You do not take a person who for years has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him to the starting line and then say, ‘You are free to compete with all the others’ and still justly believe that you have been fair.

—President Johnson (Jackson-Leslie, 1995, 24).

 

      Integral to the advancement of minorities and women lies in the denouncement of a meritocracy—a tool used to subdue the oppressed based on the assertion that they do not work as hard as those in power, or possess a similar skillset. One of the biggest contributing factors to the unequal exploitation of resources in the United States remains the preservation of the false narrative that holds if someone simply works hard enough, he or she can achieve success. The term implies not only that the status associated with the meritorious serves as a direct result of their abilities, but that they deserve any privileges which they accrue. Groups facing cross-cultural discrimination have endured the marginalization of their struggles for far too long; at this critical point in the modern era, society must shift from one of individualism to one of collectivism by bridging the gap between equal opportunity and equal outcome. To shift from the standard of meritocracy that fails to account for inequity, change must take place on both the governmental and individual level—policy must codify anti-discriminatory practices and promote affirmative action, while working with law enforcement to deliver justice to those who counteract this legislation in perpetuation of the prejudice rooted in this fallacy.

      Michael Young, who coined the term in his 1958 The Rise of Meritocracy (TRoM), could not have fathomed the outcome his ideas would provoke. Ironically, Young wrote TRoM as a dystopian work of fiction, intended to critique the tenants of meritocracy embraced so dearly by many modern Americans. John Goldthorpe (as cited in Mijs, 2016), a British sociologist at the University of Oxford in England, explains that America’s enthusiasm for a society based on merit stems from its “legitimatory potential” that “allowed an additional, moral gloss to be given to arguments that sought to justify the prevailing form of social inequality (or something close to this) purely in terms of its functional efficiency.” Women and people of color alike experience the struggle to advance in a society created by and for wealthy white men, with women of color living under a double yoke of oppression. Rather than acknowledging the institutionalization of sexism and racism that undermines the socioeconomic advancement of marginalized groups, many Americans cling to the assumption that those of a lower class belong there as a result of their inadequate work ethic.

      To concede, a system that rewards people based on their skills and abilities does seem logical in theory; however, it realistically does not take into account the way in which prejudice has interwoven itself into the deepest pockets of American society. Because this method proves easier than recognizing that inequality still exists and restructuring the very way in which the system functions to eradicate it, those who fit into the mold of the meritorious and reap its benefits ignore the true causes of prevalent race, sex, and class differences by using the delineation of a meritocracy as justification. In social psychology, the term fundamental attribution error describes the tendency people have to overemphasize dispositional characteristics and discount situational factors when judging others’ behavior (Fundamental Attribution Error). Following this line of thinking, members of a higher class associate inherent laziness (dispositional) with those unable to climb the socioeconomic ladder as opposed to considering how lack of access to education, inheritance of wealth, and employment opportunities (situational) contribute to the stagnancy of their advancement.

      Once power is obtained in a meritocracy, those who possess it fight the opposition of anyone who threatens it. This is why white men, the primary beneficiaries of a country built from colonization, often staunchly oppose illegal immigration. By deeming people who enter the United States illegally as “invaders” or “aliens,” white people can overlook how their ancestors committed mass genocide upon infiltrating this country, and held a claim to the land based on their own narrative of “divine right.” Americans can trace the beginning of their culture back to the decimation of the Native American’s by looking to Bernal Diaz’s fourteenth century memoir The Conquest of New Spain; upon their arrival in a land that was not their own, the Spaniards lied to, stole from, and brutally murdered the Aztec population that had been residing there all the while proclaiming themselves pioneers of God. The hypocrisy of the Spaniards is highlighted by their exaltation of Christian doctrines coming into conflict with their hostile occupation of foreign land.

      Rather than adapting to the Natives’ way of living, appreciating the differences that contrasted their own sense of normality, the Spaniards emphasized them to create a cultural division that validated their perceived superiority. They existed in a state of cognitive dissonance—while they portrayed themselves as vessels of Christianity, they neglected their religious responsibility of caring for God’s creations by displacing the Natives through means of manipulation and racial discrimination. Only by interpreting the narrative of historical “winners” through a modern, psychological lens can society recognize the pattern of Europeans’ supremacy to disrupt their assiduous tyranny. Employing a psychological phenomenon referred to in the field as the “foot-in-the-door effect,” Cortes, the lead conquistador of the Spanish mission, worked toward his goal of converting and eventually overthrowing the Aztec lord, Montezuma, by requesting a small action initially to advance the likelihood of his compliance at a further point in time (Gaimain-Wilk, Dilinski, & Danieluk, 2017). Starting by communicating through messengers and traveling to Mexico even after Montezuma withdrew his permission, Cortes ignored any opposition to his plan of pursuing the Great Lord, “determined at all costs to visit his city […] since Cortes intended to see and speak with him, and to explain the whole purpose for which [they] had come.”[1] This marked the turning point in their mission, in which the Spaniards shifted their supremacy from an opinion felt implicitly to a behavior exercised explicitly.

      Using God as a tool to protect and admonish them of their sins, the Spaniards justified this transformation in their mission from bartering with the Natives to converting and conquering them by deeming it the “work of [their] Lord Jesus Christ.”[2] Not only did they devalue the Aztecs by using the tribesmen as pawns in their game of conquest, but they replicated this disrespect when they chose to override the decision of Montezuma—who held the highest position of authority—and infiltrate his land against his will. At no point did the Spaniards form a relationship with a Native without an ulterior motive, illustrating their pointed manipulation that began with building alliances and ended with cultural genocide. Upon presiding in Aztec territory for several years without receiving reinforcements, Cortes seized the opportunity to assert his newfound dominance over Montezuma’s territories when he persuaded a Spanish fleet—under orders to either capture Cortes or kill him for straying from his original commands—to join his men, and fought the soldiers who did not succumb to his bribes and flattery until they, too, dissented. With a fresh influx of fourteen hundred soldiers, a sudden shift in power took place in which Cortes—once a visitor—became the ruler of a land fated to him through a matrix of intersections between the fulfillment of God’s will, the Native Americans’ prophecy, and the voyage of his people.

      The Spaniards believing in their own superiority parallels the meritorious assertion that they have “earned” their status through exercising their own skillset instead of garnering the benefits of their privilege. The implication of authority allows whoever possesses it to live in harmony with their contrasting beliefs as power distorts rationalization. Christian slaveholders in the United States, similarly operating on their own superiority complex, saw an opportunity to exercise power over Africans by engaging in their commodification and forcing their labor, and used their religion as a tool to justify subjugation. The Classic Slave Narratives captures the lived experiences of the slaves who refused to have their voices silenced and their stories unheard. It offers a glimpse into the harsh realities of slavery so as to never forget how the white man created for himself an artificial authority to abduct and tyrannize an entire race. Only by selectively adhering to aspects of their faith could religious slaveholders support the idea of a person’s being legally belonging to someone else.

      When exploring Christianity, Olaudah Equiano—one of the slaves in The Classic Slave Narratives—realized the hypocrisy of those who cling to a religious dogma while participating in inherently sinful acts of prejudice: “O, ye nominal Christians! Might not an African ask you, learned this from your God? Who says unto you, do unto all men as you would men should do unto you?” This cognitive dissonance serves as the remnant of a system that required a lack of morality to exist, and the effects of which still splinter the path toward equality. Dating back to proslavery arguments from 1845, James Henry Hammond misconstrued the teachings of the Christian Bible by ascertaining slavery as the will of God in that it “[was] not only not a sin, but especially commanded by God through Moses, and approved by Christ through his apostles.”[3] Picking and choosing which religious traditions to follow, white men in power mold a society that satisfies only the needs of an elite minority while denouncing any backlash of the public majority. Because white slaveholders’ power became threatened, they nullified the voices of the tortured slaves and stripped them of their freedoms by systematically suppressing their culture, uprooting entire families, raping their women, punishing their defiance, and massacring their identities.

      The patriarchy today functions similarly, its unequal distribution of power strengthened by the principles of meritocracy that legitimize men’s achievements while tokenizing women’s. Like slaves, women do not enjoy the independence held by their masters. Instead, they have remained second-class citizens, feasting off the scraps of men’s success like deprived beasts. Despite the progress in women’s equality, many of the fundamental issues prevalent during the time of Mary Wollstonecraft—a proto-feminist who wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, one of the earliest works of feminist philosophy—have carried over into the modern era with more subtle hues of sexism infiltrating all levels of societies. While in the 1700s, women could not participate in the systems that vehemently controlled them—whether in the social, professional, or political sphere—women today face a different dilemma that bars them from experiencing the same level of success as their male counterparts. Throughout the past three centuries, the problem has shifted from one of equality to one of equity; women, given opportunities previously denied to them, approach them from an uneven playing field that impedes their ability to advance in the domain of their choosing and live outside the confines of their gender.

      Central to Wollstonecraft’s proto-feminist treatise that emphasizes the individuality of women lies the radical notion that women reserve the right to their own being. Living within the constructs of traditional gender roles that diminished their self-worth and shaped the way men thought of their capabilities, women were forced to find their identity in the personhood of their husbands. In marriage, “the existence of the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband.”[4] Expected to uphold her dependency on her husband and operate solely under his protection, a woman was destined to live in his shadow without challenging his position or considering her higher purpose. Consequently, women are molded into soldiers—blindly obeying the authority of men in a way that “is incompatible with freedom; because subordination and rigor are the very sinews of military discipline.”[5] In both instances, women, taught to please, live only to please.

      Education serves as the sole path toward reclaiming the power historically reserved for men. Women’s worst qualities, subservience and passivity, stem from their superficially contrived education. Taught to abide by the strict pressures of domestic responsibility and acceptable standards of feminine behavior rather than broadening their knowledge through science, math, and philosophy, women were shut out from their own intellectual potential. Denied the opportunities to enhance their critical thinking abilities, women’s fragmented reasoning developed into a facet of existence, shunted by the patriarchy that stripped them of their freedom of thought to uphold men’s own perceived superiority. However, Wollstencraft argued that women will neglect their duties if forcibly confined to them, casting imbalance on a system steeped in men’s fragility. Vulnerable and unchallenged, the male power structure in place becomes threatened upon women’s recognition of their own potential.

      Equal opportunities fail to exact significant change; giving men and women the same opportunities and expecting equal outcomes relies on the assumption that both groups come from the same place of privilege. With women gaining more representation in society, they now face a modern dilemma known as the glass ceiling: the unseen barrier so subtle yet strong that it prevents women from transcending the corporate hierarchy, as seen in the article, “Empowering Women in Business.” Some women who shatter this transparent obstacle to attain high positions face a second glass ceiling, in which they have reached the pinnacle of their career, unable to advance any further. Women of color, afflicted with a double yoke of oppression upon the intersection of racism and sexism, must fight against the host of –isms that counteracts their advancement. Even when they do try to “pull themselves up by the bootstraps” and achieve success based on their own merit, hard work only gets them so far because of the biases that prevent America’s creed of equality from manifesting from an ideal to a reality.

      In Paula Ioanide’s (as cited in McClure & Harris, 2015) essay, “The Myth of Meritocracy,” she finds that, “while most people concede that poor people, people of color, and women continue to face some obstacles in U.S. society, the dominant belief is that they generally have a fair chance to achieve their goals.” She argues that celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, Beyoncé, and Jay-Z echo the idea that society has shifted toward one of equal access and equal opportunity, the perception being that if they managed to obtain their goals, other people of color and women can, too. If they cannot, then by the logic of a meritocracy, they have only themselves to blame. The notion that people earn recognition on the basis of merit and that the implications of black and female subordination have dissolved to produce a society of equal opportunity reflects a perspective shrouded in myth. In his 2004 research, sociologist Thomas Shapiro (as cited in Ioanide, 2015), demonstrates that inheritance influences one’s economic success more than college degrees, number of children in the family, marital status, full-time employment, and household composition. Because “wealth and inheritance allow people to get a head start in accessing opportunities that subsequently yield the potential to build more wealth,” the hard work of those who “already have wealth is much more likely to yield economic rewards than the hard work of people who must use their entire income simply to manage bills and expenses.” Therefore, even though slavery has ended and policies have been implemented to codify equality for people of color and women, the implications of inheritance stretch so far that one’s class in the United States is determined more by their sex or race than their work ethic.

      Without wealth and inheritance, the “American dream” no longer seems attainable. At one point it served as a realistic endeavor to all immigrants, a promise of limitless opportunities unbound by the circumstances previously stunting their economic advancement in their home countries. However, the United States has shifted from the “Mother of Exiles” to the “Mother of Elitists,” regarding immigrants as burdensome lest they are highly skilled. In the 1921 Congressional debates regarding immigration restriction, the opinions of the judges reveal the overwhelming prejudice that often accompanies anti-immigration stances by arguing that allowing more foreigners would degrade “American” culture. Instead of viewing immigrants as hard workers who contribute to the economy and comprise the majority of the workers needed to perform blue-collar jobs, many of the judges perpetuate the lasting Xenophobic view that immigrants represent nuisances who feed off the government’s resources and do not use the benefits of society to the best of their advantage. Holding that these immigrants “poison [the United States’] civilization and therefore threaten the safety of the institutions that [its] forefathers have established,” the judges construct a fictitious notion of superior American ideals to justify anti-immigration laws that seethe with their own discrimination.

      Because of the persistent discriminatory attitudes against immigrants and the increasing importance of inheritance in determining future economic gains, people who move to the United States in the hope of a “better life” find themselves confronted with a new set of obstacles that continue to cloud their vision of success. In Girl in Translation, Jean Kwok depicts the disillusionment of the American dream as Kimberly Chang, a Chinese immigrant from Hong Kong, and her mother discover that hard work does not guarantee success as the myth deceptively foretells. In both Kwok’s semi-autobiographical work of fiction and Charles Dicken’s Hard Times, humanity gives way to industry as capitalism transforms people into profit. As Kimberly and her mother spend more time in the United States, they realize their goal of a comfortable lifestyle drifting farther away as the bleak working conditions in their clothing factory underscore a society centered around economy rather than democracy.

      Similarly, Hard Times parallels the dystopia put forth in Michael Young’s The Rise in Meritocracy, where the needs of the upper class—meritorious—trample on those of lower classes—minorities. By indicting the callous greed of the Victorian industrial society and its botched utilitarian philosophy, Dickens joins Kwok in highlighting the façade of capitalism as it promotes economic freedom while stripping people of their individual freedom. Bound by their destitution, lower class men and women have little choice but to accept their low wages, poor working conditions, and endless hours that prevent children like Kimberly from enjoying the same opportunities as their peers.

      The United States must orient itself away from individualism and toward collectivism through democratic socialism in order to shift its focus back toward the people. It must shape policy keeping in mind the disparity between equal opportunity and equal outcome—how discrimination has splintered the success of generations of immigrants and people of color. To do this, white Americans who reap the most benefits in society must act as allies to those who do not inherit the same privileges associated with the color of their skin, wealth, and access to education. Without allies, progress that exists within the confines of the current system proves impossible; without overthrowing the system altogether, the only way to achieve equality lies in the intensive corroboration of Americans from all demographics in society. Had a white captain not advocated for Equiano’s freedom by defending his character, Olaudah may have remained permanently enslaved; had Kimberly not received scholarships from people who recognized her potential and recommendations from friends to move out of her grimy, roach-infested Brooklyn apartment, she and her mother may never have risen out of poverty and achieved their version of the American dream; had Dickens not satirically mocked his morally corrupt and profit-driven Victorian society, England’s policies may not have shifted toward reform; if the Aztecs had allies to resist the increasing tyranny of the Spaniards, the United States may not exist, and the concept of meritocracy may not have ever exerted its harsh ignorance upon misunderstood women, people of color, and any individual who does not fit the mold of a heterocisnormative white man. Upon creating new and inclusive policies, acting as allies, and re-conceptualizing the “American” identity, the United States must hold those who try to cling to discriminatory practices accountable with punitive measures—treat them as fellow violators of the law, criminals. Normalizing and dismissing racism precipitates regressive policies and perpetuates divisive, outdated principles. By denouncing offsets of inherently unjust ideals, like meritocracy, society can shift from one of individualism to one of collectivism by equitably considering the lives of all people who coexist within it.

 

 

 

References

Empowering women in business (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.feminist.org/research/business/ewb_glass.html

Fundamental Attribution Error. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/glossary/fundamental-attribution-error

Gamian-Wilk, M., Dolinski, D., & Danieluk, B. (2017). Mindfulness and compliance: The way we make requests influences compliance with the foot-in-the-door strategy. Psychological Reports. doi:10.1177/0033294117745885

Goldthorpe, J. H. (1996). Problems of “meritocracy” in R. Erikson & J. O. Jonsson (Eds.), can education be equalized?. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Jackson-Leslie, L. (1995). Race, Sex, and Meritocracy. The Black Scholar, 25(3), 24-29.

McClure, S. M., & Harris, C. A. (2015). Getting real about race: Hoodies, mascots, model minorities, and other conservations. Los Angeles: SAGE.

Mijs, J. (2016). The Unfulfillable Promise of Meritocracy: Three Lessons and Their Implications for Justice in Education. Social Justice Research, 29(1), 14-34.

 

 

[1] Díaz, Bernal. The Conquest of New Spain. Translated by J. M. Cohen. London: Penguin Books, 1963, pp 212.

[2] Díaz, Bernal. Pp 77.

[3] Gov. Hammonds Letters on Southern Slavery. Accessed April 01, 2018. https://archive.org/stream/lettersonsouther00hamm/lettersonsouther00hamm_djvu.txt.

[4] Martin Shapiro, Blackstone (New York: McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Biography, 1973).

[5] Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (New York, NY: Penguin Group, 2004), 24.