Is America Truly Equal?

Chapter 16 discusses the progression of civil rights in the United States and where the issues are today. Specifically, racial and ethnic inequalities, gender inequalities, and LGBTQ rights were discussed. While the United States government has made progress on each of these issues over time, these issues are still very prevalent and have not been fully rectified by any means. There have been amendments and court cases regarding these issues, such as the 14th Amendment, which gave citizenship to all people (including former slaves), Brown v. Board of Education, which declared that segregated schools as unconstitutional, and the 19th Amendment creating which women’s suffrage. While those movements and others were positive steps in the battles for civil rights, they did not fix all of the problems or the internalized prejudices that people in this country still hold.

Currently, there are many laws that restrict formal discrimination, such as the Loving v. Virginia case in Virginia that declared any laws that restricted interracial marriage as unconstitutional. Affirmative action is another aspect of modern society that attempts to fix the negative effects of prior discrimination against minorities. While these actions sound good in theory, they still fail to fully ensure equal opportunity for all people regardless of race and ethnicity. An example of this is de facto discrimination, which is the unequal treatment of racial or ethnic minority groups based on practices rather than on statuses and regulations. De facto discrimination is still very much a part of our society and largely comes from the internal prejudices of individuals. This is seen most clearly in police brutality. For example, a 2017 study found that black people are 3 times more to be killed by police than white people (Swey). Further, 30% of black victims of police shootings were unarmed in 2015 compared to 21% of white victims (Swey). These statistics paint a disturbing picture of the truth in our society. This obviously shows the unequal treatment of a racial minority based on practices, which is very clearly de facto discrimination. Our government is supposed to provide equal treatment and protection of all Americans, yet is failing at doing this.

Another example of a failure of the protection of civil rights in the United States is seen in education. This problem can be seen especially clearly here in Richmond, where redlining has contributed directly to segregation in schools. In 1937, before Brown v. Board had even taken place, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation color-coded a map of the various neighborhoods in Richmond, shading the most impoverished neighborhoods red (Byron).

https://vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2016/10/clahs-redlining.html

As a result of years of discrimination and segregation, the red neighborhoods were disproportionately made up of African Americans. Because the red areas were deemed “at-risk”, no one invested in these communities, specifically in the schools in these communities (Byron). Ever since then, the wealthy surrounding neighborhoods have continued to get wealthier and the schools have continued to get the most resources. The schools in the red areas, therefore, have fallen behind dramatically because of a lack of resources, resulting in a much worse education than in the schools just miles away in different neighborhoods. Further, because of districting rules, kids that live in the red zones have to go to those schools and cannot go to a school outside of their district, directly resulting in segregation and unequal opportunity for minority students.

While our country has certainly made some big strides in rectifying civil rights issues, the persisting issues of inequality cannot be ignored and the government has to be able to acknowledge that the stated values of our democracy are currently not being upheld.

Byron, Paula. “Maps Reveal Persistence of Damaging Effects of Historic Redlining Practices.” News | Virginia Tech, 23 Oct. 2016, vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2016/10/clahs-redlining.html.

Swey, Sam. “Police Have Killed 1,079 People in the U.S. This Year.” Mapping Police Violence, mappingpoliceviolence.org/.

6 Responses to "Is America Truly Equal?"

Marcin Jerzewski says:

November 30, 2017 at 2:42 pm

In your blog post, you touch upon one of the most important issues related to protection of civil rights in the contemporary United States, i.e. discriminatory and segregating school district borders. I think that in your piece you used historical examples – such as Richmond, VA in 1937 – in an interesting and compelling way. What I find most shocking, however, is that similar problems continue to affect U.S. Americans across the country today. In 2016, the National Public Radio published a report about the 50 most divisive school borders in the nation. Michigan obtained a very unflattering first place. In the Detroit City School District, 49% of students live in poverty, and the median family income amounts to a mere $26,087. The district also serves as many as 49,043 students (as of August 2016). In Grosse Pointe, “narrow stretch of real estate nestled between Detroit and Lake St. Clair,” only 7 percent of students live at or below the poverty line, and the median household income is more than three times higher $90,542. Unsurprisingly, the conditions in Detroit public schools are very bad. According to Detroit Free Press, “Teachers have been using rolling sickouts in recent weeks [early 2016] to spotlight the poor conditions of dilapidated schools. Many say they’re also concerned about stagnant wages, [and] super-sized classes.” Neglect and indifference on behalf of district officials deprive vulnerable students (the district is not only poor, but also predominantly African American at 80.8% in 2016-17; 97.52% of all students come from a minority background) from educational opportunities. Simultaneously, high-income, high-performing and highly privileged schools of Grosse Pointe (a predominantly Caucasian school district: 74.98%) openly sharing their – admittedly terrific – resources and reject opening up to students from neighboring districts. As Grosse Pointe Woods Mayor Robert Novitke averred, “Becoming a schools of choice district would negatively impact both the city’s property values and quality of life” (See: Detroit Free Press 2). The state of Michigan does not compel the participation of these top-performing districts in the school of choice program, or offer an incentive for them to do so. Grosse Pointe district actually enforces very strict rules preventing students from other districts from enrolling in its schools. As Lauren Slagter reported for the Ann Arbor News, “Administrative guidelines determine how that policy is implemented, and the current guidelines require new students’ families to provide several forms of identification and proof of residency, which is then re-verified for all students when they enter sixth grade and ninth grade.” I find it appalling that authorities at the state level fully neglect the struggles of the most vulnerable sectors of the population, and openly allow segregation and exclusiveness of high-income school district that have multiple resources they could redistribute.

NPR story: https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/08/23/490513305/the-50-most-segregating-school-borders-in-america
Detroit Free Press: (1) https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/wayne/2016/01/20/dps-teacher-sickouts/79046774/
(2) https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/columnists/nancy-kaffer/2016/10/02/choice-schools-michigan/91240656/
The Ann Arbor News report from September 2017: http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/index.ssf/2017/09/grosse_pointe_residency.html
Michigan State Racial Census Report by School District, 2016-17: https://www.michigan.gov/documents/mde/RacialCensus0506_204440_7.pdf
Yanbin Zhang says:

December 2, 2017 at 4:13 pm

It’s really a constructive point of view to focus on the education as one of the most important civil rights issues in our times. According a recent survey by Pew Research Center, education is now most concerned issue of civil rights issues by the public. It also got a lot attentions by the politicians. Now the school reformers adopt the slogan that “ education is the civil rights issue of our time.”, said by former president Obama in 2011. But democrats are not the only ones using this slogan. In 2002, then-President George W. Bush called education “the great civil rights issue of our time” in a speech honoring the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Even Mitt Romney called our failing schools “the civil rights issue of our era” during his 2012 campaign for president, and Sen.
It is unsurprising since reformers in every generation typically define their concern on particular issue by one slogan. “Keep us dry” was a popular slogan of the prohibition period of the 1920s. “Make love, not war” was important to the 1960s generation. Contemporary education reformers say “education is the civil rights issue of our time” to reflect the injustice of the current system – students stuck in schools that are still segregated and fail to prepare them for a career or college – and the need for reform. But viewing education as one civil rights issue of our time actually promotes two problems now.
First, providing equal resource and opportunity of education is much older to be a contemporary civil rights issue. This idea is possible traced back in the very beginning of the country when Noah Webster said “education should be adopted … in the minds of the American youth the principles of virtue and of liberty and inspire them with just and liberal ideas of government.” in 1779. But it took centuries of adventure to reach the achievement and even now we are still fighting for it. Second, labeling all education-related problems as a civil rights issue actually underestimates the complex of education. The final goal of our education is not civil rights alone which provides the equal opportunity to our youth. The final goal of education must also be giving our youth the ability to participate in the modern economy after they leave the school, which is the quality of our education. The reading and math test results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress in 2015 were unpleasant: Only 35 percent of fourth graders and 33 percent of eighth graders scored at proficient or better in reading, and only 39 percent of fourth graders and 32 percent of eighth graders scored proficient or better in math. There is actually a decline in recent years.
Zachary Harrell says:

December 3, 2017 at 4:08 pm

You pose a very good argument to a very broad questions that many citizens ask themselves everyday. I agree with your position, because the society we currently live in is not equal. I agree with you that affirmative action does make our society less equal, and also causes an unequal educational system in our country. This idea of de facto discrimination you pose is the root of this inequality. Any form of discrimination, even if it’s to alleviate wrong doings in the past, is wrong and will snowball into other problems. But, the inequality does not end there. CNN recently released a news article titled “Record inequality: The top 1% controls 38.6% of America’s wealth”. The title speaks for the article itself, but I find it ironic that we live in a place that holds the ideal of all men being created equal, but there is so much inequality present in our everyday lives. The biggest problem with these inequalities is that they all play into each other and cause one another. The inequality in income and education will eventually play into the inequality present for the homeless in today’s society. It’s a vicious cycle that needs to be stopped.
Alexandra Friedman says:

December 3, 2017 at 9:19 pm

According to our constitution, we are all equals and should all receive equal treatment. But, as your post shows, this is not what is actually happening. I think you do a really good job of expressing the true disparities and inequalities in our country through the examples of police brutality and redlining. A lot of the time, we inherently expect the country to be equal and fair already when it really is not. Like we talked about in class, people have an inconsistent perception of what problems exist across races. It is easy for whites to look at the racial problems in our country and exclaim that everything is okay. But, they are not the ones that have to deal with struggles that many African Americans and other minorities face on a daily basis.

To understand how big a gap there is in the perception of our problems, it is helpful to look at how whites and african americans view our country. 38% of whites believe our country is no longer racist, and if they don’t believe it is right now 75% believe it will eventually get to a perfect place. In contrast, 43% of blacks believe the country will never be equal. The problem with this is that the country cannot truly take strides toward acceptance and change until all our citizens recognize this as their own problem. It is easy for minorities to want to create change, but it is necessary for whites and other majority groups to understand these struggles and spearhead change. They need to internalize the problems that our fellow citizens face as their own in order to help them.
Montgomery Thornburn says:

December 3, 2017 at 9:29 pm

Your points about the detrimental legacy of Jim Crow are 100% accurate and focusing more on your title question of “Is America truly equal?” it is pretty easy to say that there are huge amounts of inequality on multiple levels throughout all of American society. While our government has made an active effort to promote equality through all demographics, remnants of the laws that were made to enhance the status of straight white Christian males over all other demographics continue to tarnish America today. Despite changes in the law, de-facto discrimination does still harm people every day. A lot of the inequalities we see today are all connected and it’s difficult to see a world in which we see equality in one are and total inequality in another. For example, solving the issue of wealth inequality will go hand in hand with solving education inequality.
Major steps have been made in recent years especially for members of the LGBTQ community and while this is great it is important to continue to fight for the equality of all previously disenfranchised groups. America is not truly equal and there will not be a future in which every person is totally equal on every level, but it is not unreasonable for us to expect our society to actively try to close the gaps between groups and individuals to ensure a more level playing field.
Daniel Bonaventura says:

December 4, 2017 at 3:35 am

I definitely agree that although we have made great strides in the topic of civil rights in recent years, it is important to continue to progress to a more equal society. It is obvious just how many inherit flaws are society had in past years and all the basic liberties that we take for granted now but it is important to realize that hindsight is 20/20. Even though today it sometimes seems as though major inequalities do not exist, many people probably saw no problems with the societal norms 20 years ago. The fight for equality will and must continue. On the other hand there is a lot of hope for what’s to come for our country. Despite resistance that will continue to come when increasing minority rights nationwide liberties are the priority of so many Americans and its an issue that will not be backed down on. I believe that the world we live in 10 years from now will be very different and just as we would now, looking back we would see a lot of old norms that would seem crazy to us.

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