In analyzing race in economic history, I've found that Econs use imaginary Black people. They typically show up as threats to identification (what if they did X or Y?). History is not about what ifs, but the what did. We should use the narrative record to answer these questions
When we do, there is still skepticism. Part of this is due to very, very poor understanding of Black history and culture (even by economic historians) and a second is dismissal of evidence about Black (or white) people doing things white Econs did not understand or approve.
What white Econs do understand and accept is Black reaction to white-based stimuli. What they do not appear to accept is Black agency to move beyond white stimuli, or to create for themselves things for themselves. This is the long-standing problem of race in social science.
As Ellison noted about Myrdal: "Can a people live and develop for over three hundred years simply by reacting? Are American Negroes simply the creation of white men, or have they at least helped to create themselves out of what they found around them?"
There is a deeper point here. To assume Blacks should acquiesce to the dominant culture assumes then that they acquiesce to its racial violence and the dehumanization of Black people. To reflexively assume that all people see that culture as superior is false on its face.
In contemporary econ we see attempts to quantify and demonize Black culture. This is odd because so much of white culture is pathological, and certainly for Black people. The cultural arguments about Black people never turn this around to look at the pathologies of whites.
The arc, from history to now, of how Black agency and culture are viewed in Economics is sad. The basic Black cultural model employed by Econs is imitative. Just because it shows up as a "confounder" or "seminar question" does not mean there isn't a cultural model underneath it.
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