The times of the struggle for the equal rights of black and white Americans are a thing of the past: mass protests against segregation have been around for more than half a century. However, more than 50 years later, the United States is far from eradicating racial problems, and this is despite the fact that in 2008 the African Americans became the country’s president for the first time. However, one thing is the rights written ‘on paper,’ and quite another is their application in practice. Even in the 21st-century racism divides American society, leading to social and political tensions and conflicts.
Racism, even in the 21st century, regularly becomes the subject of heated debate. So, in 2012, policeman George Zimmerman shot dead black Trayvonn Martin. Despite numerous acts of civil disagreement, the policeman was later acquitted. In the summer of 2014 in Texas, a white policeman shot dead 18-year-old Michael Brown (Desmond & Emirbayer, 2015). A wave of protests swept across the United States, and the racial question undoubtedly fell into the electoral agenda of candidates for the presidency.
Despite the fact that black and white Americans have equal rights, their lives can hardly be called the same. According to various studies, even more than 150 years after the abolition of slavery, African Americans continue to face problems that seriously affect their position in society; this is primarily true for economic inequality (Desmond & Emirbayer, 2015). The budget of the average African-American family is 10 times less than the budget of the white household (according to data for 2016, $17,150 compared to $171 thousand, respectively) (Tourse, Hamilton-Mason, & Wewiorski, 2018). In the United States, 20.8% of blacks live in poverty, while whites below the poverty line constitute 8.1% (data for 2018) (Tourse et al., 2018). These trends have a pronounced integral effect, contributing to institutional and systemic racism.
Inequality is evident in the areas of health care, social protection, education, etc. Even the COVID-19 epidemic has become an indicator of racial inequality: the number of African-American coronavirus deaths was 23% of all deaths (Yaya et al., 2020). According to statistics, U.S. blacks represent the most vulnerable group due to frequent cases of chronic illnesses such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity (Yaya et al., 2020). In addition, it is more difficult for African Americans to get qualified medical care, as many of them do not have health insurance. The economic downturn caused by quarantine also hit the black population harder than whites: African Americans often lost their jobs and appear in a difficult financial situation. Thus, it is not about particular cases of racism (which also happens), but about the fact that the black population is worse integrated into public institutions as a whole. This phenomenon has received the shameful name of systemic racism.
One example of the systemic and continuous nature of American racism is that during racial segregation, American investors divided cities into favorable and unfavorable zones. Investments were made in areas where the working white majority lived; infrastructure was built there, and banks willingly gave loans to local residents. At the same time, in the black quarters, where the poor and less educated descendants of former slaves lived compactly, there were no investments. Banks refused to give loans to African Americans, and agents did not sell them real estate in ‘white areas.’ As a result, many African Americans have lived in neighborhoods for decades, which have remained so-called ‘gray areas’ (Tourse et al., 2018). Residents of poor areas do not own real estate, but use social housing; therefore, they do not pay property taxes. Because of this, local schools are crowded and underfunded; there are almost no students with different social statuses and skin colors. Public transport does not work well in such areas; more often there are security problems due to the lack of police, and fewer opportunities to find work. Thus, a white American born and raised in a prestigious area attended a good school and extra classes, grew up in a safer environment has a better chance of a prosperous future than his black peer.
However, it is important to note that not everyone in America agrees that such a term and phenomenon as systemic racism exists in general. Many believe that if Barack Obama became president of the United States, then there is no racism in America (Tourse et al., 2018). In their opinion, reverse racism began to gain momentum from the middle of the last century, whethe n still white population of the United States had predominant privileges over black, and these advantages of whites over blacks gave rise to a wave of hatred for whites among the latter.
Opponents of the point of view of the existence of modern racism say that, among African Americans in the USA, the following tendency has become noticeably manifested. African Americans accept the views of white racists about their inferiority and begin to turn their flaws, according to whites, into ‘virtues.’ Here, black Americans begin to be proud of those traits that are disgusting for white, thereby offsetting their inferiority complex with a superiority one (Tourse et al., 2018). Among the African American population, drug use, robbery, and violence are gaining increasingly more popularity. Directly in this model of social behavior, the danger to white citizens lies.
Thus, it is argued that African Americans are beginning to take revenge on white for their past and present controversial stance on the superiority of their white racealuminizedenized population of blacks began to demand an increase in social benefits and unemployment benefits, continuing to live in conditions that were already comfortable for them and ‘makprofitrofit’ directly from the state (Desmond & Emirbayer, 2015). It turns out that in order for a black citizen to feel like a full-fledged US citizen in the socio-economic aspect, he does not have to look for work, but just claim his rights and prove that blacks are being infringed, thereby receiving a significant adding to his allowance. Whites and African Americans receive almost the same benefits, but for the latter, these benefits more often than for whites represent a sufficient source of income, weakening the desire to get well-paid jobs.
However, it is difficult to agree with this point of view, since getting a good education and, accordingly, good work is difficult for Black. An example of institutional discrimination is America’s educational system. One can go to a public school only in the area of residence, and this divides the schools into black, which are found mainly in disadvantaged areas, and white. Moving to an area with a good school is extremely difficult since real estate there is very expensive. At the same time, it is impossible to enter a good university after graduation from a bad school. Therefore, African Americans have very few chances to get out of the vicious circle through social elevators.
In addition, latent segregation still exists; legislative racial segregation has been abolished, however, some of its manifestations are still found today. Ferguson, Baltimore, and Chicago – these three cities are associated with racial tension, but all three have ca ommon features. They, like many other American cities, are still largely segregated. People of different races simply do not communicate with each other – not of their own free will, but because of circumstances. Obviously, if the races do not interact with each other, all talks about solving racial problems seems premature.
Racial and socioeconomic segregation are closely related: if a cseemn is an African American, then he/she is more likely than a white person to live in a predominantly poor area. The American government contributed to this, creating this segregation in accordance with the practice introduced in the 1930s: it forbade many blacks to buy property in some areas. When the federal government began guaranteeing mortgages to buy real estate to spur the economy on the New Deal, stringent rules were introduced as to where mortgages could be issued. Area, where minorities lived,d was considered risky investments, and black people were regularly denied mortgages; thus, the property market for them was closed.
More than half a century has passed since the radical victory of the Civil Rights Movement. Nevertheless, discrimination still exists in the United States, and after half a century of active implementation of racial, gender, and all other forms of justice, the country realizes itself as a society of a disappearing middle class and a growing social divide. Centuries of racism and discrimination have made this chasm even wider for black families, cut off from the opportunities and resources available to whites. Systemic racism, like many other phenomena of American life, is a unique one rooted in local history, and so far attempts to combat it have not resulted in significant success.
References
Desmond, M., & Emirbayer, M. (2015). Race in America. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company
Tourse, R., Hamilton-Mason, J., & Wewiorski, N. (2018). Systemic racism in the United States: Scaffolding as social cona struction. New York, NY: Springer.
Yaya, S., Yeboah, H., Charles, C., Otu, A., Labonte, R. (2020). Ethnic and racial disparities in COVID-19-related deaths: counting the trees, hiding the forest. BMJ Global Health, 5(6), 1-4.