Eliminating What Sets Us Apart: Some Thoughts for Martin Luther King Day

“I am convinced that men hate each other because they fear each other. They fear each other because they don’t know each other, and they don’t know each other because they don’t communicate with each other, and they don’t communicate with each other because they are separated from each other.”

So stated the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1962.

Class and race boundaries have a lot of rigidity. In combination with geographic boundaries, they separate people and foster misinformation, stereotypes, and fear.

The 1917 report from Wilder Research on health and housing in Saint Paul showed a concentration of unacceptable conditions in a central city area that we currently call the Thomas-Dale neighborhood. Seventy years later, data we analyzed for use by community groups showed that children living in roughly that same area more likely lived in poverty and had lower educational outcomes than children had in other neighborhoods. Use Minnesota Compass today to compare income levels and other characteristics across neighborhoods in Saint Paul, and what neighborhood district will you find at or near the bottom? (Hint: the same one that showed up in Wilder Research data a century earlier.)

In 1967, Dr. King noted the lack of progress for Black citizens.

“Negroes generally live in worse slums today than 20 or 25 years ago. In the North schools are more segregated today than they were in 1954 when the Supreme Court's decision on desegregation was rendered. Economically the Negro is worse off today than he was 15 and 20 years ago. And so the unemployment rate among Whites at one time was about the same as the unemployment rate among Negroes. But today the unemployment rate among Negroes is twice that of Whites. And the average income of the Negro is today 50% less than Whites.”

How much change has occurred since then? The Brookings Institution highlights research showing how race and economic disparities persist into the 21^st century and fuel educational disparities that threaten our society. Reflecting the importance of economics, which Dr. King identified, they note that poverty-based segregation and race-based segregation contribute to the educational disparities we witness today. In fact, segregation based on poverty appears statistically to account for differences that we sometimes attribute to the effects of race and racial discrimination.

What maintains these rigid boundaries that produce separation with deleterious consequences? We can easily point to outspoken racists and advocates of segregation, of course. Dr. King recognized and confronted the visible, tangible elements of racism. He also faced observable white backlash. However, overt attempts to maintain inequality only partly explain our longstanding social problem.

Another insidious, though less visible, element also explains the persistence of economic and social disparities: a form of “backlash” that occurs through complacency. People who want to do good, but seek to avoid too much disruption occurring too rapidly in the status quo, can impede progress as much as vocal opponents of change.

“I'm absolutely convinced that the forces of ill-will in our nation, the extreme rightists in our nation, have often used time much more effectively than the forces of good will. And it may well be that we will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words of the bad people and the violent actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people who sit around and say wait on time. Somewhere we must come to see that social progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals. And without this hard work time itself becomes an ally of the primitive forces of social stagnation. And so we must help time, and we must realize that the time is always ripe to do right.”

Let’s acknowledge that we need to win a Super Bowl of real life – much more important than the mere football game that takes place a couple of weeks after today’s important holiday. We cannot let the forces of evil play the clock to win, or we will experience a lose-lose for humanity.

Using Information for Good, as We Enter a New Year and Decade

Albert Einstein wrote: “The life of the individual has value in so far as it aids in making the life of every living thing nobler and more beautiful.”*

As we approach 2020 – one fifth of the way into the 21st century – every one of us can ask: How can we make the life of every living thing nobler and more beautiful?

At Wilder Research, we use modern means of collecting, analyzing, and reporting information as powerful tools for improving lives. The past 20 years have seen the evolution and proliferation of information and communication technology, including social media, unimagined even at the end of the 20th century.

On the positive side, modern information and communication technology gives voice to all people. If any of us have a story to tell, we can tell it. We can recognize and celebrate the joys of the world. We can identify the injustices that need fixing. Without social media, for example, we would likely know far less than we do about the genocide and oppression occurring outside the borders of our country, and we would likely have less awareness of tragedies inside of the U.S.

At Wilder Research, we have exploited the benefits of information and communication technology. We can make more meaning and draw more informed insights out of data; we have a greater ability than we did 20 or so years ago to improve the effectiveness of programs, policies, and decisions that affect people.

However, the evolution of technology also has a negative side. Humans can become molecular units of analysis in big data, processed by algorithms intended to create profits for a privileged few. As consumers of what the internet transmits, if we let our guard down, false stories, reinforced by social media bots that spin thousands of perverse messages, can deceive us.

The internet and social media enable us to access directly far more information than we could through other means. However, the lack of standards for curating, assessing, and rating the validity of that information puts each of us on our own: Caveat emptor. With respect to human freedom, the internet and social media democratize our world, yet paradoxically they also offer a powerful tool for manipulation that can upend democratic processes. Sadly, we hear regularly about the ways that totalitarian-inclined leadership uses modern technology for control and constraint.

We at Wilder Research, along with others who do research, have the competence to use modern information and communication technology. In returning to Einstein’s thoughts, we should acknowledge the opportunity presented to us to add value to our own individual lives by using modern technology to aid in making the lives of individuals, families, and communities “nobler and more beautiful”.

As 2020 – a new year, a new decade – opens, let us acknowledge that our efforts to improve society and make life better for all will consume much energy, will encounter barriers, and will not always succeed. Nevertheless, let us keep our eye on the prize of lifting human spirits, building the capacity of people to better themselves, curing the individual and social illnesses and problems that produce disparities and constrict human potential, and helping to guide our society in a positive direction. The prospect of achieving even just a little bit of progress in whatever parts of this big world that we can touch – that should energize us.

Best wishes for the New Year!

*In The World as I See It, 1935.