African American discrimination

SIGNIFICANCE: Systemic discrimination refers to the unjustified differential treatment of categories of people across multiple social institutions: educational, economic, medical, and so on. The cumulative impact of this discrimination can negatively affect the life chances of targeted groups.

Discrimination is the unequal treatment, whether intentional or unintentional, of individuals or groups on the basis of group membership that is unrelated to merit, ability, or past performance. The two most pervasive types of discrimination are legal discrimination and institutional discrimination. Legal discrimination is unequal treatment that is sustained by law. Institutional discrimination is a subtle form of unequal treatment based on race or ethnicity that is entrenched in social custom (that is, social institutions). Institutional discrimination may include segregated housing patterns, redlining by financial institutions, and the practice of minority group members being forced continually into low-paying jobs. Both play into systemic discrimination, which refers to the unjustified differential treatment of categories of people across multiple social institutions: educational, economic, medical, and so on. The cumulative impact of this discrimination can negatively affect the life chances of targeted groups. Prejudice, which is often confused with discrimination, is the prejudgment of people, objects, or even situations based on stereotypes or generalizations that persist even when facts demonstrate otherwise.

The most pernicious acts of discrimination in the United States have been directed against racial and ethnic minorities. The history of racial and ethnic relations in the United States demonstrates that differential treatment has been accorded to all minority groups. A minority group is sometimes defined as any group in a disadvantaged or subordinate position (in this sense, a minority may actually constitute a numerical majority; for example, Black people in South Africa). Minority populations have experienced the entire range of race relations, including assimilation, pluralism, legal protection, population transfer, continued subjugation, and extermination. While all minority populations have experienced some degree of discrimination, perhaps the most cruel and enduring discrimination has been experienced by those of African descent.

Africans were first brought to North America in 1619, and they proved to be a source of inexpensive labor for the developing European colonies. In its early development, slavery was not rationalized by attitudes of racial superiority but simply by the need for cheap labor. Racial justification for slavery came later, as a strategy for maintaining the continued subjugation of Black people. Depicting Black people as subhuman, irresponsible, promiscuous, and lazy helped to stave off, for many years, groups (for example, abolitionists) bent upon ending slavery. The development of racist ideology during slavery has—over the years—continued to influence the relationship between Black and White people in the United States.

The end of slavery in the United States did not, and could not, bring an end to discrimination. Discrimination had become institutionalized; it was embedded in social custom and in the very institutions of society. Initially, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution, along with the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1867, did much to eliminate legal discrimination against the newly freed enslaved people. Yet many of those gains were abrogated by state legislatures in the South following the abrupt end of Reconstruction in 1877. In Discrimination American Style: Institutional Racism and Sexism (1978), sociologist Joe Feagin distinguishes between individual and institutional discrimination, noting that unlike the former, which can be attributed to one person and/or may be sporadic, institutional discrimination is a continual pattern of discrimination inherent in the operation of a social institution. For example, the states of the Confederacy were able to circumvent much of the legislation passed during the Reconstruction period. They were able to sanction discrimination and deny civil rights by means of a set of laws called the Black codes. The Black codes virtually reintroduced many of the conditions that existed during slavery. Although the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments guaranteed citizenship and the right to vote, these rights were abridged through intimidation, the poll tax, the grandfather clause, and literacy tests. Beginning in the 1880s, a more comprehensive set of laws—referred to as Jim Crow—gave rise to a system of legal segregation in the South. This system of legal segregation was sanctioned by the “separate but equal” doctrine established in the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896.

Legal Remedies

Substantial progress against Jim Crow did not occur until fifty-eight years later, with the Brown v. Board of Education decision (1954). In the Brown decision, the Supreme Court overturned Plessy, arguing that the concept of “separate but equal” was “inherently unequal.” The Brown decision spurred many African Americans to exercise the rights and privileges guaranteed to all citizens under the Constitution. Beginning in the 1960s, the underlying legal, political, and economic context of race relations changed in the United States. Demonstrations, sit-ins, and marches by African Americans and their supporters caused the United States to begin addressing the second-class citizenship of people of color. As a consequence, epoch-making legislation was passed in the form of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, affirmative action (in employment and education) was introduced, and governmental agencies actively tried to stamp out discrimination against people of color.

Yet riot after riot erupted across the nation in the 1960s. A combination of economic frustration, police brutality, resistance to desegregation, and assassinations of such leaders as the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., contributed to the eruptions. The Kerner Commission, which was commissioned to study the conditions leading up to the riots, concluded that “white racism” and discrimination were responsible for the outbreak of violence. Joseph S. Hines suggests in Politics of Race (1975) that Black people have operated in a caste-like racial structure in the United States that has relegated them to inferior status, relative powerlessness, material deprivation, and socio-psychic resentment. Segregation and discrimination have been used as mechanisms for maintaining the sociopolitical structure (status quo). Within this structure, Black people are members of a racial category for life; they are generally consigned to marry within their group; they are often avoided, both as ritual and as custom; and they experience limited opportunities.

In 1989, six decisions made by the Supreme Court had limited the rights of employees suing for discrimination in the workplace. Three of these cases included Cove Packing Co. v. Atonio, Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, and Prince Waterhouse v. Hopkins. On November 21, the Civil Rights Act of 1991 became law in response to these Supreme Court decisions.

Despite such legal attempts, systemic discrimination remained embedded in the social, political, and economic fabric of the United States in the early twenty-first century. Due to a history of discrimination, the norms of an institution may function in a way that can create unfair advantages for dominant group members while negatively affecting the life chances of subordinate group members. The interplay of discrimination across multiple social institutions produces systemic discrimination, or discrimination that is an integral part of the entire social system. Polls in the twenty-first century continued to show discrepancies in hospital care, employment, and real estate among Black and White individuals. Employment and promotional opportunities were also still strongly influenced by race. Consequently, people of color typically earn far less than White people, hold political office less often than their numbers in the general population should warrant, and experience higher rates of poverty. To combat such discrimination, the activist movement and organization called Black Lives Matter (BLM) arose. It was devoted to stopping violence and injustice against Black people. Though initially focused on the United States, it established a presence in other countries as well. The group was founded in 2013 following the acquittal of George Zimmerman, who had been charged with murdering Black teen Trayvon Martin. Over the next few years, the Black Lives Matter movement swelled in popularity, particularly after several incidents of police brutality involving Black Americans made national news. Its protests against systemic racism became a prominent factor in the 2016 US presidential election campaign. The movement saw another surge in attention with mass protests in 2020 in response to the killing of George Floyd, a Black man, by a police officer in Minnesota. Thus, the discrimination of Black people remained a serious issue into the twenty-first century, as it continued to define and divide many Americans.

Bibliography

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Van Dyke, Vernon. Human Rights, Ethnicity, and Discrimination. Greenwood, 1985.

Yancey-Bragg, N'dea. "What Is Systemic Racism? Here's What it Means and How You Can Help Dismantle It." USA Today, 15 June 2020, www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/06/15/systemic-racism-what-does-mean/5343549002/. Accessed 8 Oct. 2021.