Racism happens every day

On June 18, our morning routine was shattered by a news alert: “Nine Killed in Shooting at Black Church in Charleston.” Suddenly, participating in Duke University’s civic engagement program in Cape Town, with its focus on race in South Africa, took on new meaning. This was especially true since the shooter surrounded himself with the flags of apartheid South Africa and white supremacist Rhodesia.

We were disheartened by the initial reactions to this act of domestic terrorism. Some politicians labeled it as an assault on religious liberties; others called it an isolated incident carried out by a mentally ill individual. It seemed the media would do anything to avoid the discomfort of talking about race. This stood in stark contrast to our daily experiences in South Africa, where we regularly had frank conversations about race. We found people there who were frustrated that racial equality is still a dream 20 years after the end of apartheid. So why, 150 years after the abolition of slavery and 50 years after the civil rights movement, is it so uncomfortable to acknowledge that racism is alive and well in the United States?

Hate crimes like the Charleston massacre may not happen every day, but racism does. Government policies have systematically advantaged those with white skin in America since 1776. Although it is easy to consider yourself the exception to white privilege, it is impossible to deny the legacies of these policies.

New Deal legislation, considered liberal at the time, took an overtly racist stance by constructing physical boundaries between whites and blacks. One such policy, known as “redlining,” drew these lines decisively. Created in 1934 by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), redlining promoted the purchase of houses through subsidized down payments. In reality, it sanctioned discrimination against non-whites by allocating the subsidies on the basis of socioeconomic status and geographic location. This system essentially robbed blacks of the opportunity for economic growth through housing investments, thus reinforcing white supremacy. Although redlining formally ended in 1968, many boundaries remain unchanged today.

Other mid-20th century policies also perpetuated the racial divide. The “G.I. Bill,” which provided housing loans and educational benefits to World War II veterans, contains no discriminatory language but in execution was “interpreted one way for blacks and another for whites.” Banks and mortgage agencies refused home loans to black veterans, thereby barring them from home ownership. Meanwhile, white veterans moved into the suburbs. As suburban property values increased over time, white families accumulated wealth that black families could not. Additionally, since most universities were whites-only, black veterans’ use of G.I. Bill funds was limited to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). As a result, HBCUs faced overcrowding and drained endowments, which prevented many black veterans from attending. Without the same education as their white counterparts, black veterans were forced into lower paying jobs while whites landed more prestigious positions.

Even as white people in America benefit from these government subsidies—what others would call “welfare”—many continue to demonize the black community for relying on public assistance. Most people’s stereotype of a welfare recipient is a black single mother. Yet federal data has consistently shown that 69 percent of “welfare” recipients are white, while only 14 percent are black. Politicians like Gene Alday and Rick Santorum, however, continue to stigmatize the black community.

Moreover, some public policies, such as the War on Drugs, directly target the black community. Admission to state prisons on drug offenses is 13.4 times higher for blacks than for whites; although blacks make up 12 percent of drug users, they account for 59 percent of drug-related incarcerations. Studies have shown that institutionalized policies, such as policing tactics which disproportionately target minority neighborhoods and mandatory minimum sentences for drug possession, directly contribute to the excessive number of blacks in jail. To put this in perspective, the current U.S. incarceration rate of black men is four times the rate that it was in South Africa under apartheid. This unequal targeting for drug related crimes affords white drug users a peace of mind while their black counterparts remain on edge. Furthermore, even if whites are caught for drug possession, they generally receive shorter prison sentences.

Being white does not mean that you owned slaves. It does not mean that you bought a house with the G.I. Bill. It does not mean that you benefitted from welfare. But, the minute you set foot on U.S. soil, it does mean that this American history is yours. It does mean that the legacy of these policies is yours. Your whiteness means that you can walk comfortably into a system that forces others to crawl. It means that you have the luxury of being seen as an individual in a society that sees others as a collective, a society that attributes another’s actions to their entire community. Yet, as an individual, you are no less accountable for the history and actions of your race. You cannot deny that our racialized society motivated the Charleston shooter when he presents himself with flags of institutional oppression.

Erin Brown, Erin Cox, Lindsay Gibson, Kathy Hong, Imani Moise, Eliza Moreno, Risa Pieters, Adam Schutzman and Steven Soto are undergraduates participating in the 2015 DukeEngage-Cape Town program. They have spent their summers volunteering at NGOs that work at the intersection of public policy and social justice. Moreno is a member of The Chronicle's Editorial Board.