Systemic Racism 101

Whereas Reconstruction ended with an era of overt backlash and backdoor solutions to maintaining white supremacy, the end of the 20th century was about declaring the Civil Rights movement over and sweeping inequality under the rug. The political landscape changed as the Southern Strategy brought many former segregationists into the Republican Party using coded language like “protecting traditional values” and “returning power to the states” after an era of federal expansion to enforce equal rights and opportunity. Democrats and Republicans went back and forth over economic regulations and social programs that addressed economic inequality such welfare, busing, and affirmative action. Following several decades of judicial reform, the executive and legislative branches worked together to get tough on crime. The country became increasingly focused on other issues like Watergate, the energy crisis, and the Middle East.

In an attempt to prove that our society had moved past racial injustices, a movement to create a “colorblind” society emerged from the left, right, and center. During the 1980s-1990s, economic policies that needed justification because they disproportionately hurt people of color generated narratives like the “welfare queen”, dependent upon government handouts or abusing the system. Strong and comprehensive statistical evidence was gathered that shows Black communities have been more likely than comparable white communities to be hurt by environmental toxins, natural disasters, lack of insurance, poor health care, transportation issues, disease, low educational attainment, dangerous working and living conditions, and police brutality.

Yet, when people of color have tried to speak of these inequities and injustices (e.g. Katrina, Flint, Covid-19), they have been largely ignored, discounted, vilified, or accused of “playing the race card” to stir up division. And the most inflammatory criticism one could use to undercut a policy proposal, such as the Affordable Care Act, was to call it “reparations.” The most obvious example that has brought the idea of color-conscious policy making into the spotlight is the Black Lives Matter movement. From its inception, opponents have tried to discredit and silence the movement with the retort, “All Lives Matter.” Only with the gruesome video of George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police in 2020, following several months of social isolation, death, and economic crisis related to the coronavirus pandemic, did our rigid social institutions crack enough for the white masses to wake up to the pervasive systemic racism embedded in them.

Though affirmative action has been supported by the military and businesses since it began in 1970, its role in college admissions continues to be challenged in the Supreme Court as reverse discrimination. In the South, most universities did not begin to truly open up to women and non-white students until the mid-1960s, with little racial diversity through the 1970s. White women were the main beneficiaries of affirmative action policies in colleges and the workplace, though most people associate it only with racial minorities.

Opponents of affirmative action who claim it is unfair to base admissions on anything other than merit fail to have the same concern over the long-standing practice used to give preference to “legacies” of alumni, who are mostly white and rich, beginning in the 1920s to exclude Jewish and immigrant applicants. Though Congress has considered legislation banning the legacy system, it has been indefinitely tabled, presumably because of the vested interest their families have in this practice. Both public and private universities are allowed to use this system and still do.

When urban renewal, or gentrification, dismantled Black communities in the inner cities, white-led institutions pretended it was inevitable that those areas be chosen and that process was in everyone’s best interest. Properties were bought-out or claimed through eminent domain to build freeways, sports arenas, and upscale shopping centers. In reality, those actions were made by people who would profit and could not be prevented by the people who would be hurt and didn’t have the resources, influence, political power, know-how, or free time to stop it. Many Black residents and business owners were displaced by the construction and higher costs of living and doing business in those areas.