History inherently sets stage for institutional racism

Smith is a second-year undeclared student.

By Sophia Smith

Many people, like David Horowitz, believe institutionalized
racism is “political fairy dust” used as an excuse by
the left to propose beneficial social changes (“New
admission policy hides public school failure,” Daily
Bruin, Viewpoint, Jan. 7). This is far from the case. It’s in
the best interest of the powers that be that none of you believe
institutionalized racism exists or even know what it is.

Institutionalized racism doesn’t need to involve racist
people in order to exist. It refers to organizations, processes or
policies that, because of their specific history, have been
structured with a racist rationale and thus operate in a racist
manner ““ public education, for example.

How did education in California and in the U.S. in general
begin? Surely, anyone who has taken even the most basic United
States history course knows we had segregation in public education
no more than 50 years ago. Americans for many previous centuries
shared or at least were exposed to the same educational philosophy:
the education of blacks and other minorities is not as important as
ours, because they’re not even entitled to sit in the same
classes that we are.

This inappropriate rationale was inculcated in the children of
the segregation generation. Sadly, these children are the ones who
have the power now; they are the ones who get to decide on such
things as banning affirmative action at the University of
California.

Unfortunately, even young people are inheriting this rationale
but they don’t realize it. They don’t realize their
ideologies have been influenced by the ideologies of their
grandparents, directly or indirectly. Hence, since we grow up
knowing nothing to contrast the beliefs we’re given, we
don’t have a concept of it being wrong. As such, many of us
go about their daily routines and lives making decisions based on
these values.

People may say, “Well, I’m certainly not a
racist.” It doesn’t matter: the system has been in
place for a long time, and it was developed by people who endorse
the aforementioned philosophies, not minorities. Today, the system
has been fortified by economic conditions.

Most minorities in the past belonged to the working class or
lower (when your people are enslaved for hundreds of years, it
takes more than a while to get to the top). Thus they lived in
low-income areas with poor schools, away from the nice suburban
schools; a de facto segregation of sorts. This is less the case
today, but nonetheless, it’s still a problem. Poverty is
still relatively higher among minorities.

History is a pattern, it’s dynamic ““ it
doesn’t stop and start all over again forgetting the past as
many would like to think. These two factors ““ the
segregation-born philosophy that minorities are different and the
economic disadvantage that marks many minorities today ““
affect the way our country is shaped.

Institutionalized racism doesn’t claim that everyone is a
racist ““ it acknowledges that people are genuinely confused
or unaware of how things they do or organizations they’re a
part of are promoting inequality. Let’s take an example:

Many privileged people automatically assume that all conditions
of K-12 education are identical ““ and they reach these
conclusions based on what they see in their own schools.

In schools that cater to a wealthy population, students
don’t have to worry about working jobs to support their
family or higher rates of crime or overcrowded classrooms. Instead,
they can focus on competing with each other academically ““
this establishes the notion of “merit” that many tout
ignorantly against affirmative action. This “merit”
comes to exist in an environment where there are no major, or at
least very little, confounding factors such as financial
hardship.

This is all very well and good and we can assume that most
people falling into this category are not “racists,”
but the type of perspective this rationale fosters is
dangerous.

The idea of merit, born in privileged wealthy schools, is
applied not just to the wealthy but everyone. Since many minorities
who attend low income schools don’t have a sense for this
meritocratic system because the several hardships they face make it
impossible for this to be their priority, they don’t achieve
in the same sense their counterparts do.

The damage is done when it comes time to apply for college and
these colleges don’t take into evaluation life
challenges.

This is institutionalized racism. No one means to be racist in
the whole process, but the results just turn out that way.

But again, it’s in the best interest of those in power to
keep things the way they are, otherwise their power or influence
could negatively fluctuate, making the system unlikely to change
unless we all change our own mindset.

Horowitz’ futile cries to fix the public schools and not
adopt “racist” measures like Proposition 209 are
unfounded. For even if the schools were of exceptional quality, it
doesn’t make a difference if the students still face
financial hardship at home (which affects their academics anyway).
So no, fixing the public school system isn’t quite the
answer.

The answer lies in affirmative action ““ a program that
understands there are intelligent and gifted people who don’t
have stellar GPA or SAT scores because they’re busy feeding
their family.

But we haven’t realized this yet … or maybe we just
don’t want to realize it ““ God forbid America would
stand for equality.