Ivashkiv blog 5

 In the Introduction, Shelby separates the two common ways to explain the stark difference between white and black livelihood in the United States. These are what are known in the zeitgeist as the culture argument and the institutional racism argument. However, in a fascinating tactic, Shelby reframes the debate to be centered around justice (2). Shelby posits that reform targeted at ghettos subscribes to a “medical model” that aims to  “increase the material welfare of people living in ghettos through narrowly targeted and empirically grounded interventions into their lives” (2). From my understanding, Shelby’s concern with the medical model is that the hospital has not discovered the disease of injustice yet. In this way, the patients aren’t always sick. Rather, the basic unit of the hospital is deeply flawed, which ultimately results in bad outcomes.

I was curious about the implication of the medical model on ongoing debates over reparations. Shelby juxtaposes reparations to Fiss’ vision of economic integration, “He is advocating economic integration as a principle of social reform, not as reparations” (66). In one way, reparations are synonymous with the medical model. Reparations are meant to correct for the past, as reparations do not acknowledge that the current conditions might result in a reversion to past injustices. But, it also seems like reparations are outside of the medical model, in the sense that the idea appears radical and is dismissed by politicians. Of course, the question is relevant to Shelby’s larger point about integration, and why it is perfectly reasonable for black people to prefer to live with only black people. However, I was confused by Shelby’s discussion of economic integration. In his discussion, he seems to consider what would happen if some families in the ghetto became wealthy, but not what would happen if all were gifted generous reparations. So, I am curious whether the concept of completely wide scale reparations would result in a world in which more white people recognize past injustices, a world in which the status-quo remains generally unchanged, or in a world in which prejudices are sharpened.

I was also curious to see how Shelby’s discussion of integration extended into affirmative action. Shelby briefly mentioned that affirmative action was a failed attempt to “rectify the legacy of racism” (28). Affirmative action is a system designed to encourage black people to enter a space dominated by white people, similar to how Shelby views social integration. Affirmative action, kind of like the government, restricts access to a vital resource (a college diploma) unless a black student enters a historically white space. So, is the college admissions system victim the medical model too? If this is the case, then is affirmative action also an example of a failed attempt of integration that ultimately puts black people’s livelihoods under white people’s control?