I am a recent graduate from UC Davis. I hold a dual B.A. degree in Psychology and Political Science. I aspire to attend law school in 2016 and pursue my passion in social justice and human rights. My passion for these fields reflected in my contribution to the criminal justice section of The Cost of Darkness.
IT’S NOT BLACK AND WHITE: INSTITUTIONALIZED RACISM IN AMERICA
Author’s Note
This piece was originally written as a blog post for the Culture C.O.-O.P. (Caring, Optimistic, Open-Minded People). The Culture C.O.-O.P.’s mission is to promote understanding and respect for diversity, cultural competency, reading, and a quality education for all. The documentary team will be releasing a documentary in 2016 entitled The Cost of Darkness. The Cost of Darkness will focus on institutionalized racism in a multitude of systems in America, including healthcare, economics, education, and criminal justice.
Two of the most salient current events this year were the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, among many other African American youth. I believe that our criminal justice system failed in its duty to provide justice when it ruled that the deaths of these two African American men were justified. This article will discuss the historical and societal constructs that have played a part in the institutionalized racism that we see today in the hope that it will help people understand why these situations arise and how they reflect greater shortcomings in the framework of our society.
Since the inception of our country, structures, policies, practices and systemic racism have been incorporated into institutions and communities. In the early 17th century, European settlers in North America turned to Africans as a cheaper way to boost labor and production. In Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857), the Supreme Court ruled that African Americans, whether enslaved or free, could not be American citizens and therefore had no standing to sue in federal court. Furthermore, the implementation of Jim Crow laws legitimized racism against African Americans and branded them as second-class citizens on a political, economic, and social level. Subsequent cases, such as The Civil Rights Act of 1965 and Brown v. Board of Education were significant in establishing equality, but often led to backlash from whites. In a recent case, Shelby v. Holder, The Supreme Court essentially allowed states that have a history of discrimination to implement biased voting practices once again by overturning Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act.
Racism persists today in a new form: preservation through transformation (Alexander 2010). White privilege has been maintained through new rules and legal framework. One of the biggest and most recent political events that has perpetuated institutionalized racism is the War on the Drugs implemented by Reagan. 90% of those admitted for drug offenses were African American or Latino, yet mass incarceration was being described in race-neutral terms. The Supreme Court has facilitated the war on drugs by eviscerating Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures by the police. Police officers have profited from the mass incarceration and have targeted the “ghettos” since African Americans do not maintain nearly as much political influence in urban areas as their white counterparts. It is important to note, however, that white youth are actually the most likely of any racial group to be guilty of illegal drug possession and sales. In fact, white students use cocaine at seven times the rate of African American students. They tend to be exempt from scrutiny, however, due to the fact that the majority of them live in wealthy, urban neighborhoods. According to the Marc Mauer May 2009 Congressional Testimony for The Sentencing Project, African Americans, who comprise 13% of the population 14% of drug users, are 56% of the people in state prisons for drug offenses. The bottom line is that the Supreme Court has granted the police the license to discriminate by means of racial profiling in order to increase their own profits.
Once arrested, black people are more likely to wait longer for a trial than white individuals (New York State Division of Criminal Justice 1995) and are frequently excluded from criminal jury service (Equal Justice Initiative 2010). Furthermore, two-thirds of the individuals in America with life sentences are people of color (Sentencing Project 2009). Needless to say, this is extremely problematic and supports the assertion that the criminal justice system is racist.
As a result of the mass incarceration and institutionalized racism, many families have been left without a job. Due to the lack of income, they have been unable to afford quality education and healthcare. These situational factors have led to extraordinarily high rates of crime. After fulfilling their time in prison, felons of color are ostracized in society, in that they are stripped of opportunities to obtain a decent job and partake in civic duties. They are required to pay numerous payments to a host of agencies, which leaves them very little money to take care of themselves and their families. They then resort to crime and/or drugs once again in order to obtain basic living resources. The cycle repeats. Not all African Americans who are brought up in the “ghettos” and face tough conditions fall into that vicious cycle, but, unfortunately, a disproportionately large number do.
Many individuals have a tendency to point to the African Americans who have become successful, such as Barack Obama and Beyoncé, asserting that other members of the community could, indeed, become as successful as them if they simply worked harder. This is a fallacy because the system that the U.S. is built upon is inherently designed to allow only a few members succeed based on the appropriate circumstances, connections, and fortune, while the majority continue to suffer. We cannot point to the success of the few to justify the plight of the many.
In “The New Jim Crow” (2010), Michelle Alexander likens the situation of African Americans to that of a bird in a birdcage. In a birdcage, the wires are arranged in a specific way to enclose the bird and ensure that it does not escape. In this vein, it is convenient to think that young African Americans freely choose a life of crime as opposed to the possibility that their lives were structured in a way that increased the probability that they would end up as a criminal, but this notion is completely false. African Americans are taught to fulfill the stereotype of being a “thug” or “gangsta” and are treated like ones from a very young age. Society has failed because instead of offering support to individuals in the “ghettos” already struggling with limited opportunities and poor education through changes on the institutional level, it has relegated them to prisons.
Although this is a condensed version of the dynamics between institutions in society, it provides the gist of how a number of these situational factors are interrelated. This is why it does not make sense to look at these cases with a situational perspectic, rather than thematically, or judge communities of color, particularly African Americans, on their speech, education, etc. To do so is to blame them for being in the situation that they are in when the real culprits are those who have deeply embedded biased practices in the framework of our society and perpetuated them.
Learning about the Jim Crow laws, the lynching’s, the other atrocities that have occurred in our history, these deaths and the ways in which racism has been institutionalized can lead people to feel disheartened about the future of social justice in this country and result in inaction. However, as cliché as this may sound, any effort is better than no effort.
Many individuals offer solutions, such as the usage of body cameras, which are good-hearted in nature, but fail to better the underlying causes of conflict. In the case of Eric Garner, the NY jury viewed the footage of the police choking Garner, but still failed to convict him. As long as biases against people of color exist, society will continue to justify the deaths of innocent individuals in some way, shape or form.
I challenge everyone, including myself, to make a conscious effort to rid themselves of their ignorance and, in the words of Gandhi, to be the change they wish to see in the world. Engaging in enlightening conversations with minorities of different cultures, rallying in local events, seeking articles from unbiased media sources, and being involved in grassroots organizations are simple and positive ways to begin the conversation and create change.
The fruition of any beautiful change that has occurred in this world has begun with a single effort, beginning with the choices we have made in our lives extending outwards.