. But my friends have made it clear that they do care passionately, and that they will not be ignored. That alone ought to make Scott Walker and everyone else stop for at least a moment, and respect what my friends and so many others are doing.

I'm white. What does that mean?

Post #2 on racism. (#3 to come. I am pulling together a discussion.)

One of the charges in Tatum's book is that I should actively think of myself as White. I'm not just ``normal'', I have a race. I should embrace my heritage and consider it part of who I am.

It seems that she's a little bit vague on how to do that, though. She recommends reading about white people who were involved with antiracist movements, and identifying with them. Well, okay. But do Black, Asian, Native American, and other peoples only identify with their racial heritage to the extent that people of their races fought racism? Of course not.

The White cultural heritage is quite rich. Bach and Mozart, Leonardo and Picasso, Hume and Kant, Gauss and Newton, Smith, Locke, and Marx, Shakespeare and Twain, Jefferson and Franklin. All of these people are White. And I do consider myself an heir to this heritage.

But would I any less if I weren't white? Maybe so. But I consider these men (yes, they're all white men) to be part of my heritage because they're familiar to Americans of all races; because I have read them, listened to their music, seen their artwork, and been influenced by their ideas. Perhaps it is easier to identify with these men because I am White. Perhaps it is not. But in any case, my feeling is that I share this heritage with people of all races. I don't wish to keep it for myself.

Let me now try to address a different aspect of the question. What does it mean to be White today? Is there a White culture, and am I part of it?

Christian Lander nailed this one. Let's see... I enjoy coffee, yoga, martial arts, improv comedy, and meditation. I have at least some interest in Buddhism. I love travel. I am an academic, and I live in San Francisco. And I'm constantly eschewing luxury and looking for deeper meaning in life. That makes me really, really white.

Lander's blog is funny as hell. But if you look at the list, it's clear where my culture comes from.

Privilege. And lots of it. I'll probably never struggle to pay my bills; the idea feels a bit absurd. I am working my dream job, and I'm a bit disappointed that I won't also be able to stay in my dream city forever. (And if that's not coming from a privileged voice, what is?)

The trend in the list, and in my life, and in those of people I know, is that material survival and even comfort have become easy, and that I don't have a lot of responsibilities. I have an excess of money, and in some ways time, and I am constantly looking for meaningful, "important" things to do.

No apologies for this. There's not much reason for me to worry about comfort, and I am very serious about the responsibilities I do take on. But I'm not so eager to buy a house with a lawn to mow. I've sought out diverse, interesting, entertaining, and (I think) meaningful things to do, and I've been doing my best to live a good life.

Does that mark me as White? Well, certainly there is a correlation in this country between Whiteness and privilege, but I share all of the above traits in common with people who aren't White. People who come from different ethnic backgrounds, but who (like me) had good educational opportunities, and who share many of my values and interests. This is the American subculture I identify with. This is what is part of my identity.

Now my racial heritage, my Whiteness, by itself? I'm sorry, Dr. Tatum, but after mulling the matter over I decided that I really just don't give a shit. But my race correlates with, even if it doesn't dictate, the opportunities I enjoy, and to a large extent my values.

Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?

Such is the title of a book by Beverly Daniel Tatum. I've been long meaning to read a book on race (I've read the Autobiography of Malcolm X, but nothing else comes to mind), and this is a good one.

I'm not going to summarize the book -- instead, I want to talk about what I found powerful, compelling, and surprising, what I found frustrating, and what I disagreed with.

I don't feel white. I'm just normal. Such is my attitude, or my untrained attitude anyway. Why is it so important to Black people that they are Black? Her explanation was brilliant, and I found it completely compelling.

I can illustrate with a trivial example from my own life. Being an academic, I have to move a lot, and people often try to emphasize with what I must be feeling. For example, people assume I care a lot about the weather, but in fact other things are much more important to me. And when people assume that weather is high on my list of priorities, this annoys me. I want to talk to someone who understands my perspective, and who feels the same way.

Now if I can be annoyed by something so inconsequential, to the extent that it feels like a small part of my identity, the book compelled me to imagine that I was treated with more suspicion everywhere I went. Not a lot more, perhaps, or always, but noticeably more, and often. Imagine that I was asked to show my ID when white people were not. That security guards followed me, that people presumed I was going to steal from them, cheat them, rob them. This wouldn't have to happen every time. Even once a week would really grate on me, to the extent that it became part of who I am.

That said, I'm not sure I fit the standard white model. In some respects my privilege has been kind of low: I was a socially awkward kid, and often made people uncomfortable just by my presence. In some respects my privilege has been stratospherically high. For example, my parents pulled all sorts of strings to get me into advanced math classes as a kid. Even more recently, during my time in the Wisconsin math department, I noticed I quickly rose to a spot of privilege. I wasn't totally sure why, but people seemed always willing to give me the benefit of the doubt.

But then again, I read "Stuff White People Like"... and... yup. That's me.

Affirmative action. Tatum cited all sorts of studies which prove - prove (rigorous methodology was used) that people judge white and black job candidates with implicit bias. Black people are judged less qualified, especially on the high end.

I think that most affirmative action just consists of looking extra hard for minorities and trying to encourage them to apply. But even if we explicitly "bumped up" Black candidates, so to speak, perhaps we are doing nothing more than counteracting our implicit biases. Certainly these stories single-handedly debunk all of the facile arguments against affirmative action. (I don't think that they imply AA is always a good thing though, and the author agrees.)

Racism = prejudice + institutional power. Tatum defines (I've seen this elsewhere) that racism is not just race-based prejudice. It must be backed up by institutional power. Ergo, she claims without an argument, blacks can't be racist towards whites, and women can't be sexist towards men.

Wait. The racism claim I almost completely buy. But I'm not sure I buy the sexism claim. I am going to describe something that I perceive to be real, and that I claim is sexism by Tatum's definition.

Basically, it seems to be acceptable to believe and joke that men are cavemen and dolts, and that women are the more reasonable sex, the torchbearers of good manners and civilization, the ones really running the show. This is ubiquitous throughout pop culture. Look at Homer Simpson, for example. Or "My Big Fat Greek Wedding", when the matriarch claims that "The man of the family may be the head, but the woman is the neck." Basically, it seems acceptable to joke that men are idiots, that women are always right, and that men should always come around and listen to what women tell them. To tell the joke the other way sounds insulting.

Now I don't think this is nearly a big of a deal as the sexism going from men to women (gender bias in hiring... etc... I think most people who have read this far know the evidence better than I do anyway, so I won't go into it). It exists for natural reasons, might be a natural result of men-to-women-sexism, and I'm not even claiming it's wrong. But it is sort of ingrained in our culture, and so is prevalent enough to be institutional. I claim it's sexism. (Any rebuttals?)

How to be good? One natural thing I wonder when I read this book is, how can I be good? How can I contribute in some small part to undermining racism and sexism?

This turns out to be damn hard. I have learned from personal experience that women can get very upset with me, in a big hurry, in circumstances where I bring up issues regarding sexism in what I feel is a respectful manner. And the book provides similar examples. For example, Tatum refers to Black people as "Black" throughout, but she quoted one Black woman as being upset when White people called her "Black", because she felt that it carried with it preconceived notions and prejudice.

If not "Black", what then? "African-American"? "People of Color"? "Negro"? It seems like any of these could cause offense. If I merely try to talk about racial issues, people will get upset.

Now it is not my business to tell people they shouldn't be upset. Whether people "should" be upset is a meaningless question. People simply do get upset. But that said, what should I do?

I find it difficult to identify emotionally with a cause if I cannot talk about it without upsetting its supporters. And I think Tatum's example illustrates that these discussions really can be a minefield. I should simply not expect that I will be able to never upset anybody.

Tatum suggests that White people form groups to talk with other white people about race, that they seek and they read a lot about White contributions to antiracist causes, and that they self-consciously identify as White, that they "own their Whiteness". I'm not quite sure I agree, but much about her suggestions does ring true. That said, is such a severe effort needed in order to be good?

All for now. And I'm not even half done with the book!