“Which is a more progressive goal — a world in which only thirteen per cent of black people (instead of twenty-four per cent) live below the poverty line or a world in which none of them do?” Walter Benn Michaels, an academic and literary theorist, poses this provocative question to force our consideration of whether identity politics benefits or damages our movements. Michaels’ question in turn begs the question, “Should we strive to match outcomes by race, or should we strive to eliminate negative outcomes for all? And does disproportionality clarify or confuse our understanding of injustice? 

If we focus on the disproportionality of incarceration between Black and white men, do we solve this problem by locking up white men at the higher rate at which Black men are incarcerated? Do we solve it by locking up Black men at the lower rate at which white men are incarcerated? Or do solve it by disassembling the system of punishment that handles crimes by incarcerating offenders? Should we seek to address the disproportionate number of white CEOs by increasing Black CEOs to match their percentage of the population? Or should we work to dismantle the structure of corporations entirely? This string of questions springing from Michaels’ original query pushes us toward a particular viewpoint: the lens of disproportionality forces us toward the lowest common denominator for improvement. 

But there are cases where disproportionality makes sense. When we analyze death rates from cancer, looking at disproportionate death rates for Black people compared to white people and rates for poor compared to rich can guide us to make improvements. We should be striving for all people to match the cancer death rates achieved for rich, white people. When we look at property loss from a natural disaster, disparities between rich and poor, white and Black can again guide us toward what reasonable improvement might look like. 

So what’s the difference? Why is disproportionality the correct metric in one case and not the other? It comes down to the distinction between natural and unnatural suffering described by Dr. Decoteau Irby in the book Dignity-Affiming Education. He writes, “All people experience natural suffering and vulnerabilities. Natural environmental events cause human suffering and pain. Nonhuman animals and lifeforms can cause human suffering and pain, but neither contributes to human degradation. Aging and dying often lead to natural physical suffering and pain… but neither aging nor death threatens the dignity of personhood because these vulnerabilities are natural and universal aspects of the human experience.” But, he goes on, “humans degrade fellow humans through the violence of discriminatory treatment that causes unnecessary (i.e. unnatural) pain and suffering, loss of physical well-being, or loss of faculties. The question is: Can suffering and loss be reduced or avoided by attending to substantive dignity needs through expanding access to extant social, policy, educational, or medical interventions?” 

When suffering is unnatural, as in the case of mass incarceration, there is no need for us to look to disproportionality. When unnatural suffering is caused by the nature of the system, as in the nature of the capitalist, corporate oligarchy, there is no need to look to disproportionality. But natural suffering exists. We will never eliminate human death entirely, nor should we seek to. And in cases of natural suffering, disproportionality can provide a guide for us to improve outcomes for those who are least served and most afflicted and who may remain so even as we address unnatural suffering.

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