Question for my friends in the African American group.

[lovemydog]

Regarding institutional racism. I'd appreciate it if anyone can share their understanding on it.

In a recent general discussion conversation someone asked what readers perceive as the major challenge in our country today. 1SB replied institutional racism. I've been thinking on it and would like to learn more.

I presume this includes structural problems in the police and criminal justice system, of the type that black lives matter is proposing solutions. I'm interested in others' experiences & thoughts. What can be done legislatively. What can be done on a personal level.

All comments are welcome.

[JI7]

1. non crime areas also such as housing and hiring

Even when they are qualified and have money studies have shown whites with less can still have easier access to these things.

[lovemydog]

2. Thanks JI7.

Very important - housing and hiring.

[Chitown Kev]

7. Within employment issues, hiring is the obvious one

My suspicion is promotions, reprimands, and working environment are more serious issues when it comes to employment discrimination and all of those areas need to be looked at

[lovemydog]

8. Yes, big-time Chitown Kev.

Thanks for mentioning it.

[firebrand80]

3. Unequal Education

Education is the main factor in upward mobility.

It's not that we don't know how to educate kids. Rich people get a great education. There are structural issues preventing poor people from getting the same quality education.

[lovemydog]

5. Yes. Early education is so important.

It's very disproportionate.

That's something I've learned about from many posts in this group.

It's not enough to say 'free college.'

The inequalities exist at much younger age groups.

[randys1]

4. I am white but in the business world and can guarantee you red lining still occurs in many

areas.

By areas I mean both geographic and economic.

[lovemydog]

6. Here's some more info about redlining.

From wikipedia:

"In the United States, redlining is the practice of denying services, either directly or through selectively raising prices, to residents of certain areas based on the racial or ethnic makeups of those areas. While some of the most famous examples of redlining regard denying financial services such as banking or insurance,[2] other services such as health care [3] or even supermarkets,[4] can be denied to residents to carry out redlining.[5] The term "redlining" was coined in the late 1960s by John McKnight, a sociologist and community activist.[6] It refers to the practice of marking a red line on a map to delineate the area where banks would not invest; later the term was applied to discrimination against a particular group of people (usually by race or sex) irrespective of geography.

During the heyday of redlining, the areas most frequently discriminated against were black inner city neighborhoods. For example, in Atlanta in the 1980s, a Pulitzer Prize-winning series of articles by investigative-reporter Bill Dedman showed that banks would often lend to lower-income whites but not to middle- or upper-income blacks.[7] The use of blacklists is a related mechanism also used by redliners to keep track of groups, areas, and people that the discriminating party feels should be denied business or aid or other transactions. In the academic literature, redlining falls under the broader category of credit rationing.

Reverse redlining occurs when a lender or insurer targets nonwhite consumers, not to deny them loans or insurance, but rather to charge them more than could be charged to a comparable white consumer."

Much more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining

[1StrongBlackMan]

25. If I were to have to select a single area of focus ...

This would be it ... as redlining is so broad and encompassing. It essentially is a complete disinvestment in a community because of the race of its residents, which allows police to do whatever and educators to do nothing.

[pnwmom]

9. The use and mis-use of credit scores.

[lovemydog]

10. Very interesting.

Thank you!

[pnwmom]

11. There could be a justification for using them in certain jobs -- but not most. nt

[JustAnotherGen]

12. Education

I'm one ofthe people that harps against the "free college for everyone" future long forgotten meme.

Some Charter Schools are direct political jabs at Public Education.

Some are wake up calls. The wake up calls:

Dear America,

After WW II you deliberately and maliciously divided up housing and put Federal Laws into place that supported White Flight. You limited housing options for blacks in particular in 50's and 60's - allowed folks to created deflated home values with high interest rate mortgages. Dear Liberals - Did you know Mitt Romney's dad lost his job in the Nixon Administration for pointing the horrors of the urban ghetto out? Including but not limited to his knowledge of the substandard education being received? By the 70's - it was cut in stone. There would be no hand down wealth to black boomers as their parents were not allowed access to the New Deal and post WW II Programs that allowed folks to prosper. Now the grandchildren of those white folks who did prosper have tears of a certain flavor because they just realized . . . Their children can't afford college even though their posh suburban school prepared them for it on day one. You need to sacrifice and make EVERY SINGLE PUBLIC SCHOOL in America equal.

When I see a five year plan focused on making every 6th grader in America able to read at the 8th grade level and prepared for calculus - get back back to me with your bullshit Free College For Everyone.

Until then - bring me the Charter Schools which defy America and encourage parents in urban areas to thumb their nose at the status quo and say -

My kid comes before your "Utopian Institution That By Design Was Set Up To Put A Boot On The Neck Of Black Children".

It goes back to the New Deal, who got those jobs, where they were ALLOWED to move, how they were allowed to build wealth, etc etc.

Education - until we fix the institutional racism of public education - black owned and operated Charter Schools MUST exist and they need public school money to do so.

[JI7]

13. and anyone who claims to be liberal or progressive would be interested in this

it's such a huge part of why things are the way they are in this country.

but some would dismiss the black parents as being uniformred or fooled by the 1 percent instead of actually doing anything to improve and make more public education more equal .

[lovemydog]

15. Yes!

Thank you for another brilliant post JAG. I've learned so much from you - way past the rhetoric of 'free college!'

'A five year plan focused on making every 6th grader in American able to read at the 8th grade level and prepared for calculus.' That's what we need most desperately. We must fix the institutional racism of public education.

Really working on accomplishing these goals - as you and so many here do - that's the best of liberalism.

[JustAnotherGen]

24. This was an excellent OP

The next time someone comes in here to "lecture" - you should direct them to it.

[Chitown Kev]

21. Thank you, JAG

I am 110% for quality public education but until we live in a country that can do much better by black children with all public schools on par with each other (I was lucky that I went to a public "magnet" school), I am all for this.

[JustAnotherGen]

23. My brother graduated from Wilson Magnet in 1989

He back ended his way into the high school on the Urban Subrban Program in NY State - but it was one of the top ten in the 1980's. Point blank - Magnet Schools should be the standard across the country. Two years after he started - my parents sent me to a Parochial Prep School.

We lived in a 'posh suburb'. My dad had been on The School Board, saw the failures in the district, didn't run again, and pulled us out.

Black family in a nice suburb of the third largest city in NY could afford to put the mask on their kids first.

Most black folks in urban centers do not have those resources.

I can't undo the womb I got "lucky" to be born from or my upbringing . . . I can only point out - there but for the grace of "luck" go I - it's not helping people whose grandparents didn't have the resources mine did. My grandparents - who born at the turn of the last century were Spelman and Morehouse grads.


Education is knd of important - and if charter schools in Newark and Baltimore want to go to an 1880's model for majority black schools - I'm cool with that. It worked.

[Chitown Kev]

31. I used to think the same way

about the "magnet" school that I went to (Renaissance High School in Detroit)...why can't every school be like this?...

OTOH, that was where I got my first taste of all the resources and opportunities that the posher schools had...and it was very difficult for me to keep up (plus all the other teenage issues that I was going through).

[brush]

26. Good post, JAG.

Made me rethink the "free college" pledge.

I'm certainly not against free college but access to quality education has to start much earlier, as you point out.

[JustAnotherGen]

34. Thanks in the meantime

A link to my old home regions newspaper popped up on FB this evening.

I followed it to the hometown paper.

Lo and behold - the districts and programs I mentioned in response to CTK down thread - all just upended the apple cart.

In 2015 - $3.75 million integration plan. In 2015. I started an OP about it. The only thing that is not mentioned is the affluent minority parents pulling their kids out out of the suburban districts and fighting to get their kids into the prep schools.

Wilson Magnet - in the 80's my brother snuck in - and my parents had to pay tuition to RCSD. IF the change will allow Wilson to accept minorities from the suburbs - watch those kids parents in the South towns start clawing each others eyes out to get their kids in there.

[OneGrassRoot]

14. Great thread...

thanks to all

[lovemydog]

16. Yes indeed 1GR.

I'm learning so much in this thread.

And in this group.

Thanks to all.

[Kind of Blue]

17. Hey, OGR!

i was just about to respond and saw your post, that I totally agree with, and had to say...

[OneGrassRoot]

28. ...

Hiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!

[Kind of Blue]

18. Well, my point of view is considered irrelevant

and that is simply teaching the truth in history, which to me is at the core of institutional racism. The second is we don't need any more legislations, just enforce the ones that we have.

[lovemydog]

19. 'Simply teaching the truth in history...'

Absolutely KoB. I love learning more about history; I soak it up like a sponge. I'm glad so many others here enjoy it too.

[Number23]

20. I'm not sure that much more can be done legislatively. Except for routine enforcement of

anti-discrimination laws. And this is not done nearly enough. Black people are still regularly discriminated against in jobs and housing.

You can't legislate people's hearts but you can get them to understand that if they do the wrong thing, they'll have to pay the piper.

[Digital Puppy]

29. This is exactly why the continued move against the Civil Rights Act of '64 scares me

The point of The Act was to not only monitor State's behaviors but to curtail discrimination based on race/gender/socio-economic status/etc. With the undo erosion of this Act, these communities will not only see funding for public education cut, but there will be no vehicle (due to district redistricting) to elect anyone to turn the money back on.

My fear is that the powers that be will not ever have to pay the piper.

[Number23]

36. It should scare EVERYBODY

50 years later, people are still working hard as hell to roll back minority rights. They're still working hard as hell to roll back Roe v Wade.

We really can't be complacent about any of this.

[zigby]

22. Read the New Jim Crow.

It opened my eyes in so many ways, as a white person who doesn't directly live the experience of structural racism every day.

[lovemydog]

33. More on The New Jim Crow

from amazon:

"Once in a great while a book comes along that changes the way we see the world and helps to fuel a nationwide social movement. The New Jim Crow is such a book. Praised by Harvard Law professor Lani Guinier as "brave and bold," this book directly challenges the notion that the election of Barack Obama signals a new era of colorblindness. With dazzling candor, legal scholar Michelle Alexander argues that "we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it." By targeting black men through the War on Drugs and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control—relegating millions to a permanent second-class status—even as it formally adheres to the principle of colorblindness. In the words of Benjamin Todd Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP, this book is a "call to action."

Called "stunning" by Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David Levering Lewis, "invaluable" by the Daily Kos, "explosive" by Kirkus, and "profoundly necessary" by the Miami Herald, this updated and revised paperback edition of The New Jim Crow, now with a foreword by Cornel West, is a must-read for all people of conscience."

http://www.amazon.com/New-Jim-Crow-Incarceration-Colorblindness/dp/1595586431/

[heaven05]

27. So-called

Last edited Tue Dec 22, 2015, 06:50 PM - Edit history (1)

'gentrification' in previously low income areas, usually AA and who are forced to give up their homes and property at pennies on the dollar. Then when 'gentrification' is over and the ones who paid pennies on the dollar are making exorbitant profits from the ill-gotten gain, while the ones they stole from are forced further into the pool of people mentioned in all other answers here.

[Starry Messenger]

30. In CA, we've worked on "ban the box"

and reducing victimless crimes from felonies to misdemeanors if they meet certain thresholds. Eliminated the three strike law. Are working on lowering suspension rates for Black and Latino kids.

Education, Brown enacted a budget formula that puts more $ into communities' schools in areas with low income from property taxes.

Gentrification is a real scourge right now, it's one of the biggest crises. This might turn into a too little too late situation, unfortunately.

[lovemydog]

32. More on 'ban the box':

from wikipedia:

"Ban the Box is the name of an international campaign by civil rights groups and advocates for ex-offenders, aimed at persuading employers to remove from their hiring applications the check box that asks if applicants have a criminal record. Its purpose is to enable ex-offenders to display their qualifications in the hiring process before being asked about their criminal records. The premise of the campaign is that anything that makes it harder for ex-offenders to find a job makes it likelier that they will re-offend, which is bad for society.

The campaign began in Hawaii in the late 1990s, and has gained strength in other U.S. states following the 2007-2009 recession. Its advocates say it is necessary because a growing number of Americans have criminal records due to tougher sentencing laws particularly for drug crimes, and are having difficulty finding work because of high unemployment and a rise in background checks that followed the September 11 terror attacks on the United States.

As of July 2015, 52 U.S. municipalities and 18 states had in place legislation that "banned the box" for government job applications and also in some cases those of their private contractors. Many such ordinances exempt applications for "sensitive" positions, such as those involving work with children. Target Corporation "banned the box" in October 2013.

On November 2, 2015 President Barack Obama directed federal agencies to "Ban the Box" on federal job applications. Speaking at Rutgers University in New Jersey, Obama highlighted programs meant to ease reentry back into society and stated that the federal government "should not use criminal history to screen out applicants before we even look at their qualifications."

In the United Kingdom, corporate social responsibility advocacy charity Business in the Community launched a "ban the box" campaign in October 2013.

The campaign has been criticized by U.S. industry group the National Retail Federation for exposing companies, their customers and employees to potential crime, and by the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce, which says it could expose employers to lawsuits from unsuccessful applicants.

In 2014, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously passed the Fair Chance Ordinance, authored by Supervisors Jane Kim and Malia Cohen. October 27, 2015 NYC enacted the Fair Chance Law."

More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ban_the_Box

Thank you for your work in this area Starry Messenger.

[brer cat]

35. Very informative thread, lovemydog.

Thanks for starting the discussion.

[lovemydog]

38. Yes, I'm learning a lot.

Thanks to all who are commenting.

[Kind of Blue]

37. This is what I'm talking about: Two Canadian universities make indigenous studies a requirement

Reading thru the comments only proves how badly the studies are needed.

Starting next fall, every undergraduate student at the University of Winnipeg and Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ont., will be required to take a course in indigenous studies.

Wab Kinew, the associate vice-president of Indigenous Affairs at University of Winnipeg, says it was students who initiated the new requirement. There had been a few incidents of racism on campus and the student association met with the aboriginal student council to brainstorm solutions.

“And what they came up with was that education could play a role in fighting racism – education toward combating ignorance,” Kinew told CTV’s Canada AM from Winnipeg Thursday.

There’s been a lot of positive reaction to the announced change, he said, especially since it comes so soon after the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report.

http://canadaam.ctvnews.ca/two-canadian-universities-make-indigenous-studies-a-requirement-1.2704100#_gus&_gucid=&_gup=twitter&_gsc=SZAmd3H

[lovemydog]

39. History. Learning.

That's what it's about. I've noticed a lot of people here in this group who want to keep learning. Not only staying informed about current events but really learning more about history. I think history gives one a much better understanding of things. It's much deeper than the gossip of current events. I love what they're doing in Winnipeg, Ontario with learning more about indigenous studies. Thanks for sharing this KoB.