Exercise #3:  Identifying Racial Moral Dilemmas

For each of the following situations, see if you can discover which moral dilemma underlies the situation for the White persons involved in them.

Situation #

1.    The Hispanic mayor of a large city wants to locate a shelter for the homeless in the only wealthy White district in the city (District 1).  All of the other districts have one or more such shelters.  Given that many of the residents of District 1 contribute their time and money to the poor people of color in the inner city and the shelter will provide a refuge for these people, the mayor assumes that District 1 will be receptive to the plans for a shelter.  Nevertheless, when the mayor's plan is announced, the residents strongly rebuke the mayor via litigation and negative publicity campaigns.  Which dilemma is this?

2.    Fred, a White police officer, has always believed that he was "not a racist".  However, Fred discovers that the department has instituted an affirmative action program whereby Whites an people of color will take the same civil service examination, but will be promoted according to separate lists.  When Fred finds out that a person of color with a lower test score than his received the promotion he wanted, he files suit against the department, charging "reverse discrimination".  Which dilemma is this?

3.    When Julia organizes a study group for her first year law school classes, she does not even consider asking any of the people of color in her class to join.  If she had been asked why she did not, Julia would have said, "since I didn't know any of my classmates very well, I approached the ones who looked most competent".  Which dilemma is this?

4.    The last line of a White company's job-opening announcement is, "The company encourages applications from qualified minorities".  Which dilemma is this?  Why?

5.    George White is a flight instructor for a school from which most of the major airlines in the country recruit pilots.  In most of these airlines, 100% of the pilots are White men.  In Mr. White's classes, 100% of his students are White men.  When a Black woman applies for admission to his school, he refuses her because, "if I train you, then chances are you'll get a job before I do."  Which dilemma is this?  Why?
 

Answers to Exercise #3

Situation #1:  The residents' protestations seem to indicate that people of color are worthy of basic human concern - only if it occurs at a distance.

Situation #2:  Selection and placement exams typically are developed by White people and likely reflect White culture more so than other cultures.  Thus, the White person enters the testing situation with a cultural advantage.  Encouragement of freedom and equality in this case means finding ways to lessen the advantage.  Yet lessening the advantage means individual White people must relinquish White privilege.

Situation #3:  It appears that Julia believes that if people are of color, then they cannot also "look competent".  In other words, she assumes lack of individual merit for an entire group of people.

Situation #4:  Why does the company specify that "minorities" must be qualified, but does not make the same specification for Whites?  Perhaps it is assuming that Whites are naturally qualified and other racial groups are not.

Situation #5:  Even though it is clear that White men dominate the pilot profession, Mr. White refuses to give one person of color the opportunity to become qualified because there might be one less opening for him - even though he already has a job!

Exercise courtesy of A Race is a Nice Thing to Have, Janet E. Helms, Ph.D., 1992.