Reporter: Pam Dankins
Is racism still present? The term “racism” is frequently used in today’s society; however, the word is often used in an improper manner. In society, the notion of racism being present is mainly when violence towards African Americans occurs. Lately, people have started to coin the phrase “new racism” to explain the gradual shift from “old racism”. From “old racism” to “new racism”, African Americans have faced societal discrimination sometimes resulting in violence being inflicted upon the community of people.
Before discussing how racism towards African Americans is presented in today’s society, I will explain how racism altered the lives of many descendants. The existence of “old racism” is founded upon a direct expression of denial about societal discrimination based on segregation. Old racism has impacted the lives of thousands of people; however, the conversations have withered away, while the impact continues to progress over into present time.
The history of racism towards African Americans and their efforts to overcome oppression has caused division between people for decades. Beyond the 1860s, there were a plethora of executions and riots within the South and the North. In the South from 1824-1862, over 45 slaves experienced the inevitable of being “extralegally executed” in the form of being lynched or burned alive by the hands of white southerners (Pfeifer 622). In the North, there were groups of working-class northern whites that rioted against African Americans in rejection of the extensions of African Americans legal and protection rights (Pfeifer 623). Although we won’t be able to completely get rid of racial prejudice, we must confront and identify the racism of the past, since it brought limitations of economic, political and societal involvement.
Racism of the past is heavily influenced on when African Americans were confined from reaching their full potential or contributing to society. In order to be committed to combatting racial inequality, one movement named the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People played a pivotal role in gaining victories for African Americans. Records from the NAACP shows the Ku Klux Klan conducted over 3,200 African American lynchings between 1889 and 1919. With this in mind, the NAACP's campaigns gained landmark victories in the Supreme Court, such as the ruling in the Guinn v United States (1915) case that stated how disenfranchised African American voters rights were violated under the 15th Amendment (Kirk). For many people who lost hope, moving in a positive direction was difficult for African Americans, especially when laws put them in immobile positions.
The history of slavery in the South is known primarily for its white supremacy groups, laws enforcing segregation, and the plantation economy. However, many don’t think in depth about how the establishment of the planation economy led to the creation of a society divided by “class”. There were minimum wealthy, white landowners, who owned majority of the land, while there were a high volume of poor famers, apprenticed servants and slaves. The class division widened because the wealthy, landowners, got wealthier, and slaves found themselves deeper in debt, making the plantation institution be the start of social and political inequality.
The noticeable restrictions the laws in the South created made African American people inferior to the southern white society. In society, we have to take notice that systemic racism is present when racial prejudice is openly supported and accepted by institutions and laws. State legislatures in the South passed a series of laws called Jim Crow Laws and Black Codes, which severely restricted the freedom of African American people residing in the area. During the late 1870s, new laws were enacted such as vagrancy laws, which criminalized unemployment and minor crimes allowing harsh punishments to be inflicted upon people of color.
For over 400 years, African Americans have faced so much mistreatment solely based on their skin color. Even when they began to serve in wars, they still did not receive any major benefits for their services. After World War II, African Americans returned to “rat-infested ghetto neighborhoods”, while America gave the enemy, Japan, who bombed Pearl Harbor, $2.2 billion and Europe $12 billion to rebuild their country (Perryman). The racist policies and heavy practices of segregation in place were issues some African Americans found contempt in, but for others, they were seeking a way out.
In hopes of fleeing the life of bondage, African Americans went to the North, the home for emancipated slaves, to find peace from racial discrimination in the South. However, many Northern cities and towns became hotspots for intense racial hostilities. The North realized that the one way to enforce restrictions against the disenfranchised is to argue education. At the time African American males had been voting for years; however, northern whites used their expansive access to public schools as a form of proof that they were capably enough to vote (Boonshoft 448). Obviously, the same groups who advocated to disfranchise African Americans votes supported segregated schools or opposed African American education entirely.
The laws in the North regulated suffrage and rights of the free; however, this is never discussed at the same magnitude as in the South. While white northerners may have been rejecting the notion of race-based slavery, the North still despised free African Americans and strongly desired to keep them out of society. What other way to keep someone off of land? You take land from them. Within the Illinois territory, an 1813 law was enacted informing free African Americans along with mulattos that they have exactly 2 weeks to leave the land or else they would receive approximately 40 whip lashes (Dattel 14). African Americans soon realized that they would face suffrage on both lands because the North did not want free blacks, and the South needed free blacks as cotton laborers. For a while, African Americans basically had to pick which struggle they would want to endure.
Lately, many cases of discrimination happening in America have been considered. It is important to note that racial hierarchies are defined and cultivated by those considered superior in our society. While a hierarchical status can promote the good for some, it can also inflict harm upon others. African American people, the inferior, were denied access to well-paying jobs, entrance into high-educational institutions and wealthy neighborhoods, while white people, the superior, received wealth privileges built within our power structures, education and prestigious jobs. Once again, the structural inequalities generated gaps across social groups, and these social groups began to transfer the power of institutions into their personal vendettas, hate crimes.
Hate crimes is a huge topic often brought up, but in order to properly examine the extent of a single hate crime, a person’s intent and motive is considered. In today’s society, it is so important to decipher between intent and motive. If someone has the intent, the will or plan of an individual, to perform an action, it implies the act was not an accident or mistake because the individual has full knowledge of the consequences of their actions; criminal liability is valid. On the other side, if someone has a motive, the underlying objective behind their actions driving their intent, it implies the accusation of criminal activity (Brax 238). When people began to discuss conflicts centered around hate crimes some cases like the James Byrd Jr. case is key.
One of the most unheard-of cases is James Byrd Jr.’s death. In summary, James Byrd Jr. was a 49-year-old African American male, who was murdered by 3 white supremacists’ members in Jasper, Texas, on June 7, 1998. The 3 men, Shawn Berry, Lawrence Brewer, and John King, latched Byrd by his ankles to the back of a pick-up truck using logging chains and drug Byrd approximately 3 miles along an asphalt road, eventually, dismantling his limbs from his body. The crime scene and graphics shown in court were so appalling that many people in the community and worldwide were traumatized from Byrd’s death. Something we all should try to embody is being able to view the world within our own reality but also, be able to see the reality others live in. In order to resolve the conflict this murder brought, the community of Jasper had to learn how to understand and acknowledge the differing viewpoints on the case.
During this case and even afterwards, the Jasper community felt this consistent, gut-punching wave of rage and fear on the African Americans side and shame and retaliation anxiety on the white Americans side. People at the time were dealing with thousands of emotions. People were having flashbacks saying, “I don't know if I got 10-hours of sleep in a whole week.” People were not believing this was something the community would do saying, “It was brought here; it wasn't created here” (Ainslie and Brabeck 46). The ministers of the community were extremely worried that once the KKK and the Black Panthers arrived in their community division would cultivate out of this murder. One of the ministers named Pastor Lyons spoke on how they tried to focus on this murder “being a Jasper problem rather than a black problem or a white problem” (Block and Norris). In society, we need to stop making racism a “them” problem and make it an “us” problem because different feelings and multiple conversations can lead to healing for those hurting.
The different perspectives of those in our society are vital when discussing racial inequalities. We must fully acknowledge how old racism has tied itself into why African Americans expect to be judged/treated unfairly in encounters with police officers. When reflecting on the history of decades of heavily policing in the black community, these encounters with officers are considered triggers for African Americans.
In two studies conducted by Najdowski, the examination process dealt with the perspectives of African and white Americans interacting with police officers. Study 1 results showed how the majority of African American males feel more concerned about being stereotyped as criminals than African American women, white men and white women (Najdowski 465). Study 2 results revealed that the stereotype threat of an African American male would lead the individual to engage in nonverbal behavior that would make him be perceived as a suspicious person, but not white men (Najdowski 468). Whether the police or the person of color starts to think of those connections, is debatable; however, this stereotypical deception puts innocent African Americans at a greater risk than white people of being perceived as guilty.
However, there are people who believe that widespread racial bias is not prevalent. They go against the idea that racism is built into the fabric of the U.S. society, which was supposedly designed to give white Americans an unfair advantage (MacDonald). With the widespread reactions on the video of George Floyd’s arrest, the idea of their being a structural bias in the criminal-justice system became a hot topic once again.
MacDonald points out how this one arrest does not account for the “375 million” encounters police officers have with civilians. She is correct, but she is forgetting other stories from African Americans individuals, Stephon Clark, Elijah McClain, Tamir Rice, Breonna Taylor, and many more, who were harassed, imprisoned or killed by police officers that have and haven’t been brought to national attention about race relations and systemic racism. The fight for police reform is based on the issue that African Americans make up less than 15% of the population but are 3 times more likely than white Americans to be killed by the police. The idea of a “new racism” forming is not solely dependent on racial stereotypes but rooted aggression in cultural and ethnic differences.
The evolution of “new racism” is a more subtle and indirect expression of denial about societal discrimination. These meek behaviors don’t take away from the physical and psychological repercussions, primarily, white and people of color face after traumatic events that need to be analyzed. Once all of these collective responses to trauma build up over time, communities may find themselves under stress because of the traumatic incident (Ainslie and Brabeck 47). However, we rather pretend our communities are utopians instead of examining the built-up oppression and aggression within each action. With the topic of old racism and its transition to new racism, the conversations between white people and people of color often don’t see the situation in the same light.
Why is racism and slavery psychoanalytically not studied? In the article, “The Name of the Game is Shame”, Graff states, “slavery has left in our consciousness due in part to shame; it was shameful to practice slavery, shameful to be a slave, and shameful to justify slavery” (139). From the planation economy and the Jim Crow era to being terrorized and marginalized to disenfranchisement and unequal educational resources, the ordeals African Americans descendants experienced, and African Americans continue to experience is difficult to discuss. Therefore, when the racial justice becomes more subtle, many white Americans feel that African Americans have been given a level playing field undermines those experiences.
When discussing rationalizing inequalities, the colorblind theory is a topic that seems to arise on many occasions. Within this theory, there are two sides: pro-colorblind people and anti-colorblind people. The proponents of a colorblind society believe that being colorblind will eliminate the need for classification of people and gives people an opportunity to properly establish relationships based on character and personality rather than race (David). On the other side, the antis believe that when a person tries to strip away one’s skin color in order to consider everyone equal, it minimizes the struggles African Americans faced and can lead people towards creating stereotypes, generalizations and misunderstandings against people of color.
David makes a valid point that when a person “pretends or chooses to not see color, it does not solve racism but maintains its existence”. For some people their racial, ethnic and cultural identities play a huge factor in who they are as an individual and to ignore or take away a person’s identity does not help society grow. As a society, we cannot keep attempting to devalue peoples’ realities and the experiences their ancestors had to endure for the movement of trying to erase, invalidate and minimize peoples’ struggles. Some Americans claim that race isn’t a factor and shouldn’t be a factor, but they can’t continue to ignore how their ignorance leads to harmful effects on children.
Institutionalized racism presents itself in many forms; however, education is an area that isn’t discussed a lot. Outside of education, children are normally the most impacted, yet the most sheltered from topics like racism. Children go through a development stage, so they are often more aware, observant and absorbent to their environments. If parents are not choosing to educate their children, who will bring knowledge forward for the children? Educators will.
Mayfield believes that educators have the ability to bridge the racial gaps. Educators are in the position to “change the trajectory of each child's academic and economic future”. When professors, teachers and instructors take the opportunity to understand racism, students will become more involved in equity, antiracism and culture awareness. Students should be encouraged to deepen their knowledge on making those historical connections to today’s disparities.
Some Americans are opposed to educating children on the movements dealing with racism. I previously, discussed the NAACP; however, there aren’t many negative connotations centered around their name like the Black Lives Matter movement. In Buffalo, N.Y., fifth-grade students are reading studies on BLM, which makes people feel like “by the time they hit high school, students in Buffalo are ready to go out into the world to destroy buildings and statues” based on them being “trained” to follow in suit of what they are learning (Carlson). Even though this is a different perspective, this actually adds to my point on why educators should educate themselves and children on societal issues. As I talked about the racism of the past and the racism of the present, what gets lost in the suffrage is the generational trauma that’s being passed down to children, and now we see how the trauma of the past is affecting the children of today.
When reflecting over the events that transpired in America’s past history and focuses on America’s present issues, many can no longer deny how America’s racial and ethnic tensions have caused a great divide between the people in this country. Many Africans Americans do recognize the hurdles they have jumped, but that doesn’t mean they have reached the finish line just yet. For those who object the notion that African Americans are facing societal discrimination, question if this is the way you would want you and your loved ones to be treated. The lives of many innocent people have been deprived from them based on the founding principles of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”, which clearly, was not meant for all.
Works Cited
Ainslie, Ricardo, and Kalina Brabeck. “Race Murder and Community Trauma: Psychoanalysis and Ethnography in Exploring the Impact of the Killing of James Byrd in Jasper, Texas.” Journal for the Psychoanalysis of Culture & Society, vol. 8, no. 1, Spring 2003, pp. 42-50. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/psy.2003.0002.
Block, Melissa and Michele Norris. “Jasper, Texas: 10 Years After a Racist Murder.” All Things Considered from NPR, June 2008, npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91489022.
Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. “The Structure of Racism in Color-Blind, ‘Post-Racial’ America.” American Behavioral Scientist, vol. 59, no. 11, October 2015, pp. 1358-1376. Sage journals, doi: 10.1177/0002764215586826.
Boonshoft, Mark. “From Property to Education: Public Schooling, Race, and the Transformation of Suffrage in the Early National North.” Journal of the Early Republic, vol. 41, no. 3, Fall 2021, pp. 1-36. Project MUSE, muse.jhu.edu/article/803781.
Brax, David. “Motives, Reasons, and Responsibility in Hate/Bias Crime Legislation.” Criminal Justice Ethics, vol. 35, no. 3, December 2016, pp. 230-248. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=119451053&site=ehost-live&custid=magn1307.
Carlson, Tucker. “Color Blindness Is Counterproductive.” Fox News, February 2021, foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-far-left-agenda-schools-blm.
Dattel, Gene. “The Untold Story of Reconstruction.” New Criterion, vol. 34, no. 1, pp. 12-18. genedattel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/reconstruction-final-newcriterion-aug182015.pdf.
David, E.J.R. “Racism is the problem, not seeing colors or differences.” Anchorage Daily News, June 2016, adn.com/commentary/article/seeing-color-not-problem-racism/2014/12/14/.
Graff, Gilda. “The Name of the Game is Shame: The Effects of Slavery and Its Aftermath.” Journal of Psychohistory, vol. 39, no. 2, Fall 2011, pp. 133-144. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=64366386&login.asp%3fcustid%3dmagn1307&site=ehost-live&custid=magn1307.
Kirk, John. “The Long Road to Equality.” History Today, vol. 59, no. 2, Feb. 2009, pp. 55-58. thefreelibrary.com/The+long+road+to+equality.
Mac Donald, Heather. “The Myth of Systemic Police Racism.” The Wall Street Journal, June 2020, wsj.com/articles/the-myth-of-systemic-police-racism-11591119883.
Mayfield, Vernita. “Learning to Challenge: Racial ‘Colorblindness’.” Educational Leadership, vol. 78, no. 5, Feb. 2021, pp. 33-37. ascd.org/el/articles/learning-to-challenge-racial-colorblindness.
Najdowski, Cynthia J., et al. “Stereotype Threat and Racial Differences in Citizens' Experiences of Police Encounters.” Law & Human Behavior (American Psychological Association), vol.39, no. 5, Oct. 2015, pp. 463-477. apa.org/pubs/journals/features/lhb-lhb0000140.pdf.
Perryman, Wayne. “Reparations & Facts Ignored.” New York Amsterdam News, vol. 110, no. 31, 1 Aug. 2019, pp. 12-30. amsterdamnews.com/news/2019/08/01/reparations-facts-ignored/.
Pfeifer, Michael J. “The Northern United States and the Genesis of Racial Lynching: The Lynching of African Americans in the Civil War Era.” Journal of American History, vol. 97, no. 3, December 2010, pp. 621-635. jstor.org/stable/40959936.