Mutual Accommodation: Ethnic Conflict and Cooperation

477 Pages·1978·23.18 MB·English

by  Robin Murphy Williams

Mutual Accommodation
Ethnic Conflict and Cooperation
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Mutual Accommodation:
Ethnic Conflict
and
Cooperation
Robin M. Williams, Jr.
in collaboration with Madelyn B. Rhenisch
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA PRESS D MINNEAPOLIS
Copyright © 1977 by the University of Minnesota. All rights reserved. Printed in the
United States of America at the North Central Publishing Company, St. Paul. Published
by the University of Minnesota Press, 2037 University Avenue Southeast, Minneapolis,
Minnesota 55455, and published in Canada by Burns & MacEachern Limited, Don Mills,
Ontario.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 77-90060
ISBN 0-8166-0822-9
The University of Minnesota is an equal opportunity educator and employer.
The author acknowledges permission to reprint passages from the following:
Achieving Effective Desegregation by Al Smith, Anthony Downs, and M. Leanne Lach-
man, pp. 1, 22, 23, 25, 26, 29, reprinted by permission of the publisher (Lexington,
Mass.; D. C. Heath and Company, 1973). Administrative Justice by Philippe Nonet (New
York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1969), pp. 67, 87. © 1969 Russell Sage Foundation. A
Behavioral Theory of Labor Negotiations: An Analysis of a Social Interaction System by
R. E. Walton and R. B. McKersie, pp. 10, 14-15. © 1965 McGraw-Hill Book Company.
Used with permission of the McGraw-Hill Book Company. Community Conflict by J.
Coleman, pp. 1, 21. © 1957 The Free Press. Used by permission of the Macmillan Pub-
lishing Co., Inc. Equal Opportunity in the U.S.: A Symposium on Civil Rights by E. War-
ren, pp. 20-22. Edited by Robert C. Rooney and published by the Lyndon B. Johnson
School of Public Affairs. © 1973 Board of Regents, The University of Texas. The Func-
tions of Social Conflict by L. A. Coser, p. 65. © 1956 The Free Press. Used by permis-
sion of the Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc. Human Behavior: An Inventory of Scientific
Findings by B. Berelson and G. A. Steiner, pp. 150-152, 536, 541, 543, 548. © 1964
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. © 1968
Crowell Collier and Macmillan, Inc.: Vol. 3, 246-53, R. A. Falk, "Conflict of Laws," p.
2; Vol. 8, 341-47, E. Cahn, "Justice," p. 344; Vol. 11, 117-120, F. C. Ikle, "Negotia-
tion," p. 120. "Mankind at the Turning Point" by K. E. Boulding, pp. 1188-89, Science,
vol. 187, 1188-89, 28 Marsh 1975. © 1975 by the American Association for the Ad-
vancement of Science. The Negotiation of Desegregation in Ten Southern Cities by L. W.
Jones and H. H. Long, p. 37. © 1965 Fisk University Library. Political Violence, The Be-
havioral Process by H. L. Nieburg, pp. 9, 80-81. © 1969 St. Martin's Press, Inc. The Poli-
tics of Nonviolent Action by Gene Sharp, p. 902. Hardback edition, 1973; paperback
edition in 3 volumes, 1974. Porter Sargent Publishers, Inc., 11 Beacon Street, Boston,
Mass. 02108. "The Problem of Arbitration —the Resolution of Public Sector Disputes,"
by William Gomberg, p. 413, in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol.
118, No. 5, 1974, originally published by the American Philosophical Society. Race and
Authority in Urban Politics by J. David Greenstone and Paul E. Peterson (New York:
Russell Sage Foundation, 1973) pp. 197, 290, 313, 314. © 1973 Russell Sage Founda-
tion. The Resolution of Conflict by M. Deutsch, pp. 267, 352, 378, 386. © 1973 by Yale
University. Resolving Conflict in Africa by L. W. Doob, p. 2. © 1970 by Leonard W.
Doob. Social Change in a Metropolitan Community by Otis Dudley Duncan, Howard
Schuman, and Beverly Duncan (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1973) pp. 102-3.
© 1973 Russell Sage Foundation. "Violence and Civic Responsibility: Combinations of
'Fear' and 'Right' " by Tony Duster, p. 5, in Our Children's Burden, Studies of Desegre-
gation in Nine American Communities, 1-39, edited by R. W. Mack. © 1968 by Ray-
mond W. Mack, published by Random House, Inc. "What's Wrong with Politics" by Jo-
seph Lee Auspitz and C. W. Brown, pp. 52, 59. © 1974 Harper's Magazine, vol. 248, 51-
61. "White Students' Evaluation of a Black Student Protest Organization, a Test of a
Model," p. 701, Social Science Quarterly, 1974, vol. 55, 691-703. © 1974 The Univer-
sity of Texas Press.
Foreword
Americans can no longer be reproached for their lack of a tragic sense. On all
sides we are regularly reminded of the awesome disparity between the magni-
tude of our problems and our uncertain repertoire of countervailing strategies.
Who now in the face of recent international felonies, constitutional crises, and
chronic unemployment dares speak of an American Century or a Great Society
except with irony or despair? The rhetoric of failure is especially marked in
discussions about intergroup relations. Since the heroic period of freedom
rides, the Montgomery bus boycott, the surrender of George Wallace at the
University of Alabama, and other triumphs that preceded the enactment of
the Civil Rights Act of 1964 we have witnessed the rediscovery of militant
ethnicity, the politics of confrontation, and massive disorders in the cities. At
the end of nearly three decades of recurrent crises and intermittent violence
many now wonder aloud if free democratic institutions can endure the strain
of protracted intergroup conflict. No latter-day H. L. Mencken could easily
find current occasion to mock the ingenuous boosterism that once hailed the
inevitability of progress.
The prevailing Zeitgeist for all its apparent high moral concern and unblink-
ing realism is nevertheless ultimately self-indulgent. Virtuous gloom, no less
than Panglossian complacency, is the enemy of understanding and the will
to overcome. At bottom, "nothing can be done" and "nothing needs doing"
are the same. We are, therefore, beholden to Robin Williams for insisting that
the verification of "difficulties, evils, recriminations, liabilities and obstacles"
is a necessary, but insufficient, condition for intelligent social diagnosis and
v
vi FOREWORD
action. Accordingly, in the present volume Williams declines to cry havoc
and seeks instead to systematize existing knowledge that suggests "workable
solutions of problems and avenues of favorable change" in the area of inter-
racial and interethnic relations.
Professor Williams's definition of his task would have been thoroughly con-
genial to the late Sydney Spivack whose estate established the Cornerhouse
Fund, a foundation devoted to social research and social policy, which provid-
ed financial support for the current inquiry. Spivack, a gifted sociologist whose
own commitment to social justice and cultural pluralism was reflected in his
posthumously published study, The Unequal Elites, written in collaboration
with Robert Althauser, was even more than Williams given to accentuating the
positive. Like all men who have absorbed the modern sensibility Spivack was
occasionally haunted by frightening visions, but always some combination of
historical perspective, broad learning, and direct observation intervened to
restore his faith in the capacity of diverse groups in America to reach accept-
able modes of mutual accommodation.
Robin Williams's similar brand of qualified optimism has persisted through
more than thirty years of grappling with the complexities of intergroup behav-
ior. By common consent he is at once one of the most diligent, sophisticated,
and responsible of all sociologists who are active in this field. His proposition-
al inventory, The Reduction of Intergroup Tensions, published in 1947 is an
acknowledged classic, for it was in this monograph that Williams first revealed
his unrivaled talent for converting great masses of data into parsimonious
empirical generalizations. These formulations were so impressive because of
their respect for evidence, and Williams's reading of more recent data likewise
command respect. He is now persuaded that the convergence of increasing
minority gains and declining majority recalcitrance offers the real prospect in
the short run of a domestic detente and in the long run of something akin to a
genuinely pluralistic society based on justice. Some advances by minorities are
visible to the naked eye and are confirmed by the statistics of political partici-
pation, income distribution, and educational attainment. Thus, for example, a
report by the United States Bureau of the Census which was released too late
for inclusion in the main body of this book indicates that nearly 1.1 million
black students were attending college in the fall of 1976, more than twice the
number who were enrolled during the same period in 1970.
Even in the crucial instance of housing where the statistics are least impres-
sive, Williams is able to show that the situation is not altogether bleak "and
that there exists a set of feasible possibilities for dealing with questions of
housing policy in the late twentieth century." He arrives at this conclusion out
of the conviction "that the present extent of involuntary ethno-racial segre-
gation in the United States is unnecessary; that the main causes of discrimi-
FOREWORD vii
natory segregation are known (Harrison, Horowitz, von Furstenberg, 1974)
— although not their precise operation; that successful residential integration
exists on a substantial scale; that practicable social means are available to
establish and maintain effective public policies of open access and residential
integration." His analysis implies that to the extent that this comes about, it
will profoundly alter other aspects of race relations, such as school integration.
The demonstrable improvement of life chances for minorities does not, of
course, necessarily portend approaching racial and ethnic equality —the gap
between dominant and victimized groups while narrowing in some institutional
sectors may be actually widening in others —and in any event a more equitable
distribution of social rewards may temporarily exacerbate rather than lessen
intergroup tensions. It was Williams, after all, who was among the first to state
the once seemingly anomalous proposition that "a militant reaction from a
minority group is most likely when the group's position is rapidly improving."
It is less paradoxical and equally true that as De Funis and the Bakke cases
demonstrate majorities may choose to resist when they discover that one
man's benefit may become another man's cost. Conflict, however, is not a
synonym for pathology, and Williams's data encourage us to hope that the
recognition of necessity, in concert with changing values and attitudes, as well
as increased theoretical and applied knowledge, will restrain any latent tenden-
cies toward a war of all against all. Nearly every chapter of this book refers to
instances of "successful" intergroup relations, identifies their preconditions
and consequences, and offers wise suggestions ranging from fundamental
theoretical postulates to practical tips on how the number of such productive
transactions might be increased. Robin Williams's entire career stands as testi-
mony against the remotest suspicion of intellectual or moral arrogance, but he
is convinced that we are neither as ignorant nor as depraved as we sometimes
pretend.
Racial, religious, and nationalist struggles are not a peculiarly American
vice. They have been observed throughout history on every continent, in many
nations, in all types of societies, under a variety of ideological auspices. Such
antagonisms may not be an intrinsic feature of human interaction but their
ubiquity rather suggests that they will not yield readily to Utopian solutions.
Now and in the predictable future we shall be obliged to measure our successes
against aspirations that can be realized this side of paradise.
"Success" is not, of course, a self-evident concept. Williams will not even
discuss the matter without first furnishing us with a "tentative and incomplete
inventory" of no fewer than thirty-four criteria for assessing intergroup rela-
tionships and processes classified under four major headings: "allocations of
scarce values among social categories, statuses, and collectivities;" "personality
or psychological status;" "intragroup social structures and relationships;" and
viii FOREWORD
"intergroup relations." As Williams notes, the "combinations of these criteria
produce a large number of radically different kinds of intergroup situations
ranging from 'harmonious mutual assimilation' through 'structural integration'
and 'symbiotic coexistence' to the most intense mutual hostility and unlimited
violent conflict." Whatever else "success" connotes as between "no one human
is foreign to me" and "no one foreign is human to me," there is no contest;
but all else is open to definitional controversy. The problem of choice is no
little complicated by the fact that success in one domain may entail a defeat
in another. It is, therefore, difficult to know what to applaud or deplore, to
support or oppose.
The reluctance to acknowledge inherent strains among an array of desired
outcomes may lead to much conceptual and existential mischief. It is, for
example, both inconsistent and futile to seek the eradication of all prejudice
and stereotypy if we also support the proper claim of racial and ethnic groups
to their distinctive identities, traditions, and cultures. Only yesterday to be
enlightened was to believe that social class composition accounts for all varia-
tion in the behavior of racial groups. Black people were vastly overrepresented
among the poor and powerless, but except for their racial visibility "they were
no different from anybody else." If black is merely a shadow category lacking
any independently useful descriptive properties, then in a certain sense there
is no such group as blacks and it is manifestly perverse to invent prejudices and
stereotypes that incorporate false images about a wholly mythical population.
During the past decade the doctrine of color-blindness which never pre-
vailed as a fact lost all credibility even as a concept. The effort by blacks to
achieve political, economic, and social equality was accompanied by legitimate
claims to a separate group identity. Blackness was transformed from a mean-
ingless physical distinction to a symbol for a proud history, shared traditions,
common practices, strong solidarity, and high art which in their totality com-
prised a distinctive culture worth nurturing and preserving. Not only was it
polite, it was mandatory to notice that black people exist. It follows, then,
that if blacks and whites are invited to observe that they differ from one
another in some respects, unless each judges the other by the standards of an
indiscriminate cultural relativism some group characteristics will be admired
and others decried. Moreover, although some negative attributions will be
distorted and partisan, others will accurately depict general statistical tenden-
cies. Williams is surely correct when he observes that "two opposing views of
intergroup stereotyping and prejudice are in error when taken as exclusive
claims to valid interpretation: (a) prejudices and stereotypes, on the whole, are
accurate, although generalized, reflections of actual differences ('well-deserved
reputation'); (b) prejudices and stereotypes simply are expressions of the
values, beliefs, and emotional dispositions of the holders (the outgroup func-
tions as a 'living inkblot')."
FOREWORD ix
The concept of success, then, is always equivocal, and inflated expectations
must be constrained by the recognition that advances in intergroup relations
are invariably partial and uneven. The perception of limits does not imply
passive resignation, and no amount of phenomenological sleight of hand can
conceal the ineluctable duty of Americans to provide a more equitable "alloca-
tion of scarce values among social categories, statuses, and collectivities." But
even on that distant day when our lives are governed by perfect distributive
justice, citizens in modern societies will be organized in a variety of groups
with conflicting interests. Then, as now, we shall need acceptable modes of
mutual accommodation. The distinctive merit of the present volume is that
Williams is able to demonstrate how much can be achieved within the limits
of the possible.
The extravagance of the more apocalyptic view of interracial and intereth-
nic relations is perhaps best conveyed in Charles Mackay's nineteenth-century
classic, Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions. His account of the results
of an astrological prediction that the Thames would overflow in 1524 may be
read as a parable for our times.
At last the morn, big with the fate of London, appeared in the east. The
wondering crowds were astir at an early hour to watch the rising of the
waters. The inundation, it was predicted, would be gradual, not sudden;
so that they expected to have plenty of time to escape as soon as they
saw the bosom of old Thames heave beyond the usual mark. But the
majority were too much alarmed to trust to this, and thought themselves
safer ten or twenty miles off. The Thames, unmindful of the foolish
crowds upon its banks, flowed on quietly as of yore. The tide ebbed at
its usual hour, flowed to its usual height, and then ebbed again, just as
if the twenty astrologers had not pledged their words to the contrary.
Blank were their faces as evening approached, and as blank grew the
faces of the citizens to think that they had made such fools of them-
selves. At last night set in, and the obstinate river would not lift its
waters to sweep away even one house out of the ten thousand. Still,
however, the people were afraid to go to sleep. Many hundreds remained
up till dawn of the next day, lest the deluge should come upon them
like a thief in the night.
The burden of Robin Williams's message is that although intergroup rela-
tions are frequently turbulent there need be no flood next time. He has surely
rendered this judgment more probable by teaching us so much about how we
might propitiate the gods.
Marvin Bressler
Princeton University