The Truth About Race In America: It’s Getting Worse, Not Better

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/truth-about-race-america-its-getting-worse-not-better



***SNIP


Who could argue with that? Half a century ago, America was officially an apartheid state, with black people denied the basic rights of citizenship in large swaths of the country. Then the signs came down; the laws were overturned; the doors to the polling stations were prized open. The notion that the work is proceeding perpetuates the myth: America has no reverse gear—we just keep going forward.

But the awkward truth is that when it comes to the goals laid down by the civil rights movement in general and Brown in particular, America is actually going backward. Schools are resegregating, legislation is being gutted, it’s getting harder to vote, large numbers are being deprived of their basic rights through incarceration, and the economic disparities between black and white are growing. In many areas, America is becoming more separate and less equal.

According to research recently conducted by ProPublica, “black children across the South now attend majority-black schools at levels not seen in four decades.” A recent Nation article illustrated how this trend is largely by design. In suburbs across the region, wealthier whites have been seceding from their inner- city school districts and setting up academic laagers of their own. The result is a concentration of race and class disadvantage in a system with far fewer resources. In a 2012 report, UCLA’s Civil Rights Project noted: “Nationwide, the typical black student is now in a school where almost two out of every three classmates (64%) are low-income.”

The discrepancy between black and white unemployment is the same as it was in 1963. According to the Institute on Assets and Social Policy at Brandeis University, between 1984 and 2007 the black-white wealth gap quadrupled. The Supreme Court is dismantling affirmative action and gutting voting rights. Meanwhile, incarceration disparities are higher than they were in the 1960s. And as Michelle Alexander points out in The New Jim Crow: “Once you’re labeled a felon, the old forms of discrimination—employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial of educational opportunity, denial of food stamps and other public benefits, and exclusion from jury service—are suddenly legal. As a criminal, you have scarcely more rights, and arguably less respect, than a black man living in Alabama at the height of Jim Crow. We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.”

[Exposethefrauds]

1. Just another result of the Reagan Legacy that the Reagan Dems are responsible for

Thanks Reagan Dems you must be so proud of your legacy.

[m-lekktor]

2. well hell. look at all the doubling down and denial here on DU

in regards to white privilege. it's frustrating. It must be disheartening for the AA members on this site. If i read one more time how there is no white privilege because there are poor white people(WOOOOOOSH) i will throw my laptop out the window!

[chervilant]

3. Please don't...

Recognize that there are a significant number of Caucasians who are actively anti-racist, even if we're too poor to effect meaningful change on the macro level.

Also, white privilege deniers will keep running into those of us who know the TRUTH of white privilege, and the relentless efforts of the uber wealthy to insure that the Hoi Polloi remains divided, distracted and embattled.

(Remember what Franklin said about hanging together...)

[Leme]

4. Worse? depends on what yone choose as indicators perhaps

Perhaps it is just better reporting.
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Many things have gone up statistically only because we now count them better.
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I wonder how one can quantify racism, or an increase in such, when so much is hidden and perhaps not quantifiable in any case.

[Gormy Cuss]

5. That would be the case if one were trying to compare late 20th century to an earlier period

but not true for the years since the passage of the Civil Rights Act and other remedial legislation. Social scientists have become very good at counting race as a demographic in the past 50 years.

[Leme]

6. just many variables in racism

to say overall "worse" implies that these were all looked at and a conclusion made.
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words no longer used might now have code words for example.
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economic indicators can easily be manipulated for example
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surveys and polls... truthfulness over generations may change for example
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which variable gets more weight? affects conclusions
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they make a model... get a conclusion
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I am not disagreeing, just not sure if I agree... so many more groups now ...

[Blue_Tires]

7. I'd come to a similar conclusion awhile back...

[maced666]

8. White privilege denial is the new racism.

It doesn't have burning crosses or actual lynchings. It's cloaked, but not by a sheet over the head. It's tolerated by passive attitudes on both sides. What it needs is to be recognized.
Right now we are nowhere close-it will take some time.
The struggle continues.