Dismantling Systemic Racism: What Really Matters

I am encouraged by the recent attempts to shine a light on racism. The slow murder of George Floyd on video was surely not a unique event. Every day, nameless black people are profiled, pursued and persecuted. Every day, innocent black people are abused and denied justice all over the world. The George Floyd murder served as a catalyst. Hopefully, it will accelerate the changes that can someday lead to racial justice and equity.

I doubt that the current efforts to achieve racial justice will succeed. As has happened many times in the past, the narrative is being hijacked and the message is being diluted. The George Floyd case proved the persistence and deadliness of systemic racism. The American police forces were shown to be saturated with racism. People have begun to see the structural racism that is a hallmark of housing policies, educational policies and many other areas of life.

Now the media and society’s focus have turned from the effects of systemic racism to the less controllable cases of individual racism. While individual racism makes life unnecessarily difficult for black people, it is almost impossible to change people’s deeply held beliefs. It would take many generations to meaningfully reduce the effect of hundreds of years of racist misinformation and propaganda. The focus on individual racism plays to the harmful trope that justice, social harmony and equity between blacks and whites can be achieved if only everyone would learn to be nicer or more empathetic.

Examples of this flawed reasoning abound. Companies, organisations and individuals are mounting flamboyant displays of “anti-racism”. Some of the more recent efforts include:

• The Grammy Awards renamed the “Urban Contemporary” album category to “Progressive R&B.”¹
• Some TV shows and movies deemed to show racially insensitive content were cancelled²
• Statues of historical figures with ties to slavery were toppled³
• America proposed renaming some military bases that are named after Confederate generals⁴
• The Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One team drove black coloured cars for the 2020 season⁵

Along with individual expressions of remorse, solidarity kneeling and sober team reflections, these are all examples of inconsequential posturing. They embrace shallow symbolism and do nothing to change the policies, norms and laws that continue to keep black people oppressed in society. They serve only to soothe the consciences of the oppressors.

I stated in my opinion piece “The Rise of Oops Racism” that racism is not about niceness or education. It is the outcome of selfish interests to deliberately confer economic, political and social advantage on one group at the expense of another. In the case of systemic racism, this advantage is conferred through policies, laws and practices that permeate social institutions and maintain black people in a position of permanent disadvantage. These systems do not need the deliberate intervention of white individuals. Systemic racism is racism on autopilot.

As I researched this topic, it was surprisingly difficult for me to find a summary of the offending policies, laws and practices all in one place. I was horrified to learn that racist structures are hidden almost everywhere. Like air, systemic racism is pervasive and invisible. Unlike air, its presence is felt only by the people disadvantaged by it. However, its absence would be universally felt, and that may be what many white people sub-consciously fear: the sudden denial of the privileged position that they take for granted.

Individual racism is a global phenomenon. I daresay even systemic racism is almost universal. I like to use America in my examples because racism is so well documented there. It also serves as a good benchmark for how systemic racism is being quietly enforced in many countries in the world.

American politics has become more polarised recently, with the two dominant parties vying to portray themselves as “the good guys” to black people. Republicans like to say that they are “the party of Lincoln” who freed the American slaves through the Emancipation Proclamation. Democrats like to say that they are the party that supports initiatives that positively impact black people.

I conducted a study recently, using American government data to plot the trends of some indicators that reflect black American welfare: Unemployment Rates⁶, Representation in Government (Cabinet picks)⁷, Median Income⁸, Family Net Worth⁹, University Graduation¹⁰ and Incarceration.¹¹ I superimposed the trends and black/white disparity on the periods in which Democratic and Republican presidents were in charge, starting from 1945.

In all cases, black and white trends tracked, with the outcomes for blacks being consistently poorer than those for whites. In the case of Family Net Worth, black American families have always had less than a tenth of that of white American families. The most interesting insight is that, between 1945 and now, there is no correlation between the political party of the American president and the trend of improvement of outcomes for blacks. The only obvious difference is that Democratic American presidents tend to have more black representation in their Cabinets. Therefore, I conclude that racism is systemically expressed, no matter who is in charge. It is to the collective advantage of the people in charge to maintain systemic racism, otherwise we would have seen changes over the last 75 years that can be tied back to ‘progressive’ administrations. Furthermore, the political success of black politicians in America cannot be correlated to measurable improvements in the lives of their fellow blacks.

I believe there are 2 major pillars that support systemic racism in America: Control of Integration and Control of Freedom. Integration includes Housing and Education. Freedom includes Criminal Justice and Voting. Until these pillars are destroyed, efforts to dismantle systemic racism in America will continue to be muddled in philosophical discussions and disingenuous distractions.

Control of Integration: Housing

Redlining is a practice that prevents access to selected services for residents of defined areas, based on race. Common examples are the denial of mortgages, insurance, loans, and other financial services based on location. It can also mean charging higher prices for goods or selling inferior products in black communities where there is less competition. Redlining in housing policies created black ghettos. Though the practice has been outlawed in America, the daily experience of black people and black communities demonstrates that redlining is still very much in force. It is a tool not only to create segregation, but also to benefit from it.

Persistent segregation has led to inferior health care services, sub-standard educational facilities, consistently lower employment and generally poorer prospects in life for people who live in black communities. A 2018 Brookings study¹² found that “owner-occupied homes in black neighbourhoods are undervalued by $48,000 per home on average, amounting to $156 billion in cumulative losses.”

Systemic racism is easier to enforce when the oppressed community is concentrated in geographical clusters. If full integration is achieved, it would be harder to selectively provide worse hospitals, worse schools and worse services for black people.

The Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968 as a direct result of civil rights protests for racial equity. When it was clearly not achieving results, the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule was passed in 2015 to encourage American cities to comply with the Fair Housing Act. Neither the Act nor the Rule apply measurable consequences for non-compliance, nor do they prescribe any steps that need to be taken to achieve integration. The Rule is just an encouragement to gather data on racial segregation, and an appeal to have a plan to reduce it.¹³

Control of Integration: Education

The quality of education received affects outcomes in life. The American government recognised this fact when they legally desegregated schools in 1954. Unfortunately, American schools remain heavily segregated. According to the Economy Policy Institute in 2017, 69% of black 8th graders in America attend schools where most students are black, Hispanic, Asian, or American Indian. Less than 13% of white students attend such schools. Likewise, 72% of black 8th graders in America attend schools that are classed as “high-poverty”. Only 31% of white students attend these schools.¹⁴

In 2019, the New York Times reported that “school districts that predominantly serve students of colour received $23 billion less in funding than mostly white school districts in the United States in 2016, despite serving the same number of students.” On average, non-white school districts received $2,200 less per student than white school districts.¹⁵

The impact of this discrepancy is evident in education outcomes, performance gaps, economic segregation and unequal opportunities. For example, based on National Assessment of Educational Progress data, the math performance of black students in high-poverty segregated schools is lower by 20 points than the math performance of white students in low-poverty mostly white schools.¹⁶ Again, on the average, white students are 1.8 times more likely than black students to participate in an Advanced Placement class.¹⁷

Fewer teaching aids, fewer and less qualified teachers and fewer computers and other educational resources flow to black schools. With desegregation, this imbalance can be rectified. One of the results of the 1954 desegregation law was busing. Busing is “the practice of assigning and transporting students to schools within or outside their local school districts in an effort to reduce the racial segregation in schools”. School desegregation was violently resisted by many whites. A 1974 Supreme Court case limited the power of federal courts to order integration across school district boundaries. In the late 1980s, the US Department of Justice stopped asking courts to implement busing as a remedy in desegregation cases.

Therefore, much like housing desegregation, school desegregation remains a polite suggestion from the American government, and not a law that is enforced.

Control of Freedom: Criminal Justice

In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, criminal justice reform has received the most attention. Today, 1 in 3 black boys can expect to be sentenced to prison in their lifetimes, compared with 1 in 17 white boys. Only 5% of illicit drug users are black, yet blacks represent 29% of those arrested and 33% of those incarcerated for drug offenses. Blacks constitute 13% of the American population, and 34%, of the American prison population.¹⁸ Abundant video coverage has shown the murderous disposition of the American police toward black people.

It is said that slavery has been abolished in America. However, the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution was passed in 1865 and classifies imprisoned people as slaves. Therefore, it is no coincidence that black people are disproportionately represented in the American prison population.

The effects of mass incarceration on black communities, family structures, mental health, employment and future prospects have been well studied and documented.¹⁹ Apart from the unjust persecution of black men, the American Criminal Justice System is designed for punishment and torture (as befits slaves), and not rehabilitation.

All the pillars of systemic racism are obvious to anyone looking. However, the pillar of unjust and disproportionate arrest, incarceration and judicial murder of black people is one of the most visible and certainly the most violent.

Control of Freedom: Voting

The 14th and 15th Amendments to the American Constitution were passed in 1868 and 1870 respectively. They granted American citizenship and voting rights to black people. In the 1870s, blacks voted freely. Mississippi sent two black U.S. senators to Washington and elected several black state officials, including a lieutenant governor. All that changed when American federal troops withdrew from the South in 1877. The white former slave-owners began a campaign of terrorism and legal disenfranchisement. In Mississippi for example, the number of registered eligible black voters dropped from 90% in the 1870s to 6% in 1892. By 1940, only 3% of voting-age blacks in the South were registered to vote.²⁰ Black American citizenship now existed only on paper.

The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s made some progress in re-establishing the right of blacks to vote. In 2012, turnout of Black voters exceeded that of white voters for the first time in history, as 66.6% of eligible Black voters turned out to help re-elect Barack Obama, the nation’s first black president.²¹ Nevertheless, the forces of systemic racism in America continue to seek ways to prevent blacks from voting. New examples emerge daily, but the efforts fall into a few broad groups:

1. Voter Restrictions: Some states require voter ID, and limit early voting. These measures disproportionately affect poor people and black people.
2. Closure of Polling Centres: Between 2013 and 2018, nearly 1,000 polling places were closed in America, with many of the closed polling places in predominantly black counties.²²
3. Racial Gerrymandering: This a form of voter suppression where voting districts are deliberately drawn to minimise the representation of black communities, or to dilute the effect of their voting numbers. Unfavourable conditions like long queues, broken equipment and untrained polling staff are created in black neighbourhoods.
4. Disenfranchisement of Felons: According to The Sentencing Project²³, over 7.4% of the adult African American population is disenfranchised compared to 1.8% of the non-African American population. African American disenfranchisement rates also vary significantly by state. In four states — Florida (21%), Kentucky (26%), Tennessee (21%), and Virginia (22%) — more than one in five African Americans is disenfranchised.
5. Disinformation: The spreading of false news to frighten black voters away from the polls

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 banned racial discrimination in voting nationwide and banned poll taxes and literacy tests. However, a US Supreme Court ruling in 2013 rolled back the Voting Rights Act. The court disagreed with the provisions that required states and local governments that had a history of racist voter suppression to obtain federal preclearance before implementing any changes to their voting laws or practices.

The assault on the voting rights of black Americans continues. The Pew Research Centre reports that a record 137.5 million Americans voted in the 2016 presidential election. However, black voter turnout dropped for the first time in 20 years in a presidential election, falling to ~60% in 2016 after reaching a record-high of ~67% in 2012.²⁴

The struggle for racial justice and equity still has a long way to go in America. I am always discouraged and often outraged when people begin to focus on window-dressing and distractions, while failing to even mention the fundamental changes that must be made to achieve racial equity. All the eloquent speeches, sober reflections, fashion statements and cancelling of symbols are a mere distraction. Nothing will change until local and federal lawmakers are held accountable for removing the support structures of systemic racism. Until that time, black lives will continue not to matter.

The rest of the world is not off the hook. We see comparable trends in many countries across the globe. Systemic racism exists on every continent. Sometimes it is expressed in similar ways to those I have described above; sometimes it is expressed in other diabolically imaginative ways. Some of these structures often receive less attention or are not recognised as being racist. Among them are discriminatory trade barriers against black countries, unfavourable trade agreements negotiated from a position of power, extortionate international lending practices and racist or pseudo-colonialist foreign policy.

The fight against global systemic racism is yet to truly begin.