"The position of the negro today in America is the tragic but inevitable consequence of centuries of unequal treatment. Measured by any benchmark of comfort or achievement, meaningful equality remains a distant dream for the negro."
- Justice Thurgood Marshall, Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978)
Neither the end of slavery in the middle of the 19th century nor the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s-70s heralded long fought for and awaited equality for the people this country formerly enslaved. Nor did they bring an end to racism in America. This truth exists along with the seemingly contradictory fact that Americans have twice elected a black man as President. Because of that, many ask, how can anyone possibly believe that racism still exists in America - we have a black President!
Notwithstanding President Obama's election and re-election this year sadly has underscored the truth that racism is alive and well in America. Most prominent in terms of visibility have been the tragic deaths of mostly young black men at the hands of the police, largely due, many believe, to continued racial profiling - and continuing racism. The tragic deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner are but two illustrations.
We return again to the question of how these events can occur, and be caused by, continuing racism in this country, when a twice elected black president holds America's highest office. The refusal to accept that racism exists in every-day American society will only continue to perpetuate the unfair treatment. The first step in any recovery or healing process is acknowledging - that there is a problem. It is hard to cure an illness if you are not aware that it exists; it is even more difficult when you are denying its existence altogether.
A commonly held belief prior to the Civil Rights movement was that racism was more prevalent in the south than in the north. Although this belief may have emerged as a result of the seemingly more direct and forthright racism in the south, this alone should not render the belief that racism was or still is non-existent in the north. Rather, the racism in the north was and remains more obscure, and arguably a more dangerous form because of the perception by many that the north is for the most part free of racism. Rather, as Justice Thurgood Marshall sagely understood, "the racism of our society has been so pervasive that none, regardless of wealth or position, has managed to escape its impact."
In reality, the civil rights movement transformed overt racism into a more invidious form, something which has been interlaced into our pre-conceived notions. One of a million examples: a white female practically (more often than not) automatically clutches her pocketbook or purse more tightly when a man of color is in the vicinity, in comparison to a white male. Or, when a store owner/worker hover over black customers believing they are more likely than whites to steal.
Justice Thurgood Marshall, the lawyer who argued and won the legal battle for racial integration of schools in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and later became the first African-American Supreme Court Justice, made a similar argument in one of his brilliantly-crafted dissents. In his dissenting opinion in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, a case that questioned the constitutionality of affirmative action, Marshall outlined the history of blacks. He started his dissent in a manner unlike most judicial opinions. Rather, with great emotion and the evidence of history backing up his stirring dissent, he began as follows:
"Three hundred and fifty years ago, the Negro was dragged to this country in chains to be sold into slavery... the slave was deprived of all legal rights. It was unlawful to teach him to read; he could be sold away from his family and friends at the whim of his master; and killing or maiming him was not a crime."
He argued forcefully that despite the purported end of slavery following the civil war, it was then replaced by the Jim Crow laws that continued the shameful and shameless notion that blacks are inferior to whites. Those laws were numerous and grew rather than decreased over time. Whether it was segregated schools, the state's ability to forbid a person of color to marry a white person, or separate facilities for whites and blacks, Jim Crow laws continued to reflect the underlying rationale of slavery - that black people were inferior to whites.
The passing of the 13th Amendment in 1865 marked the end of slavery in America - not the start of equality. So we return to the question many seem to believe is already answered: does racism still exist in America? Unfortunately, and unquestionably, the answer is "yes." Are we making progress? "yes." But there is so much yet to be accomplished, so many wrongs to be righted, so many inequalities to be removed.
Personally, I hope that we will one day reside in a society which has unshackled itself from its centuries of racial oppression and inequality. However, centuries of oppression and second-class treatment cannot merely be washed away with the passing of a few acts of legislation nor the removal of the remnants of past segregation. The denial by such a large demographic of the continued existence of racism will only further inhibit our society and restrain it from moving forward. In order for some form of progress to occur, we must each do our part and tend to this wound which was created at the inception of our country.
There is no question that to finally eliminate racism, we as a society must first acknowledge, not deny, that it continues to exist. Then make its elimination from the very soul of our country. Unless and until that is done, the injustices which so many in our society suffer will continue to flourish, leaving a blemish on the country that claims to be a shining model of freedom.