Hand in hand with the scary speech of Donald Trump at the recent Republican Convention was a two-week period which saw a number of what appear to be uncalled-for police killings of black men in Baton Rouge, Minnesota, and Brooklyn, followed by the assassination of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge. For all deep-thinking people, the issues present a quandary. We know that there is something terribly out of hand in the way police treat black Americans, particularly men. But we don’t want to lend any credence to the killing of police as “revenge.” Our gut says that we should support what Black Lives Matters says, but our head makes us cautious. But as residents of what is probably the most racially segregated community in the United States (I am speaking about the Community Board 2 area, from 14th Street to Canal, the Hudson River to 4th Avenue/Bowery), we have a great need to reflect on racism in our city and our country, and figure out what role we can play in moving the racial divide a little closer together.
Racism is very real. It’s real even though we have had a black President and a black Attorney General. We live in a world where we don’t experience racism very much, and perhaps because we have some black associates at work, we think progress is being made.
Nicholas Kristoff recently added to his series on race in the Times (a series worth Googling) with the following observation, worth repeating here: In 1962, 85 percent of white Americans told Gallup that black children had as good a chance as white kids of getting a good education. The next year, in another Gallup survey, almost half of whites said that blacks had just as good a chance as whites of getting a job.
In retrospect, we can see that these white beliefs were delusional, and in other survey questions whites blithely acknowledged racist attitudes. In 1963, 45 percent said that they would object if a family member invited a black person home to dinner.
This complacency among us white Americans has been a historical constant. Even in the last decade, almost two-thirds of white Americans have said that blacks are treated fairly by the police, and four out of five whites have said that black children have the same chance as white kids of getting a good education. In short, the history of white Americans’ attitudes toward race has always been one of self-deception.
Just as in 1963, when many well-meaning whites glanced about and couldn’t see a problem, many well-meaning whites look around today, see a black president, and declare problem solved. That’s the backdrop for racial tensions roiling America today.
Half of white Americans today say that discrimination against whites is as big a problem as discrimination against blacks. Really? That contradicts overwhelming research showing that blacks are more likely to be suspended from preschool, to be prosecuted for drug use, to receive longer sentences, to be discriminated against in housing, to be denied job interviews, to be rejected by doctors’ offices, to suffer bias in almost every measurable sector of daily life.
In my mind, an even bigger civil rights outrage in America than abuses by some police officers may be an education system that routinely sends the neediest black students to underfunded, third-rate schools, while directing bountiful resources to affluent white schools.
“If America is to be America, we have to engage in a larger conversation than just the criminal justice system,” notes Darren Walker, the President of the Ford Foundation. “If you were to examine most of the institutions that underpin our democracy—higher education, K-12 education, the housing system, the transportation system, the criminal justice system—you will find systemic racism embedded in those systems.”
So what can we do? We need to be more cognizant of our thoughts and actions. We need to understand the implicit bias in the upbringing most of us have had. We need to pay attention to issues like affordable housing, and be concerned about a neighborhood and a City which pushes the poor—mostly blacks and Latinos—further and further from the City Center. We need to be concerned that our schools in NYC are unbelievably segregated, and that the system is horribly underfunded. We need to demand answers from our political leaders. If we feel that Bill de Blasio’s plans for affordable housing don’t feel right, those opposing him have to come up with something better. In our own community, we need to support the affordable housing plan at the St. John’s Terminal, and insist that it not be an all-white enclave. We need to demand that money be focused on public schools, and not hide our kids away in privileged largely white private schools and then ignore the problem.
Our futures, and the futures of our children, will be more and more profoundly affected by racial issues. We need to make it part of what we think about, and look to solve, because it is our problem.
Arthur Z. Schwartz is the President of Advocates for Justice.
