Newsletter Vol. 1 Issue 9

Fair housing protest in Seattle, Washington, 1964.
Jmabel/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-NC-ND

 

Last week, both our Monday and Wednesday reflections invited us to consider how racism operates not just individually but culturally in our lives. This week, we consider how our cultural assumptions shape outcomes for racial groups, which can be observed via patterns or social structures in our society. We will turn this coming Wednesday to Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan Woman at the Well, which offers us a look into addressing ethnic differences. 

In the words of the late Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, White people “create and sustain institutions that privilege people like themselves and habitually ignore the contributions of peoples and cultures.” This, he says, occurs within our most fundamental institutions, including education, political systems, businesses, health care, and even the Church. The consequences of imbalances in these systems include sustained inequitable differences in educational attainment, wealth and income, crime and incarceration rates, and even health and life expectancy. 

Whether we are born in the United States or have immigrated here, and as we discussed in detail in last week’s newsletter, we live in a culture that frequently sees White culture, ideas, things, and values as inherently good, taken-for-granted, and normal. Deemed (consciously or not) as superior, such values are reinforced in socialization, schooling, government, mass media, and more. In addition to cultural values, White dominance is perpetuated via systemic or structural racism, this form of racism operates through patterns, policies, procedures, and processes that appear neutral but privilege White people.
 
One example can be seen in the wealth disparity seen between Whites and people of color in the context of real estate investment. In the United States, the primary source of wealth for most people is homeownership. Owning a home allows families to pass wealth onto their children once they die ensuring their children have access to continued wealth and capital. It’s a well-documented fact that Black Americans, on average, have significantly less wealth than White Americans in general, and in real estate in particular. This discrepancy in homeownership is structural because the U.S. Federal Government and local home-owner associations passed laws and policies that prevented African-Americans from acquiring loans for certain neighborhoods, or buying homes in the suburbs, before the 1960s. These laws privilege White people and allow them to acquire more wealth over time, while systemically preventing Black people from participating in this important American investment opportunity. 

The role of housing and homeownership is also directly connected to educational attainment. Because American public schools receive a large percentage of their funding from local property taxes (rather than state or federal funds), residents in suburban neighborhoods have a higher tax base to fund their schools. Prevented historically from purchasing a home in these types of neighborhoods, many African-Americans are forced to reside in urban areas, often home to crumbling tax bases and allowing less funding for schools. Schools with more resources provide better opportunities for students to succeed at higher rates, thus leading to increased rates of high school and college graduation. This discrepancy in educational attainment leads to large gaps in income and wealth attainment over time between racial groups. 

The disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on communities of color offers us yet another chilling example of systemic racism at work. Due to racism with the scientific research community in the past that justified slavery by claiming Black people can withstand higher levels of pain, many people of color are doubted by medical professionals when they express symptoms of pain. The result is they are treated less seriously within our already heavily-flawed health care system, and often receive substandard care. Additionally, many communities of color lack the same access to health care that other more affluent communities have. These systemic factors have been deadly this year: Black and Latino Americans are dying at higher rates than White people in all age groups.  

In the words of Fr. Gregory Boyle, S.J., we as Catholics are called to build a world of community where there are “no longer us and them, but simply us.” Because we believe in a loving God who creates us in God’s image and declares we are all good, we are called to recognize how systemic racism insidiously separates us through patterns, laws, and practices that privilege some of us over others. Recognizing these patterns equip us to identify the many ways racism continues to ravage communities of color. We can educate ourselves to notice these patterns which will aid us as we discern how to take actions for racial equity in our communities today.