Persistence of Racism

By Dr. Herny Flores, NewsTaco

I just finished writing a book (this is an unsolicited and unabashed plug) entitled Latinos and the Voting Rights Act:  The Search for Racial Purpose.  What I did was present research and wrote about how racial purpose or intent finds its way into the public policy process, even when decision makers deny there is any intent to discriminate.  I won’t pain you with the details in the book. What I will do, however, is discuss one of the conclusions I reached.  After sifting through trial transcripts of two federal voting rights law suits, numerous Supreme Court decisions going all the way back to the early 19^th Century, depositions, polling data and statistical analyses, I concluded that racial purpose exists in the hearts and minds of Americans.

Some Evidence for the Persistence of Racism 

I came to the persistence conclusion because I couldn’t understand the depth and intensity of racism that permeates our society at all levels.  One would think that with all the positive role models, research, media exposure and proximity to people of different cultures, that we would have gotten over racism by now.  After all, we did elect and re-elect an African-American president.  At the same time we have police shootings that appear to have targeted young black and Latino males, we have the racial chanting and racist theme fraternity parties at universities across the nation, and we have the continuing lack of cooperation by 47 congressmen that will vote against anything and everything that the president puts forth.  Oh, they argue constitutional and Tenth Amendment protections but these are “racial shields” hiding their real reason—racism.

Yes, I think that the Tea Party representatives in congress are racists because they have no other reason to go against President Obama on all matters.  Lest we forget, the Tea Party, funded again by those great American patriots the Koch Brothers, has been behind a great deal of the anti-immigrant demonstrations, propaganda and legislation.  They have also been some of the strongest supporters of the voter identification laws that are finding their way into the state legislatures they control.  I strongly feel, and I discuss this in my book, that the anti-immigrant and voter identification rhetoric are, on a deeper level, anti-Latino and also reflective of persistent racism.  The question that hit me was “why is racism so persistent despite all we have done to educate our children and the general public since at least 1965?”  I chose 1965 as the starting date for my chronology simply because it was the year of the signing of the Civil Rights Acts by President Johnson.

Why?  Why won’t it go away? 

After a great deal of thought, much reflection, and even more reading of the available scholarship on this matter I became suspicious of the existence of a little discussed phenomenon; a phenomenon that we don’t really want to talk about.  Nevertheless, as the country begins to slide into the muck of madness that seems to surround the behavior of racists I feel that we do need to speak to this strange phenomenon.  The time, as lawyers and judges like to say, is ripe for this discussion.

One of the interesting areas of my reading is the history of modernity beginning in the 1850s in Europe, but I have concentrated the most amount of time on the period between 1932 and 1947 also in Europe.  This latter era coincides with World War II and the Holocaust.  The Holocaust was the culmination of the ever increasing intensity of anti-Semitism.  The horror of the Holocaust was the climax of a process that began with racial taunting and the deprivation of the citizenship of European Jewry.  A much maligned scholar by the name of Daniel Goldhagen wrote a book in 1996 that insinuated that anti-Semitism was an essential aspect of German culture.  Not all German’s were anti-Semitic but the culture was infused with this virus that infected enough individuals that they planned and executed the Holocaust.

I think that Professor Goldhagen’s perception may hold true for American culture.  The most important reason that racism persists in our country is because racism is part of how we think, how we speak and how we treat our fellow human beings here in the United States.  I’m claiming this because I think we need to have a discussion on this topic and I think that discussion needs to begin now.  If not now, then I don’t even want to think of the possible consequences.

Henry Flores, PhD, is the Distinguished University Research Professor, Institute of Public Administration and Public Service; Director, Masters in Public Administration (MPA); Professor of International Relations and Political Science at St. Mary’s University. He is the author of Latinos and the Vorting Rights Act: The Search for Racial Purpose.

 Latinos and the Voting Rights Act: The Search for Racial Purpose.