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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Let’s grow up on the issue of racism

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The responses to a recent editorial of mine, printed in The New York Times, have astounded me on how ignorant many of us are about race. I do not mean our personal experiences, but of how race functions at a societal level. This ignorance especially applies to the idea of racism. Countless responses to my article discussed racism against African-Americans as if it was a matter of white people being mean and using the N-word. This is a second-grade understanding of racism based on the idea of “good” and “bad” people. If you are guilty of that kind of thinking, stop — immediately. Racism or racial dominance at the level of a country, a state or a city has little to do with people being mean or calling people names. In fact, the issues of racial justice have never been about that. “Nice people” took land from the Indians, supported African enslavement, endorsed a war with Mexico to take Texas, California, Colorado, etc., limited African-Americans to menial jobs, interned Japanese-Americans, deported Mexican-American citizens to Mexico and on and on and on. Racism or racial dominance, as I prefer, has always been about America’s white majority using race to maintain economic, political, educational and countless other advantages for members of their group over everyone else.

Racial dominance functions at two levels. The first level is ideological. At this level, people adopt beliefs that explain the racial inequalities around them. Like, “Slavery is OK for Blacks, because they do not have souls,” or violently taking land from Mexico, because it was our manifest destiny to “rule from sea to shining sea.” A popular one today is, “Racism is all but gone. Blacks and Latinos just do not work hard enough to get ahead.”

The second level of racial dominance is institutional. Think about the legal system and the way “free Blacks” were legally prohibited from coming to Indiana or serving on a jury or testifying against a white person. Another classic example was the lawful use by whites of private agreements called restrictive covenants to bar Blacks, Latinos and others from buying homes in most parts of Indianapolis. Today, consider how numerous studies show that Black students are more harshly punished for the same behavior as their white and other counterparts. In the same vein, studies likewise show that African-Americans and Latinos are stopped, arrested, convicted and sentenced at disproportionate rates for the same conduct as whites. These examples show how the educational system and the criminal justice system maintain racial dominance. Students experiencing disproportionate punishment are less competitive for college, and adults with felony records struggle to find employment.

These and numerous other systemic mechanisms, today, impede the progress of African-Americans and other people of color, just as other systems operated in the past. Though the techniques have changed across generations, the outcomes remain the same — whites enhance and maintain dominance as a racial group in a way that advantages them over others. As a result, many whites feel they are the chief victims of discrimination through policies like affirmative action or the consequences of being labeled a racist. Of course, whites enjoy the most wealth in the country by far, a disproportionate share of positions as CEOs, college and university presidents and administrators, elected representatives and graduate and professional degree recipients, in addition to being a disproportionate share of homeowners, small business owners, media owners, professionals, police, judges and motion picture academy members. White racial dominance in America is effectual and comprehensive.

However, this dominance also requires and receives the endorsement of Blacks and others to operate. The ideas of Black inferiority, criminality, laziness and incompetence have been fed to African-Americans as much as everyone else, and too many of these ideas find resonance in African-American homes, churches, businesses and neighborhoods. It affects everything from children’s views about school to Black buying practices, to voting habits and Black politicians’ agendas. Let’s grow up in our understanding of racial inequality and create an agenda that dismantles it once and for all.

Carlton Waterhouse is a professor of law and Dean’s Fellow at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law.

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