Is Racism Structural in America: Historical Record to Present

Abstract

As difficult as it is to summarize 400 years of American history into conclusions agreeable to all, we believe most would concur that, for almost two and a half centuries, from her early roots to the years prior to the American Civil War, America was structurally racist. As a country with over 5 million men, women, and children in slavery at the time, it would be more difficult to reach the opposite conclusion. During the century which followed, racists attitudes persisted under Jim Crow laws, from the end of the Civil War in 1865 to the adoption of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act in 1964.2 Today, 66 years after Brown v. Board of Education struck down Jim Crow and 56 years after the Civil Rights Act made antidiscrimination the law of the land, does racism remain structural in America?3 We derive a set of seven systemic metrics: political, legal, criminal justice, educational, health care, employment, and wealth. We conclude that work remains to eliminate the last vestiges of structural racism in America. Racism, like hatred, fear, and indeed, love, is in the human heart, and only by changing hearts will what proceeds forth from the heart, change.