Paste your essay in here…Katherine Booska
Mr. Rebullida
Christian Living Online
28 July 2018
The Institution of Racism and its Effects on the American Economy
The institution of racism in the United States of America has pervaded our history for centuries. Right from the conquering of the land that now forms the fifty states, the Native Americans were treated with absolute contempt because they were different, and inferior to the white man based on the color of their skin and their cultural traditions. Racism is a social issue that flows through the very fabric of our society, making it impossible to ignore when analyzing other topics of concern. Historic injustice against people of color has to be taken into account when evaluating any other social justice issues such as justice for the poor, for immigrants, and economic equality, making racism an extremely important topic to address in our efforts to implement Catholic Social Thought.
Coming from a small elementary school on the “bad side” of San Francisco, I have seen with my own eyes what disadvantages racism contributes to in the daily lives of so many. My peers were faced with a different reality, one that my eyes were opened to when my friends openly spoke about their economic or social disadvantages that they had to contend with from a very young age stemming from the inherent racial injustice in our society. This seemed strange to my young mind; as a young child, I had no concept of why my friends should be treated any differently. The issue of racism is both practically and ideologically important to address because it is often overlooked as being resolved or fixed, when it is actually an issue that still must be addressed in order to have a functioning society.
Racism itself is illogical. It is defined as existing when “one ethnic group or collectivity dominates, excludes, or seeks to eliminate another based on differences that it believes are hereditary and unalterable” (Frederickson). These differences are known by the people who exercise racism to be unchangeable, and so there is no logical reason to deny economic opportunity or social status to people of color, and yet it continues to happen every day. A fundamental principle of Catholic Social Thought is that people are equal no matter their race or other characteristics, and it is imperative that we find ways to introduce this thinking into our interactions with people of color and reform our institutions so that equal advantages are provided to people who deserve them every bit as much as any other person.
As the next generation of social activists in America, we must put our efforts into isolating and addressing the root cause of racism in order to establish a fairer, more equal social order. There is no one else to affect change for future generations. It is essential that we target racism, both implicit and explicit, and the socioeconomic disparity it causes as one of our main things to change so that our children and grandchildren can live in a more equal world. Racism continues to afflict our society because of historical power structures created to disadvantage people of color, and manifests itself in the economic advantages provided to those who have white privilege. Catholic social teaching is overwhelmingly against racism, and we must strive to implement these sentiments into our societal systems on top of what has already been done in order to create a more equal society.
Racism has existed since Jews were associated with the devil in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (Frederickson). The ideas that we associate with modern racism were introduced during the periods of the Renaissance and the Reformation (Frederickson). Europeans saw people that were different than them and made immediate judgments. The rationale for these judgments was religion-based; the Europeans thought that people of darker complexions had heathen blood (Frederickson). This changed in 1667, when after the colonization of the Americas, Virginia declared that slaves could be kept by white slaveowners because of their heathen ancestry (Frederickson). This shifted the motivation for racism from religion to race. This racism expanded when African slaves took the place of white indentured European servants in society, therefore giving previous white servants economic opportunity and diminishing Africans to slavehood (Adelman). Furthermore, laws were passed against interracial marriage in English North America, which implied that blacks were alien and inferior. This racism was not limited to blacks. The Indian Removal Act in 1830 and the Homestead Act of 1862 removed Native Americans from their land and replaced them with white settlers, while the Naturalization Act of 1790 restricted citizenship to white settlers (Adelman). These restrictions were not removed until 1952, and preferential immigration for whites remained in place until 1965 (Adelman). Imperialism in the nineteenth century further contributed to racist ideology in the United States; white people thought that they automatically had the right to conquer other, “lesser” nations (Frederickson). Emancipation from slavery actually enforced racism rather than reducing it because of the competitive racism that ensued (Frederickson).
Industrialization during the Industrial Revolution and the “survival of the fittest” philosophy introduced by Charles Darwin contributed to scientific racism and the resulting racial tensions (Frederickson). These scientific justifications for racism were only lifted after the Holocaust and the horrific crimes committed against the Jews in Nazi Germany (Frederickson). After the Holocaust, racism was justified by cultural differences (Frederickson). Racism is not dependent on the law and governmental support, although many racist government policies do still exist (Frederickson). Discrimination can continue alongside a facade of equality. Cultural differences used as reason for discrimination has led to cultural racism (Frederickson). This emergence of racism unsupported by science is seen as a replication of the cultural differences that caused racism before the eighteenth century (Frederickson).
In recent times, statistics have shown that the American people themselves are less racist. In 1990, 63 percent of nonblack Americans said they would be against a close relative participating in an interracial marriage (Levitz). In 2016, this percentage fell drastically to 14% (Levitz). Additionally, hate crimes have decreased by 50% between 1994 and 2015 (Levitz). However, the the racial differences in economic status have not reflected this downward trend in cultural racism.
A lack of economic opportunities for African-Americans has had a long history. Even after the end of slavery, economic amends were not made with former slaves. The only place that compensations were made was in Washington, D.C., and these compensations were made to slaveowners for the loss of property (Adelman). When economists in recent times have tried to put monetary value on slave labor, without accounting for the centuries of pain and suffering, the cost of the free labor that white people enjoyed for all those years is at the very lowest estimate 1 trillion dollars (Adelman). Jim Crow laws, enacted after the end of slavery, made society stratified based on race and gave African-Americans a disadvantage right from the very beginning of their lives based on nothing but their skin color (Adelman).
Even laws that were designed to improve the lives of workers, such as the Social Security Act of 1935, had racial preference; domestic servants and agricultural workers were excluded from Social Security, and these two job sectors at the time were made up of mainly African Americans and Asians (Adelman). The Social Security Act was part of the New Deal, a governmental response to the Great Depression enacted by Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Adelman). Also part of the New Deal was the Wagner Act, which allowed unions and their workers a bargaining voice and a place in the middle class (Adelman). The Wagner Act also allowed unions to exclude workers on racist grounds and deny them union benefits, effectively restricting economic gain as a result of the Wagner Act to white people (Adelman). Another New Deal program, the Federal Housing Administration, made it possible for millions of white Americans to own a home who had not had that privilege before (Adelman). The FHA appraised neighborhoods and connected the neighborhood appraisal system to race; communities that had African Americans and whites living together were a risk and were not eligible for loans (Adelman). 98% of loans that the federal government supported for homes as a result of the FHA were for white families; in Northern California alone, 350,000 new homes were built (Adelman). Less than 100 of these were for African Americans (Adelman). White suburbs were created after World War II as a result of New Deal government programs, and were tied to cities by freeways that plowed through low-income, non-white neighborhoods (Adelman). When these suburbs were formed, which was a boon for the white economy, racially segregated urban communities were isolated (Hanks). To this day, remnants of New Deal housing discrimination are still in place and affecting black families (Hanks). It’s important to remember that these New Deal programs are seen as positive because they removed our country from the Great Depression, and their racial implications are much lesser known than those of the Jim Crow laws (Adelman).
Currently, the economic gap between white people and black communities is seen to be as a result of a wealth gap as well as an income gap. The wealth gap is actually a larger issue than the income gap issue, which is more widely publicized (Hanks). Wealth is any form of savings, including houses and cars, while income is earnings from work, Social Security, pension benefits, interest and dividends that households use to meet their spending needs (Hanks). Wealth is financial mobility; it allows for changing jobs, education, and starting a business, and allows families to pay bills (Hanks). Wealth is extremely concentrated both among blacks and whites, and this concentration makes the situation even more dire for poorer people, leaving others, especially black families, without fiscal security (Hanks). In 2016, the richest 20 percent of blacks owned 64.9 percent of all black wealth but only received 52.6 percent of all black income; this proportional difference is similar for blacks and whites, showing that wealth is concentrated regardless of race (Hanks).
Even with the same concentration, white people with little wealth seem to do much better than economically secure blacks (Hanks). Concentration of wealth is an issue both within racial groups and across them; blacks don’t fare well in both situations and have fewer financial protections and mobility opportunities (Hanks). Wealth is glaringly skewed in favor of whites; when slavery was abolished in 1865, blacks owned 0.5% of national wealth, and in 1990 blacks only owned 1% of national wealth (Adelman). White families have twice the wealth of black families with the same income because wealth is dependent on house value and inherited wealth (Adelman). Additionally, black wealth is actually declining. Between 1983 and 2013 the wealth of the median black household declined 75 percent, from $6800 to $1700 (Levitz). In contrast, the wealth of the median white household increased 14 percent, from $102,000 to $116,800 (Levitz). In 2016, the median black wealth was ten percent of the median white wealth (Hanks). Slightly more than one-quarter of blacks had no or negative wealth resulting from debt; this was only a phenomenon for 10 percent of whites (Hanks). A typical white family has an average of eight times more net worth than the average African American family (Adelman).
After the Great Recession, the period of economic downturn between 2007 and 2009, the racial wealth gap widened even further. Blacks were more severely affected; their median wealth after 2009 was half of what it was before the Great Recession while white wealth was only one-quarter less (Hanks). The average black wealth in 2016 was one-third less than what it was before, while average white wealth grew by 15 percent (Hanks). Therefore, the Great Recession did greater damage to black financial standing (Hanks). The racial wealth gap has only slightly narrowed from 2013 to 2016 (Hanks).
Closing the wealth gap faces institutionalized obstacles ingrained into our governmental systems. It can be estimated that as much as 80 percent of wealth accumulation is due to generational wealth transfers such as parents paying for college and assisting with a home loan; the advantage this creates is passed down from parent to child, and the racial wealth gap stays in place without proper policy change (Adelman). The United States tax code prioritizes savings in retirement and mortgage borrowing; blacks are less likely to work in jobs that carry retirement benefits because of segregation in jobs and less likely to become homeowners because of housing and mortgage racism (Hanks). Because of this, black Americans have fewer tax advantages than white Americans. Black Americans are more likely to be underpaid and less likely to have savings or adequate resources to account for emergencies (Hanks).
Income and employment are also obstacles to closing the wealth gap. The income gap has increased since the 1970s between black and white people; in 1979 black men earned 22 percent less than white men; by 2015 the black man earned 31% less (Hanks). This decline also happened for women’s wages; In 1979 the black woman’s wages were almost as high as the white woman’s wages, but by 2015 they earned 19% less (Hanks). Additionally, blacks are more likely to be unemployed than whites; in 2010 as a result of the Great Recession, black unemployment was at a high of 16% while white unemployment was at slightly less than 9% (Hanks). Black unemployment is approaching its lowest recorded rate, and yet is double the white unemployment rate (Hanks).
Gaps in unemployment cannot be explained by marriage, age, education, or geography (Hanks). The factors that are unexplained can be employment discrimination, weak anti-discrimination enforcement, and racial differences in unobserved skill levels which is different from measurable education or experience (Hanks). According to 24 hiring studies conducted by Northwestern University, Harvard University, and the Institute for Social Research in Nortway, there has been little reduction in hiring discrimination since the 1980s while the racial wealth gap has expanded (Levitz). These higher unemployment rates are not only due to unmeasurable labor market discrimination, but also a sensitivity to economic shock and a decline in union participation (Hanks). Incarceration negatively affects hiring prospects, and black men are six times more likely to be incarcerated than white (Hanks). This happens because of policies that promote mass incarceration and criminalization of activities prevalent in black communities, affecting hiring (Hanks). If the current positive pattern continued without policy change, it would take 20 years to return to the racial wealth gap in 1998, which was when blacks had one-sixth the median wealth of whites (Hanks). This sounds like quite a large disparity, but it is actually the historic best-case scenario for black families (Hanks).
The Catholic Church is strongly opposed to racism. In a pastoral letter issued by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, racism was named a social sin and a violation of human dignity (Brigham). Therefore, the eradication of racism was made a mission of the Church, and an integral part of the work of Christ around the world. Additionally, the Catholic Church in its social teaching acknowledges that racial injustice is connected to economic injustice (Brigham). The Catholic Church does not seek to gloss over racism, or make it seem that racism is no longer a prevalent concern. Catholic social teaching makes it known that racism must be overcome through the acknowledgement of white privilege (Brigham). This means to see the advantages that white people have and remedy economic injustice through that lens instead of focusing on disadvantages that white people face (Brigham).
We can see beyond the words of the clergy on the issue of racism and look to Jesus as our example. Mark 12:31 says that the second fundamental commandment is to “love your neighbor as yourself.” The inherent meaning of this commandment is that all are equal. How can we love our neighbors as ourselves if we do not believe that we are equal to our neighbors, no matter their skin color? In his teachings and miracles, Jesus lived out the very meaning of nondiscrimination. Jesus was known for treating the sick and the marginalized. Seeing this and acknowledging racism in our societies and seeking to change the policies that enable it is not just essential to being an effective member of society, but also a faithful member of the Church. When we do not empower each member of the body of Christ to the best of our ability, we do the entire Church a detriment. The body of Christ, the Church, is made up of members that each hold an equal stake. The Holy Spirit permeates each person equally, without any sort of discrimination, and we must apply this concept to our lives as humans.
Reflecting on the sentiments of Catholic social thought, it is important to not only acknowledge racism, but advocate for effective policy that changes it. While diversity is being encouraged in the media and in the political sphere, this diversity must be accompanied by policy change to this effect (Levitz). To actually close the economic gap, we must transfer resources from the top of the income ladder to the bottom (Levitz). In order to do this, we need to acknowledge the difference in circumstances between white and black people (Adelman). African-Americans are treated differently by government institutions both historically and currently (Hanks). We cannot structure economic policy with the false notion that whites and blacks come from the same starting point (Hanks). We must pay particular attention to the situation of the marginal group (in this case blacks) when we develop economic policy because we cannot make real progress by ignoring the inherent disadvantages that blacks face in our society (Hanks). Racial preference still exists; white people sometimes try to accuse those of color that they can’t achieve what white people have or they advance themselves using their race or say that different outcomes stem from a difference in ability (Adelman). When comparing different families who not only have the same income but also worth, racial differences in education, graduation, welfare, and other situations are nonexistent, making racial gap in performance a direct result of wealth, which is defined by one’s circumstances (Adelman).
Practically, economic policy needs to address historical and institutionalized roadblocks to economic equality. We need to take responsibility for America’s history and the racist government institutions that have existed for centuries (Hanks). We must also close the wealth gap while still paying attention to income inequality; while wealth and income are both important it has been seen that wealth plays a large role in financial stability and economic security (Hanks). It is imperative that African-Americans have the opportunity to build wealth; this is how they can be less sensitive to negative economic events (Hanks).
The way to increase wealth comes in several ways. Housing must be expanded, for this is the main way for wealth to be built. There are still many public policies in action that support housing discrimination and concentrate communities that are high in poverty (Hanks). Black families who own homes are more likely to face barriers to ownership and become situated in segregated, low-income neighborhoods (Hanks). For the wealth gap to close, blacks not only need to be able to freely own homes, with equal restrictions to those of white Americans, but they also need to get equal returns on their investments (Hanks). If the gap in home ownership rates was closed, the wealth gap would decrease by 32% (Hanks). If the returns on home investment were the same for whites and blacks, then the racial wealth gap would be closed by an additional 16% (Hanks). Other ways for black families to increase wealth come from access to retirement savings; only one-third of blacks have a retirement savings account while 70% of whites do (Hanks). In terms of employment, a college education is not the great equalizer (Hanks). Employment outcome policies need to focus on equal employment and income as well as policies that strengthen the bargaining power of black workers and lower the cost of health and child care, paid family leave, education, and training (Hanks).
It is a widely held conception that colorblindness, or treating everyone the same regardless of their race, is a good policy (Adelman). However, colorblindness actually fails to recognize racial inequality and unfair circumstances (Adelman). When we are complacent in regards to colorblind policies, we fail to do anything about the unfair advantage that white Americans have (Adelman). The only way to fix the advantage is to acknowledge it through the concept of white privilege as seen in Catholic social teaching, and then actively try to give minorities greater advantages (Adelman). We cannot fix the wealth gap by allowing things to continue as they are in a misguided attempt to treat people equally. It is known that the drastic wealth gap has come about as a result of intentional policy choices made by the United States government, and it is only logical that the wealth gap can be closed solely through intentional changes in response. Only then can we provide equal opportunities to every person in the United States, regardless of race or social status. This is the path forward to a fair and equal society.