Officially, legalized racial discrimination ended over 40 years ago with the shuttering of Jim Crow laws in the late 1960s. Still, as the decades went by, many Americans yearned for the erasure of the color line not just by the state but by the people, hoping to overcome internally what W.E.B. Dubois identified as the defining problem of the 20th century. With the election of the nation's first black president, many believed the end of racism in America was tantalizingly close; perhaps widespread racial discrimination would finally be eradicated, successfully swept under the rug of the 20th century. Yet here we are in 2015, and all we are left with are the violent images of Ferguson protests flashing on our televisions, racist fraternity chants ringing in our ears, and the bloody images of one of our own being arrested. Lingering in these events is the problem that has haunted our nation since the end of the civil war: How do we get past the plague of racism?
We cannot answer this question if we don't recognize race as an issue. The truth is that a majority of white Americans refuse to believe race is a factor of discrimination in the recent events of racial upheaval. A survey by the Pew Research Center on the topic of officer Darren Wilson’s non-indictment by the grand jury showed that the factor of race in the judicial system is seen differently by blacks and whites. In Ferguson, 64 percent of blacks agreed that race was a major factor in the grand jury’s decision not to indict Darren Wilson for the death of Michael Brown, with an almost equal 60 percent of whites claiming the opposite. Note that the issue here isn't necessarily whether Wilson was guilty, but the underlying assumptions made by many non-black Americans that race has ceased to be a “real” issue. Dan Cox, Research Director at the Public Religion Research Institute, notes, “three-fourths of white Americans have only white people in their social networks” and that for many whites, “race is no longer an issue because generally, in their lives, it doesn't really come up."
After all the pain the color line has inflicted upon the American psyche, many just want race not to matter. Increasingly, the idea of the “post-racial society” and the struggle to attain it have become mixed in with the ideals of the American dream, an ideal that imagines a utopia where race is left unacknowledged. Yet such an idea is misleading when racial distinctions are so ingrained in humanity’s history. While racism isn't necessarily inherent in human nature, the formation of ingroups and outgroups is an evolutionary mechanism encoded in our biology. In 1979, Tafjel and Turner developed their Social Identity Theory, which explains how people tend to associate themselves into a social group and elevate the status of their own group. Modern research has shown that children as young as four have the ability to discriminate between groups and attach superiority to specific groups. Although it is technically possible for such in-group mental divisions to originate in factors other than race, in the context of today’s multiracial world, discounting race as a divisive factor in the determination of ingroups and outgroups would be blatantly naive.
The implicit belief in the post-racial society argument is limited not just to whites. Mindy Kaling, a South Asian comedian and star of her show “The Mindy Project,” refuses to answer questions about how her race has influenced her career. When asked about her role as a pioneering Asian actress, Kaling responded,“I think that it's insidious to be spending more of your time. . . talking. . . in smart ways about your otherness. . . rather than doing the hard work of your job.” Kaling is vehemently tone deaf to the question of race. And while it isn't her job as an actress to have meaningful commentary on racial issues, refusing to even acknowledge its existence is wrong-headed. As Bengali writer Samhita Mukhopadhyay notes, such a pattern of moving away from the acknowledgment of race is common among immigrants who simply want to better fit into their American surroundings — similar to many whites who are also reluctant to acknowledge race.
Ignoring race or working toward ending all racial distinctions in pursuit of the post-racial pipe dream aren't plausible ways to overcome deeply embedded divisions. Racial boundaries have existed for centuries through slavery and Jim Crow, still exist in today’s Ferguson-esque world, and will continue to exist for the foreseeable future. No matter how egalitarian we may become, humans will always maintain dividing lines between groups. This doesn't mean we shouldn't strive toward ending racial discrimination — far from it. We must continue to minimize racism as best we can, but at the same time leave behind the false hope of its total extinction. Rather than trying to bulldoze the social boundaries we have erected over the millennia of human existence or despair at every small instance of racism, we should aim to demilitarize our borders — to realize that the all too real divisions of color will always exist, but that they are in no way justification for discrimination.
Hasan Khan is an Opinion columnist for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at h.khan@cavalierdaily.com.
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