In 1968, the now famous Kerner Commission submitted a government report that openly discussed racism in the United States in a way that sent shockwaves through the country.
On the heels of national racial unrest in 1966 and 67, then President Lyndon Johnson appointed 11 people to the commission and charged them to answer three questions, according to Kerner Commission appointee Fred Harris (a senator from Oklahoma): “What happened? Why did it happen? And what can be done to prevent it from happening again and again?”
The 1,400-plus page report’s conclusion: “Our Nation is moving toward two societies, one Black, one white — separate and unequal. … Discrimination and segregation have long permeated much of American life; they now threaten the future of every American.”
The report suggested the U.S. government invest heavily in ending inequalities that existed in every aspect of Black life, or risk overseeing a country in perpetual decline with its people at each other’s throats.
So, where is America 56 years later?
FEELINGS
A September 2020 article in The Economist said “Americans have rarely felt gloomier about the state of race relations.” The article based this assertion on a Gallup poll which showed that perceptions of black-white relations were at the time (2020) their lowest in 20 years.
More recent polls show the feelings have only gotten worse. However, a truer measure of race relations extends beyond feelings and into cold hard facts.
HATE UPTICK
When President Barack Obama took office, there was an exponential growth in white supremacist hate group membership. Social scientists have almost unanimously concluded that Obama’s election triggered an explosion in the number of hate groups in the US, an assertion backed by a Southern Poverty Law Center report.
And though hate group growth numbers slowed during the last three years of Obama’s term, they still grew. Not only that, the number of hate groups operating across America rose to a record high – 1,020 – in 2018 during President Trump’s years. That year marked the fourth straight year of hate group growth – a 30% increase roughly coinciding with Trump’s campaign and presidency.
A research article by Benjamin C. Ruisch and Melissa J. Ferguson published by sciencedirect.com stated: “Throughout [Trump’s] candidacy and subsequent presidency, Trump used rhetoric that was widely characterized as prejudiced against minoritized groups. He also retained ties to far-right nationalist groups and has received open support from White nationalists such as Richard Spencer and David Duke. His supporters also consistently tend to express far greater racial and religious prejudice than do supporters of other major US political figures.”
Moreover, during Trump’s term, there was an exponential spike in violent hate crimes against Blacks, Asians, immigrants, and Muslims of color.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
In an Oct 1, 2020 article, the Defender interviewed two Houston-area law enforcement officers, neither of whom wanted to use their real names for fear of reprisals. Both asserted that white supremacists have deeply infiltrated law enforcement agencies.
One who used the pseudonym Officer Green said, “The assertion is very real. However, this isn’t a new phenomenon. The purpose of organized white supremacist organizations is to establish and maintain some form of control. Typically, that control is best obtained through government positions of authority and the most available and plentiful positions are within law enforcement.”
For years now, the FBI has quietly investigated white supremacist infiltration of law enforcement (The Intercept; Jan 2017) and the U.S. military. Thus, it’s no surprise to many that Blacks are still disproportionately pulled over, arrested, convicted, and jailed, receiving longer sentences than whites convicted of the same crimes. Blacks are also way more likely to be victims of police violence than whites.
EDUCATION (K-College)
LaMarque City Councilmember Kimberley Yancy, a University of Texas at Austin alumna sees negative race relations playing out at her alma mater regarding the fallout from state Senate Bill 17 and the end of DEI programming and funding.
“UT gets more taxpayer money than any other public school in the state of Texas. So, basically we are financing our oppression. Think about that. We are sending money to the University of Texas as taxpayers, and they are telling our students that look like us, that we don’t care,” said Yancy, who said funding for Black organizations has ended, as well as much-needed support programs.
“Nothing changes for white students, nothing changes for them at all. But everything changes for the student of color,” she added.
But the divide happens at the K-12 level, also.
A Brookings Institute study found that 30% of respondents (including both teachers and non-teachers) expressed explicit pro-white/anti-Black bias and 77% expressed implicit pro-white/anti-Black bias. The study found that teacher anti-Black biases mirror the level of anti-Black bias in the larger society.
These biases fuel the “school-to-prison” pipeline as well as more in-school and out-of-school suspensions and expulsions for Black students, and their over-representation in special education classes and under-representation in AP courses.
“Black girls are suspended from school and arrested at incidents greater than their white peers. Black girls are more likely to be disciplined for minor violations, disobedience, disruptive behavior, fighting and bullying than their white peers,” stated Sarah Guidry, director of the Earl Carl Institute (ECI) based at Texas Southern University during a 2020 interview. “In fact, the incidence of punishment for Black girls is even greater than the disparity between Black and white boys.” (Defender article June 2023 “Anti-Blackness in education is bad for our health” )
According to the National Education Association’s (NEA) 2020 report What the Research Says About Ethnic Studies, “Students who participate in ethnic studies (i.e. AAS) are more academically engaged, develop a stronger sense of self-efficacy and personal empowerment, perform better academically and graduate at higher rates.”
Thus, efforts to ban these studies via the mislabeled “anti-CRT” movement, are literally damaging the mental, emotional, and intellectual well-being of Black children. Scholars call this kind of damage “epistemic violence.”
RACIAL WEALTH GAP
The racial wealth gap in the United States has widened since 1968, with Black families having significantly less wealth than white families:
In 1968, the average household wealth of middle-class Black families was about $6,600, while middle-class white families had an average wealth of about $71,000. In 2022, for every $100 in wealth held by white households, Black households held only $15.
According to the Brookings Institute, though Black wealth is increasing, so too is the racial wealth gap (Jan 9, 2024). That gap between Black and white households continues to widen in the U.S. and now stands at $44,890 and $285,010, respectively, according to the latest research from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve.
Additionally, due to the legacy and current reality of redlining, Blacks have for generations been at a disadvantage when it comes to building wealth in the form of equity via homeownership. A Brookings Institute study found that neighborhoods that were at least 50% Black had homes that on average were valued at 23% less than comparable homes in “white” neighborhoods (less than 1% Black). That means homes in Black neighborhoods are undervalued on average by $48,000 which equates to a collective loss for Black people of $156 billion.
