New York Times
Many Americans insist that prejudice is extinct in our post-racial society, where we have a black president and everything. Of course, the officially sanctioned use of racism (À la Jim Crow laws) is a distant relic of the past, and no governmental or academic institution still exhibits racist behavior.
Nope.
If that were true, however, Columbia University would not be under fire for alleged “attacks fueled by prejudice” that led to a high-ranking Hispanic dean resigning.
Nor would Wells Fargo Bank have coughed up $175 million to settle claims that it “engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination against qualified African American and Hispanic borrowers” that forced ethnic minorities seeking mortgages to pay “higher rates for loans solely because of the color of their skin.”
Nor would police officers, now over 20 years after Rodney King got walloped, still be targeting “drivers for traffic stops because of their race.”
Nor would several states be instituting new laws to prevent so-called voter fraud, a modern-day poll tax to suppress the votes of ethnic minorities.
But for a concrete example of institutional racism, we have a study by Professor Donna Ginther, of the University of Kansas, who looked at grants awarded through the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The study by Ginther, et al, looked at individuals who received research dollars from the NIH. The report found “that black applicants remain 10 percentage points less likely than whites to be awarded NIH research funding.”
According to Dr. Ginther, there are two explanations for why blacks don’t get funded. First, they don’t write competitive proposals because, as Professor Ginther puts it, “they’re not getting the mentoring and support needed to be successful.”
In other words, white applicants are more likely to have an experienced mentor help them create killer proposals. It’s sort of an academic old (white) boys’ club.
The other possible explanation is pure and simple bias in the peer-review process.
“If your peers don’t know you or don’t like your work, your chances of getting funded are low,” Dr. Ginther says.
Of course, if they don’t like you because you’re different looking, they’re predisposed to not care for your work either.
In essence, then, we have a governmental institution, devoted to the betterment of the nation, that claims it accepts the work of the best and brightest, regardless of race or ethnicity. In truth, however, it says, “We’re really only interested in white people’s ideas.”
So what does all this mean?
Well, it indicates that despite great progress over the past half century, racism is still embedded in our cultural institutions. It also implies that the idea that everyone can succeed — if they just really work hard — is at best simplistic. It’s also dismissive of the racial issues that continue to plague the country.
Of course, as you may have heard, you can now just pop a pill and banish those nasty bigoted thoughts. Perhaps the heads of our major institutions should gulp one of those down each morning.
About Daniel Cubias
Great piece. Your reference to Jim Crow actually brought to mind a study I recently came across that has to do with contemporary educational segregation in Southern California. “Divided? We? Fail:?
Segregation? and Inequality?? in? the? Southland’s? Schools?” by ?Orfield,? SiegelHawley? ,and? Kucsera? illustrates how in the 1970s, because of the desegregation battles, students of color “experienced a brief increase in levels of exposure to white students.”
However:
“–In 2008, more than two out of five Latino students and nearly one-third of all black students in the region enrolled in intensely segregated learning environments–schools where 90-100% of students were from underrepresented minority backgrounds. Just 5% of Southern California’s Asian students attended intensely segregated minority schools, and 2% of the region’s white students did the same.
–White students made up 25% of the region’s public school enrollment. Yet the average white student in Southern California attended a school that was nearly 50% white, a figure that highlights persistent patterns of disproportionate white isolation across the region.”
Don’t know why the title of the study I cited came out that way. Anyhow, it’s “Divided We Fail: Segregation and Inequality in the Southland’s Schools” by Orfield, Siegel-Hawley, and Kuscera.
prejudice will always exist but it was white ppl who put Obama in the oval office.
If that statement is true than I have the soulution to everything we need more white people at the bottom so that they can come up with better Idea’s. smile
Yeah and in Hollywood it’s not white Mormon Republicans or conservatives that cast the actors and write the scripts that stereotype Latinos. It’s actual liberals that claim they are in solidarity with brown folk. If my mom read this article she would chancleta slap the author and say, “concho, stop with the persecution complex!”
And African Americans and Latinos if given a chance can be as racist and bigoted as a KKK grand wizard or Archie Bunker. Cry me a river.
So ok let’s say all this institutional racism exists, what’s your solution? More government legislation, or communist revolution, or a little bit of both under the Obama administration?
Let’s put it this way, who gets more harassment from the police force? That is institutional racism. Mario, there is a difference between african americans, latinos and other creeds being racist than having a system in which all creeds but white people are treated with disrespect by government institutions. The only thing that could end institutional racism, and racism itself, is. By educating people and teaching them that no matter what colour our skin is we are exactly the same.
Sadly, we are all not the same. Equal in the eyes of Nature, yes, and we should treat everyone with respect and honor, but we are not the same.
Apart from being the typical BL gripe fest, it was a well written article.
You can’t erase four centuries plus of institutionalised racism in this country in the span of 50 years
And I bet if the Europeans never settled here there would be some Aztec emperor killing and exploiting another tribe.
Mario, the point of the matter is that these “white liberals” allow the ignorant blacks and latinos to be prejudiced and push steretypes worse than they ever could. Do alot of minorities do horrible things to other minorities, you are right. However, is still a white dominated establishment.