Discrimination Today

Since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed we still see many racial injustices that are still ingrained in our society. Though America has moved forward in passing laws that make discrimination illegal, our country is still somewhat divided without most people even realizing. These injustices are embedded in our institutions and government today due to the amount of time that minorities (namely African Americans) were lawfully allowed to be discriminated against. Institutional Racism still exists today, though many do not want to believe it. African Americans have not bounced back from the time where they were heavily discriminated against, and that is due to institutions in which it makes whites better off than African Americans. Institutions such as education and voting are places where there is proof of institutional racism in America.

Our education and voting system in America is plagued with institutional racism that most citizens do not think of. The division of race in schooling systems can be traced back to the neighborhood. As talked about in chapter 11, Gerrymandering causes voting districts to erect that are called majority-minority districts. These districts allow minority groups to congregate in the same neighborhoods giving them the opportunity to have more say in elections. As this seems like a fair and good idea, it gives the minorities in surrounding districts less power to enact political change. This move by politicians to crowd districts with minority groups for voting purposes also creates school districts where most minorities attend. High School graduation rates among minorities are much lower than that of whites, thus we see a direct correlation to how institutional racism affects the future of minorities.

When it comes to voting, these districts not only make it unfair to enact political change, but it is also more difficult for minorities to vote. Some states have recorded lines for voting that are hours long. With these districts typically being lower income, it makes more sense to work for the day rather than wait in lines that are hours long. This again puts minorities at a disadvantage under a system that seems to knowingly put minorities at a disadvantage. Also, most people in politics that hold elected positions are generally white. Although the number of minorities in politics has been rising in recent years, this again puts minorities at a disadvantage because politicians are more likely to put the interests of their own people ahead of the interests of minorities.

Although our country has taken steps to fix racism and discrimination it is still very prevalent in our society. Even after many laws passed to make discrimination and racism illegal, there is still a lot of work to do to get rid of the divide between minorities in our society. The question is what can we do in order to further abolish discrimination in America?

https://www.bustle.com/p/this-is-proof-that-institutional-racism-is-still-very-much-a-problem-43610

https://psmag.com/education/racism-in-schools-unintentional-3821

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/09/how-a-widespread-practice-to-politically-empower-african-americans-might-actually-harm-them/?utm_term=.9d5545f13e70

http://www.governing.com/gov-data/education-data/state-high-school-graduation-rates-by-race-ethnicity.html

http://www.electproject.org/home/voter-turnout/demographics

13 Responses to "Discrimination Today"

Cassandra Martin says:

April 18, 2018 at 6:31 pm

Everett,

Thank you for a great post that discusses the unfortunate circumstances many minorities, specifically African Americans, have to face. I really appreciate the way you outline the progression of slavery to institutionalized racism by discussing that by allowing government-sanctioned racism to exist for so long, it is now much harder, sometimes even impossible, for members of minorities to climb the socioeconomic ladder that white Americans have very little trouble navigating.

What I wish you took time to discuss more was the implications of institutionalized racism in the education system. It is true that they have lower graduation rates, but perhaps if you had discussed a higher prevalence of problems such as inexperienced and underpaid educators, understaffing, less funding for better educational resources, and less opportunities for advancement such as AP classes, it would’ve demonstrated why underserved school systems with a higher population of minority students have lower graduation rates. I would’ve also liked to see some examples of affirmative action that have been created to combat this issue.

What I really liked about your post is the way in which you went back to the Chapter 11 discussion of gerrymandering. This is a fantastic example of the ways in which the political system whether intentionally or not, oppresses the opinions of minorities. I thought it was very insightful that you even discussed voting lines because it is true that people need economic security, and by requiring them to wait hours in line to vote in a system which they already feel doesn’t reflect their opinions, it disincentives them from doing so, which has terrible implications for our democracy.

Great post!
Klein Evans says:

April 18, 2018 at 6:43 pm

Thanks for a really intriguing post on discrimination and racial equality in our country today Everett. I believe that I am in the popular demographic on this issue when I say that I completely agree with the argument you present in this post. I think your linkage of key ideas from earlier in our class really help out your argument, especially when you focus on gerrymandering and how that affects this issue. I believe that the intentional aspect of this issue comes solely from politicians trying to gain support, not to further discrimination.

You finish your post by asking what we can do to help further abolish discrimination today, and I don’t believe there is one concrete answer/solution to this question. However, I do think that we can make drastic steps towards finding one or eliminating this issue by the use of smaller steps and actions. I think if those who really do want to see change happen for the good of our nation, they will do what they can and hopefully others join in making this an attainable goal.
Holden Powers says:

April 19, 2018 at 12:53 pm

Everett,

Thank you so much for your post. The ideas of discrimination are very evident today especially in education. Due to the fact that lots of African Americans live in urban areas, the school districts to which they are assigned are not nearly as strong as those of the suburban areas. This due to the fact that the areas tend to be very poor and the amount of funding schools receive are minimal. Furthermore, because whites tend to have more education than African Americans in the past and present, the white educated live in the suburbs (higher incomes) and the uneducated African Americans (lower incomes) live in the cities. As a result, the teachers who are teaching tend to be not as strong than those who live in a predominately white area.

Because of the lack of funding and poor teachers, African Americans get an education which could be deemed to be sub-par. As a result, the local and federal governments should do a better job of equally distributing school funding as well as teachers in order to bring together the educational divide. Hopefully by improving and distributing education more evenly, this will create more educated African Americans and which will lead to more becoming members of our government.
Kelly Gough says:

April 22, 2018 at 11:46 am

Everett,

Thanks for a great blog post, it was very interesting and had a lot of great insights.

One of the interesting points you brought up was about institutional racism that torments Americas education and voting systems. The connection between Gerrymandering and institutional racism is truly a failure of our government. Separating districts based on minority groups and in a way to create school districts where most minorities will then be forced to attend is a blatant disregard for equality, one of the fundamental values of the United States.

I wonder what could be done to keep Gerrymandering from affective school districts. With the rise in Montessori schools, I wonder if the lottery system for acceptance is also biased? Could a shuttle system be made to allow different districts to attend different schools?

It is true that many steps have been taken to correct racism and discrimination, but as your post points out there are still many more steps that need to be taken before the issue is totally absolved.

Thanks again for the post!
Katherine Breed says:

April 22, 2018 at 4:56 pm

Everett,

Thank you for interesting post. It definitely offers some thought provoking arguments. I agree with you that inequality still exists today. I like how you offer education as one of the institutions that embodies racism still existing today. I enjoyed that you related it to chapter 11 regarding Gerrymandering I think it made your argument stronger. I agree with you that a major reason for racism still existing in education is due to the fact that neighborhoods keep the separation of different groups alive.

Where you live correlates to the type of education you will receive. If someone is from an impoverish area the school surrounding those neighborhoods will not be as good as the school in higher economic areas. This is a large problem in education especially today because it is affecting the type of teacher’s certain schools are getting. School in low socio-economic areas aren’t getting as many teachers therefore affecting the students having them become less educated or fall behind their peers making high school graduation rates among minorities much lower, as you mentioned. Thank you for your post I really enjoyed it!
Haley Overlander says:

April 22, 2018 at 5:22 pm

Everett,

Thank you for your post. I strongly agree that more needs to be done to deconstruct the institutional racism that has been built within our society from the past decades. Though steps have been taken as you stated, such as the Voting Rights act and the Civil Rights Act, there is still so much more that could be implemented. However, our nation struggles with the fact that because racism has been built into our systems, many to ignore that it still exists because it has become so ordinary.

According to Carl Parsons of The Guardian, “”Institutional racism” gave a name to a process of differentiation and discrimination, but removed individual motive and responsibility from consideration… it attributed cause to the depersonalized operation of a system… As individual decision-making is not considered the cause, and the requirement to gather and present data is not imposed, the legislation that followed lacks impact” (Parsons). Institutional racism takes the blame away from the individual and puts it on the broader perspective of the ‘operation of a system.” The problem that arises from this, is that because no one is taking the direct blame, there is no incentive to actually solve the problem at hand. Another way many try to deflect the problem of institutional racism is by saying that it is the minorities choice not to work as hard and strive for excellent grades, however, circumstances embedded in minorities day to day lives, where they live, what their income is, who they are raised by, are all large contributors.

According to Vincent Intondi of the Huffington Post, “[Although] schools were desegregated in 1954, (although it took at least another 10 years to fully implement), education in many ways, has become increasingly segregated and unequal… The reality is that throughout the country there are those students, many of whom are white, who get up every morning, eat a healthy breakfast, have a laptop, a cell phone, and personal tutors… They attend schools that are equipped with the best technology available and teachers who are paid 80k a year…On the other side are students, most of whom are black and brown, who rely on the free lunch at school as their only meal for the day, walk to school fearing they may be shot, have no computers, and attend a school in which the textbooks are five years old, mold is growing on the walls, and faculty earn 25k a year” (Intondi). These massive differences in education are not by chance, but rather from decades of discrimination and the never-ending cycle of institutional racism. Until a solution is found that can properly deconstruct the institutional racism that has enveloped our society, then equality will never be able to thrive. I believe that instructional racism needs to be solved form the ground up, and that will never be able to occur until the privileged accept that it is their responsibility to work to deconstruct institutional racism, rather than passively ignore its existence.

Thanks again!

Citations:

Intondi, Vincent. “Education, Institutional Racism, and the Conservative Response to ‘My Brother’s Keeper.’” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 3 May 2014, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vincent-intondi/education-institutional-r_b_4886989.html.

Parsons, Carl. “Institutional Racism in Schools.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 22 Apr. 2008, http://www.theguardian.com/education/2008/apr/22/schools.pupilbehaviour.

Citations:
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2008/apr/22/schools.pupilbehaviour
Akshit Sharma says:

April 22, 2018 at 6:41 pm

Thank you for the blog post Everett, I enjoyed reading it. As much as I agree with almost all of the points that you make, I would like to point out that you are using discrimination and racism interchangeably, which should not be the case. Racism is a type of discrimination and can be termed as discrimination that is based on one’s race. There are many other types of ways that people are discriminated against as well. For instance, people are discriminated against based on gender, disability, nationality, age, etc. also. Racism is surely one of the most infamous ways of discriminating against a person and it certainly still persists in America. But I think to broadly understand the true state of discrimination in the United States, we need to take into account all other possible ways that one can be discriminated against and not just use racism, even though that is possibly the biggest part of it.
Langley Crisp says:

April 22, 2018 at 8:55 pm

Everett,

Thanks for a great post. I think your ideas are solid, and I agree with you that factors such as education and voting are major reasons why minorities are disadvantaged. I agree with other comments that I believe you focus a lot on discrimination in terms of racism toward black people and not enough on discrimination against other minorities such as women and the disabled. However, in terms of your discussion about racism toward black people, I think your points are solid.

To add to your discussion, I would like to emphasize the cyclical nature that is created in these communities of minorities, specifically black people. Due to the lack of access to proper education, minorities are often disadvantaged from succeeding in certain careers and therefore have statistically lower incomes than white people and other minorities, such as asian americans.

When minorities are more poor and thus have access to poor education with poorly funded districts, they can easily become involved in risky activities and behaviors that then can lead to incarceration. It’s a cycle; parents pass it down through generations. It’s all people know, and the only thing they can do to get by. Whether it be selling drugs in order to pay for food, or even joining a gang so that they are not the target of one, the cycle continues.

I don’t have the answer of how to stop this cycle, however I believe that education is the most crucial element to help minorities rise out of poverty and fight against discrimination.

Related to your comments about gerrymandering’s contribution to this issue, I believe that a decrease in the prevalence of gerrymandering in our political system would help minorities have a larger voice in government in order to receive proper funding and educational tools to assist students succeed.

Thanks again for a great post.
Andrew Griffin says:

April 22, 2018 at 11:23 pm

Everett-

This post provides good insight into the racial struggles of modern America. As you said, while a lot of progress has been made in the past decades with the abolition of segregation, there is still a lot of work to be done, especially with minorities disproportionately belonging to low income brackets.

This is largely because of “redlining.” Essentially, the US government during the Great Depression financed loan programs to help struggling Americans get back on their feet. Unfortunately, these loans were only provided to white Americans, whereas black Americans were left out.

This is why so many black Americans are trapped in poverty: they were never given a chance to the escape poverty, as their white counterparts were during the Great Depression. If we want to support racial equality in the United States, we ought to pay African Americans who have been discriminated in the housing market, so that they can move out of these low income neighborhoods.

-Drew
Haley Overlander says:

April 22, 2018 at 11:31 pm

Everett,

Thank you for your post. I agree that more needs to be done to deconstruct the institutional racism that has been built within our society from the past decades. Though steps have been taken as you stated, such as the Voting Rights act and the Civil Rights Act, there is still so much more that could be implemented. However, our nation struggles with the fact that because racism has been built into our systems, many tend to ignore that it still exists because it has become so ordinary.

According to Carl Parsons of The Guardian, “”Institutional racism” gave a name to a process of differentiation and discrimination, but removed individual motive and responsibility from consideration… it attributed cause to the depersonalized operation of a system… As individual decision-making is not considered the cause, and the requirement to gather and present data is not imposed, the legislation that followed lacks impact” (Parsons). Institutional racism takes the blame away from the individual and puts it on the broader perspective of the ‘operation of a system.” The problem that arises from this is that because no one is taking the direct blame, there is no incentive to actually solve the problem at hand. Another way many try to deflect the problem of institutional racism in schools is by saying that it is the minorities choice not to work as hard and strive for excellent grades, however, circumstances embedded in minorities day to day lives, where they live, what their income is, who they are raised by, are all large contributors.

According to Vincent Intondi of the Huffington Post, “[Although] schools were desegregated in 1954, (although it took at least another 10 years to fully implement), education in many ways, has become increasingly segregated and unequal… The reality is that throughout the country there are those students, many of whom are white, who get up every morning, eat a healthy breakfast, have a laptop, a cell phone, and personal tutors… They attend schools that are equipped with the best technology available and teachers who are paid 80k a year…On the other side are students, most of whom are black and brown, who rely on the free lunch at school as their only meal for the day, walk to school fearing they may be shot, have no computers, and attend a school in which the textbooks are five years old, mold is growing on the walls, and faculty earn 25k a year” (Intondi).

These large differences in education and opportunity are not by chance, but rather from decades of discrimination and the never-ending cycle of institutional racism. Until a solution is found that can properly deconstruct the institutional racism that has enveloped our society, then equality will never be able to thrive. I believe that institutional racism needs to be solved from the ground up, and that will never be able to occur until the privileged accept that it is their responsibility to work to deconstruct institutional racism, rather than passively ignore its existence.

Thanks again!

Citations:

Intondi, Vincent. “Education, Institutional Racism, and the Conservative Response to ‘My Brother’s Keeper.’” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 3 May 2014, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vincent-intondi/education-institutional-r_b_4886989.html.

Parsons, Carl. “Institutional Racism in Schools.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 22 Apr. 2008, http://www.theguardian.com/education/2008/apr/22/schools.pupilbehaviour.
Marc Bosch Valentines says:

April 22, 2018 at 11:43 pm

Everett,

Thank you for writing such an interesting and insightful post. I think that you mentioned some of the most important issues that our society is facing nowadays. Not just the United States but also most of the developed economies such as Europe. Even though as you mentioned in the text there exist laws that forbid discrimination, the reality is that minorities are still implicitly discriminated with respect to minorities. I also liked the idea that you mentioned about the implications of gerrymandering. I honestly believe the government should put more efforts into fostering policies that once and for all give equal opportunities to every single citizen regardless of their ethnicity. A system of quotas should be implemented in order to fight against this situation. I agree with every statement you were saying, discrimination is still engrained into some parts of the society and there is no denying that it takes years for the situation to be reverted, but in the globalized world we live in today, we shouldn’t have that kind of inequalities and unfair treatment within a developed society such as the one we live in.
David Hayden Lyles says:

April 23, 2018 at 5:23 am

Everett,

I appreciate your post regarding the unfortunate situations that minorities in our country have to face. There is obviously a problem with discrimination in America that need to be tackled for our society to become more unified and I believe that racism is a fundamental aspect of this division. I agree that there the voting system in America is riddled with institutional racism. Like you stated, gerrymandering allows state legislatures to redraw electoral district lines that give an advantage to a particular party, ultimately reducing the competiveness of elections. This poses a problem in regard to the fairness of election, a fundamental of popular sovereignty and our democratic system as a whole, by either “packing” minorities into one district or “cracking” minorities across multiple districts. As a result, minorities are at a disadvantage because of their “segregation” from the rest of the population. Since the Supreme Court ruled in favor of state-controlled redistricting, it is up to the state legislature to determine whether to use redistricting commissions to draw more fair and competitive districts, rather than simply favoring one party at the expense of equality.
I do want to make the point that discrimination in our education system affects all races and ethnicities, not only the minorities but the white population too. Race has become a very important factor in the college application process as colleges and universities strive to reach unspoken quotas to ensure diversity in their demographics. As affirmative action programs plague the private and public colleges’ admissions process, a process that in theory is supposed to be holistic, race has become a deciding factor for admission. Statistically, Asian Americans have a considerably harder time being accepted to a University than African Americans or whites with the same test scores. In a diverse society like the United States, tolerance can develop if our institutions are diverse; however, in my opinion affirmative action seeks to compensate for past discrimination by discriminating against others today. I believe that to eradicate poverty, we must equipped the poor and underrepresented minorities with the tools to succeed without infringing on equal protection guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.
Thanks again for your post!

Hayden
Samuel Lambeth says:

May 5, 2018 at 4:37 pm

Everett,

Your argument successfully showed how discrimination is still prevalent within the United States’ social and education institutions. Even though our laws banned segregation based on race, the use of gerrymandering and voting requirements make it harder for a certain groups of people to politically participate. The concept of state’s rights allows different regions to enforce stricter requirements as the majority leaders attempt to maintain power within the government system. State’s rights are not only used to denounce African Americans, but also other minority groups such as LGBT members, women, and Hispanics. For example, being from the state of North Carolina, I’ve met people who have been terminated from their employers because because their supervisor found out that their sexuality. Ever since the previous governor, Pat McCrory, passed the HB2 bill, North Carolina employers are permitted to fire employers based on sexuality. Great job on your post Everett!

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