Experts from the United Nations have found that structural racism in the United States is so bad that the law can’t change it.
Well, not quite but close enough.
According to the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, findings from a new report that will be presented to the United Nations Human Rights Council show just how bad black people have it in the United States.
While that last sentence is constricted and certainly lends itself to racial dogma, it’s worth fleshing out a little more.
The report, the group of experts has concern about police brutality and the use of “lethal force by law enforcement officials committed with impunity.”
Additionally, the group notes that mass incarceration of Black Americans, the criminalization of the poor, inadequate housing options, “limited access to food variety,” school closures in black neighborhoods, segregation, and much more are of grave concern.
But perhaps the most notable portion of the report comes when the group suggests that civil rights laws do little to alter the conditions of Black Americans due to structural racism.
The group believes that the fight against structural racism by way of the passage of new civil rights laws is fallible because of the social and economic conditions that black Americans face.
It is likely why the outrage surrounding water poisoning in Flint, Michigan has been limited. Governor Richard Snyder has vowed to fix the problem but with limited resources. He asked the Michigan Legislature for $28 million in emergency funds; an amount that lawmakers quickly approved. Yet estimates of how much is really needed to care for sick residents and to fix the city’s rotting infrastructure are between $1 and $2 billion.
In remarks about Flint, Snyder said that he’s sorry and that the people of Flint deserve accountability as it rests with him.
He’s still in office.
Flint has an estimated population of nearly 100,000 residents and almost 60 percent of those individuals are black. According to abcnews.com, 42 percent of Flint’s population live below the poverty line. Combine everything together and this links back to why the Working Group believes that black Americans in the United States are in being set-up to lose.
Politicians are limited as their symmetry to passing laws is connected to perception of what’s good and bad, not necessarily what’s real. Some, if not many, are also just bad at their jobs.
During the March from Selma in 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was asked how long it would take to see the manifestation of the work of social justice during that time. His response was admirable but steeped in hope and conjecture. He said that it wouldn’t take long “because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
That was in 1965 when Dr. King was fighting for the voting rights of Black Americans. 51 years later and an innumerable amount of reports of how bad Black Americans are treated in this country, we’re still waiting for that arc to bend our way.
Back in 2013 when the Supreme Court severely weakened the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by gutting section 5 of the Act, five justices noted that the law was now outdated because it used a formula from 40 years ago.
Poll tax and tests for literacy are no longer lawful, therefore, many states–most in the south–no longer needed “pre-clearance” from the federal government to change its election laws.
So states like Alabama, Florida, Texas, and others that had a history of discriminating against Black Americans when it came to voting could change or pass new voting laws without federal oversight.
Since then, many of those states that were under the “pre-clearance” provision have placed tough restrictions on voting. Florida purged thousands of voters from its rolls and limited early voting. North Carolina eliminated same day voter registration and Texas enacted the toughest voter ID law in the nation.
Supposedly voting is a form of social currency. Want more money for schools? Vote for the candidate who favors education. Want to see a reduction in crime? Go with the candidate who vows to focus on criminals.
But that’s become clouded because of how much money has been invested in politics. Florida Governor Rick Scott campaigned for re-election on the idea that he’s tough on crime. He was, and still is, against altering the state’s mandatory sentencing law and touted Florida’s low crime rate as evidence as to why he won’t change it.
Another reason Scott likely wants to keep prisoners in prison is his support from the private prison industry. Under Scott’s watch, the state has contracts with private prisons companies that “guarantee them a 90 percent occupancy rate, pay them per inmate, per day, and allow them to charge more for extra services and programs.”
That’s not tough on crime; that’s bloodsucking capitalism. It’s also lawful, which again, shows just how tough it is to legislate morality.
Maybe cynicism won’t allow the belief that politics can truly change the world. We do have examples of how matters may change for the better in incriminates through politics, such as the Voting Rights Act. Yet we have far too many examples of why its important to remember that politics is a system that will always have an account linked to it that’s morally bankrupt.
It’s also why racism, be it structural or institutional, isn’t going anywhere.
-JH
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