The many racial controversies of the past year have got me thinking about where our society stands on these issues. My interest has been intensified by several discussions in my Bill of Rights class, especially those regarding the interaction between race, society and the law.
From the confrontational days of the long presidential campaign, particularly the controversy surrounding Reverend Jeremiah Wright, to the joy surrounding Obama’s election, to the burning of a black church in Springfield just hours later, it has been a dramatic time. Not to mention the Jason Vassell case, that has highlighted racial controversy on campus and in the local community.
While there has certainly been a lot of tension around here, other areas of the country don’t seem so deeply divided. This begs the larger question: Did Obama’s victory signal the end of institutionalized racism in America?
I do not mean the phenomenon of racism, since there will always be individuals whose phobias regarding the ‘other’ manifest as bigotry and irrational hatred for those who are different. Rather, does our society now accept that individuals of all ethnicities are fundamentally equal, and that we should embrace ‘colorblind’ social policy and legal forms?
I think the majority finds this to be true, feeling that Obama’s rise begins a post-racial narrative in our society. There are also strong currents of dissent from this dominant view, though I do not believe that those in opposition demographically match our ethnic and political makeup, and many contend it is fallacious to declare an end to racial division simply because we have an African-American president. However, it seems the dominant view is that our societal framework has rejected the concept of inequality based solely on race.
To be sure, this is clearly what people want to believe, and that narrative of equality was on display on Inauguration Day. In contrast to the hypersensitive atmosphere of the campaign, and despite the somewhat discordant note struck by Reverend Joseph Lowery’s playful but racially-worded rhyming benediction, the theme of the day was clearly one of ethnic integration. But was the presentation a reflection of a new reality, or was it contrived by the media to support their desire for racial unity?
It would be much easier if these questions were merely academic. However, developments in both the legal and social scientific realms indicate that post-racist beliefs are already being translated into policy by the Supreme Court, and both sides in the debate are enlisting sociologists to support their views.
For example, in recent rulings on the use of racial categories for public school enrollment in Seattle, WA and Louisville, KY, the Supreme Court found it unconstitutional to rely solely on ethnicity in determining the diversity of educational institutions. Chief Justice Roberts’ opinion reflected a clearly post-racialist view when he wrote, ‘The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.’
Justice Breyer opposed this point of view, and invoked the specter of resegregation in his dissenting opinion. But briefs by many education scientists were presented in support of both sides in the ‘Parents Involved’ cases. Justice Thomas remarked on the scholars’ disagreements in his concurring opinion opposing the racial categorizations. He concluded, in part, that the ‘tenuous relationship between forced racial mixing and improved educational results for black children’ rendered the state’s compelling interest in using race as its sole measure of diversity insupportable.
Yet many reject the post-racialist view of Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Thomas and social scientists like Abigail Thernstrom, citing the economic inequality of blacks in American society. Referring to the statistically lower academic achievement of students in inner-city areas, where there are a far greater proportion of black students, or the tragically higher poverty rates among African Americans, there are many who contend that any society that fails to address these issues will never attain real ‘colorblindness.’ They argue that, despite all our efforts to achieve equality under the law, these structural imbalances must be solved for true equality to prevail.
It is fascinating to note the similarity between modern arguments over the unequal results achieved by America’s current public education system and those of a time when segregation was acceptable while inequality itself was legally prohibited. Before the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, the law of the land was the ‘separate but equal’ doctrine established by the Plessy v. Ferguson case in 1896.
For years, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) challenged ‘separate but equal’ and Jim Crow laws by fighting for functionally equal facilities, especially schools, for blacks and whites. In Brown v. Board of Education, the court recognized that the ‘separate’ part of the equation was in itself unequal and declared segregation unconstitutional. Yet somehow, despite the best of intentions, the growing body of law in support of structural equality was cast aside in the pursuit of the new doctrine of integration.
As the incidents with comedian Michael Richards and radio host Don Imus suggest, no matter how diligently we try as a nation to stamp out bigotry, it will always defy our efforts, emerging at the most unpredictable of times, and from sources we may never have suspected.
Maybe the best we can do is to be ever watchful for racism which seems to derive from ignorance, and treat those instances as ‘teachable moments.’ In contrast, the wider issue of how we address society’s inequalities is not even that easy to address.
Perhaps in those matters, the best we can hope to do is to continue the debate, to never settle for any status quo, satisfactory or not and remain always mindful that issues of equality are far less susceptible to legal remedy than we once believed.
Ben Rudnick is a Collegian columnist. He can be reached at brudnick@student.umass.edu.
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