Abstract
Susan Gooden’s most recent book, Race and Social Equity, is a must-read for all public servants, public administration professors, and graduate students. Gooden uses H. George Frederickson’s (2010) contribution to social equity and public administration as a theoretical foundation to examine the relationship between race, history, and public administration. Gooden does this by expanding the two Es of public administration—efficiency and effectiveness—to include three with her recommendation to include equity as the third component. Race and Social Equity forces the reader to examine the racial awareness management practices in public-sector organizations. The contents, combined with Gooden’s writing style, transform our collective thoughts around race into a balanced, readable text. The first four chapters are key to understanding the book. Chapters 5 through 8 give practical examples for street-level bureaucrats interested in the implementation of workplace programs. Chapters 9 and 10 apply more to Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA)–accredited Master of Public Administration (MPA) programs. The final chapter lists 10 principles that will reduce overt and covert racism in the public sector and conquer the “nervousness in government” surrounding race. Her use of graphics throughout the book explicates ideas that are useful in the classroom or personnel training center. Upon finishing the book, one realizes he or she is not alone in the struggle to understand race and culture in the workplace and the classroom. Although Race and Social Equity is valuable, it has limitations.
The absence of cross-cultural examples used by Gooden in her previous work, Cultural Competency in Public Administration, could limit discussions that derive from her new book to a “black or white issue” (Norman-Major & Gooden, 2012). Race and Social Equity focuses exclusively upon race, as the title implies. Stronger links between race and intergenerational poverty or how race interacts with persons living in urban, suburban, and rural communities would make Race and Social Equity stronger. Last, the book could have been sectioned between those chapters that are more useful to the professor and the practitioner.
Chapter 1 explains why race is and is not the “nervous area of government” (see Gooden, 2014, p. 10). Gooden (2014) explicitly states the book’s intent to “conceptualize the idea of a nervous area of government” by addressing race “not to engage in oppression Olympics by ranking group inequities relative to one another” (p. 10). In short, a client’s or co-worker’s race can make public administrators nervous. As a result, they avoid the subject or use passive terminology to voice their nervousness.
The book’s definition of racism, as it applies to public administration, is not “discrimination in contact” but “discrimination in contract” (see Gooden, 2014, p. 10). The first term refers to the unequal treatment due to race in commercial transactions in both the public and private sectors, including one’s informal choice of friends, neighbors, heroes, and villains. In contrast, discrimination by contract refers to the institutionalization of racial bias through public and private structures. These two dynamics converge into structural racism that creates social inequities throughout organizations. Whereas public administrators strive to deliver services fairly, we must be aware of the historical, political, and social factors that have led to a particular racial group’s distrust of government and bureaucratic officials. Gooden states we have grappled with this issue over the past 40 years. Yet, we remain nervous when race and social equity are an issue in the classroom and the workplace.
Chapter 2 is the strongest chapter in the book. Gooden introduces it with the premise that all public policies involve resource distribution that led to historical and modern day racial inequities. Figure 2.1, “Saturation of Racial Inequities,” describes the intergenerational effects of structural racism in six areas: health, education, criminal justice, economic well-being, housing, and environment (p. 23). Gooden explains how these six subjects revolve around structural racism and its implications for six components of the individual and racial group: absence of health care; living in food deserts, crime-ridden neighborhoods, and/or low-quality housing located near trash dumps or manufacturing centers; welfare dependence and working low-wage jobs; and limited transportation. Gooden uses the African American and First People’s experiences with racism to support Figure 2.1. The absence of experiences with other racial and ethnic groups is also one of the more serious sources of institutional and intergenerational racism. Intergenerational poverty often causes the oppressed to blame their situation upon racism even when racism is not behind the public servant’s response to the client or the instructor’s approach to the student. Furthermore, Gooden implies that racism is more likely to primarily exist in inner cities or rural communities without recognizing that it exists throughout all American communities. Herein lies aspect pattern that Race and Social Equity does not address: the client or student who reacts to a public servant or professor by claiming racial discrimination while ignoring the intersectional nature of racial identity and the public servant’s economic class or life experiences that could counteract the client’s or student’s accusations of racism (Becker, Krodel, & Tucker, 2009).
Gooden further explains these ideas in Chapters 3 and 4. In Chapter 3, Gooden links one’s race-associated nervousness to fear shaped by a lack of cross-racial friendships. This fear can lead to defensive behaviors, unfair accusations of racism, or reverse racism. These limit the public servant and the client to one of two options: (a) to continue racially biased judgments that lead to nervous, uncomfortable, or racist responses, or (b) to seek advice and insight to understand the other’s background and reactions.
Gooden argues that public servants or instructors are more likely to invest in self-and organizational reflection if the agency’s leadership support or external events contribute to the effort. The outcome of this personal inventory ranges between sincere empathy for someone of a different race and superficial friendliness. The benefits of successful, productive reflection lead to increased job satisfaction, personal empowerment, and increased sense of community. The employee’s or student’s personal success allows others to formulate cross-racial relationships, if, and only if, upper level management supports these efforts.
Without leadership support, the cross-racial friendship and dialogue are more likely to abruptly end. The person of color remains the Affirmative Action hire. The employee grows defensive and more likely to play the “race card” or “reverse race card” in an effort to force everyone to retreat from a much-needed discussion. The other employee is labeled as “going native” and risks being ostracized by their own racial or ethnic group. They are more likely to formulate intimate workplace friendships with like-race persons where misguided stereotypes are likely to be perpetuated. The costs lead to worker fatigue, cynicism, and emotional exhaustion (Gooden, 2014, pp. 45-46).
In Chapter 4, Gooden shows how public organizations can conduct a baseline audit of its employees’ views on race and social equity to deconstruct racial markers. The chapter concludes by introducing the reader to three governmental examples of successful local, state, and national programs to discuss race in the workplace: Seattle’s Race and Social Justice Initiative, Wisconsin’s W-2 Experience, and The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (see Gooden, 2014, pp. 79-144). Gooden constructs a how-to guide for conducting a racial equity analysis in Chapter 8, “Assessing Racial Equity in Government.” The final chapters outline how racial equity can assist public organizations in overcoming this “nervousness” in the classroom and the workplace.
Chapter 9 focuses entirely upon equity standards for MPA programs and their accrediting body, the NASPAA. Chapter 10 outlines the international struggles for racial and social equity in countries such as Australia, Canada, and South Africa. Chapter 11 summarizes the themes discussed in the previous chapters into easy-to-understand principles that, if implemented, would assist public-sector organizations change their internal and external environments and would eliminate the nervousness surrounding race and social equity.
Race and Social Equity is destined to become a classic despite its limitations. Gooden’s phrase “nervous area of government” is destined to become of those public administration “buzz” phrases such as Lipsky’s (2010) “street-level bureaucrat” or Lindbloom’s (1959) “muddling through.”