Consequences of Racism

Growing up in Utah I didn’t actually ever witness very many explicit examples of racism. In fact, because the Mormon church romanticizes some other cultures like Pacific Islanders and Central Americans in their religious texts, some others with different skin colors were often regarded with admiration, and so I always assumed that Mormons weren’t racist. But most of all I was actively taught that Mormons were not racist, and for a long time I just accepted it as fact, because they said so and I never had the opportunity as a white American male for this false narrative to be directly challenged.

When I became an adult and realized that Mormons denied black people full membership in their church until just two years before I was born, when their tax-exempt status was threatened by the IRS if they did not become inclusive, the explicit racism inherent in my community of origin became much more clear. Especially since the Church celebrates including blacks in their membership now as if it was a divine revelation and not a threat to tax their revenue (and that their prior discrimination was ordained by God), I was fully deluded to the reality of their long and substantial history of overt racism.

Utah only officially recognized Martin Luther King Jr. day in 2000, being one of the very last states to do so, where before instead called this eponymous holiday the toothless alternative, “Human Rights Day.” It was not unlike the revolting “All lives matter” retort to Black Lives Matter, insecure and racist white people trying to distract from their embarrassment and shame for being racist by changing the context. Mormons even changed their religious text, which is supposedly unchanging, to remove some overtly racist language, for instance a passage claimed that brown people in the book were changed to white for being righteous, but their entire book is still founded on the idea that dark skin was a curse.

But even after I was long grown I still considered my parents to be non-racist, because they sometimes talked about the rights of minorities in a positive way, and most of all never said anything cruel or bigoted. As I have become more enlightened to and involved in the lives of others through my work in health and wellness I have recognized how in reality many groups of Americans like my parents are incredibly racist, even though they don’t participate in overtly racist organizations and institutions, through sins of omission and inaction. Other relatives would, over the years, also demonstrate other overt racist behavior, such as an aunt who once openly complained about not being able to display her Mammy doll collection, which is problematic on so many levels, and I realized that Mormons were just better at hiding their racism.

Many of the institutional problems which plague us Americans are not new, and are rooted far in the past and directly determine our quality of life today. For instance, the current crisis of affordable housing in the US is a direct result of government housing policies adopted in the middle of the last century. Likewise, many of the problems of inequality and racism in our country are also rooted in the past, and people like my parents’ generation, and even liberal Americans continued about their lives knowing full well these problems existed while choosing to do nothing about it.

My parents grew up in the civil rights era, and as such knew full well—even better than we—the struggles of black Americans and other minority groups, and chose to do absolutely squat about it. Most people have our own problems we must deal with, and indeed a lot of the inaction surrounding equality and bigotry is also caused by broader problems with economic equality, healthcare, and other issues that every day Americans face. But there are deeply entrenched institutions in our society which actively worked to divide Americans from each other, based on racist bigotry and persecution, and being fully aware of these problems my parents generation, including supposedly liberal people like Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi, who not only chose to let them persist, but in many cases such as Joe Biden’s ardent persecution of the drug war which incarcerated record numbers of black and brown Americans actively contributed to systemic, institutional racism.

Throughout a great part of the last century policies all over the country existed to deny financial access for minority populations. Generally referred to as “Red-Lining” for the color drawn around neighborhoods of black, latino, and jewish communities, systemic and institutionalized racism is the foundation of our disparate communities of largely white suburban areas and minority urban neighborhoods. Although this practice was technically outlawed in 1968, much of our parents’ and grandparents’ generations easily found ways to subvert those laws anyway, and because so much damage was already done the law did not outright stop these racist policies.

One such policy which is a relic of this time is single-family housing zoning laws which dominate most regions in this country. Because minority populations had been cut off from economic programs and opportunity they could not afford single family homes in newly developed suburbs, and so black and other minority groups were easily excluded from places like the new towns and communities in Utah in which I lived simply because they could not afford to live there. Preventing apartment blocks and duplexes which were more affordable to lower-income minority groups easily prevented them from moving into the suburbs, and so white children from my generation were raised in communities where overt racism didn’t really occur because our parents and grandparents were so successful in keeping minorities out in the first place. Never being racist because you live in a homogeneous community is, at best, disingenuous, but is usually completely delusional and active participation in racism and racist systems. Some places in our country do not even have grocery stores, because of these remnant policies, and people like my parents donated food to the needy at the holidays but refused to vote for politicians and policies the rest of the year which would provide stability and year-round access to food and economic opportunities, thus actively sustaining and participating very racist institutions and systems.

For the last few years a book has been circulating in white communities about a man who fights for wrongly imprisoned minorities. I can’t tell you how many white religious people I have heard talk about this book while living in entirely white communities and actively denying our countrymen of color the same access to economic opportunity and education that we take for granted. It’s such a glaring hypocrisy it makes me sick whenever I hear white people talk about this book to make themselves feel better about doing nothing.

The irony is, of course, that the same policies which our grandparents and parents championed to deny rights to minority groups has come to hurt our generations. A direct consequence of things like single-family housing zoning laws designed to keep black and brown people out of their communities has now caused a housing crisis in which most Millennials and Generation Z cannot afford a real home, our parents having cut off their nose to spite the face. The inability to grow already developed communities because of these policies also prevents jobs from being created, and the general slump of the entire construction industry and those others which benefit directly or indirectly. The enormous economic cost of forced impoverishment of minority communities always has been a direct burden on the rest of us, financially, socially, medically, etc., as we are forced to deal with the consequences of such terrible behavior of a generation of self-centered and cruel Americans only interested in their own, immediate benefit at the expense of others, even their own children.

Forced impoverishment is also the number one best way to increase crime like theft, burglary, shootings, gang activity, etc. No human being would sit around and let their family starve and live in poverty without doing something about it, and when there are no economic opportunities it usually leads to people becoming desperate, despairing, and prioritizing their own survival. As human beings we are uniquely reliant upon other humans for our own wellbeing, and when other humans deny us their fellowship, assistance, and inclusion it can directly threaten our ability to be productive and responsible. With no options for personal advancement because of racist and exclusionary economic and political policies, problems with crime, drug trafficking and addiction, domestic violence, gun violence, and other issues which used to be contained only to the minority populations which were oppressed have now spilled out into the wider community, impoverishing large parts of white American communities because race is not actually a thing but racist policies and economic systems are, and so the very racists who help support such systems eventually also become consumed by them. One of the most egregious and plain examples of this was Nazi Germany, their racist, genocidal policies toward Jews got their entire country bombed and destroyed, although it was already falling apart before then due to the corruption and theft of the country’s wealth and institutions by Nazi leadership. There is no world where the golden rule does not apply in a very real, practical sense (do unto others as you would have done unto you). It is not a suggestion. It is not optional.

It is not enough to simply refrain from heinous behavior. If we are not actively anti-racist we are racist. Allowing to persist the kind of inequality, persecution, and institutional exclusion of people who are not white as our parents have done is a racist act, one which ignores the suffering and problems of others and is racist by pacificity. All my youth and young-adulthood my parents refrained from helping those who were oppressed, ignored the problems, politicians, and policies which created those sins, and tried to disguise their callous inaction with token gestures and insincere words, and we are left now to suffer the consequences of their generations’ behavior, and if we want our lives to improve we have no choice but to clean up their mess. On this Martin Luther King Jr. Day let us recognize that we must actively work for equality for everyone, to extinguish bigotry and prejudice, not just in our words and actions but in our institutions and law, and open not just our hearts but also our communities, infrastructure, and political systems to everyone. If we fail to do this, things will only get worse, for everyone, not just the victims of our prejudice. One way you can be actively anti-racist is by calling your Senator and urging them to support the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, especially if you live in a state with a representative who does not. If you do live somewhere like this, you can also get involved in civics and even run for local office. Taking up space as an anti-racist in our political leadership removes spaces that racists will take if you do not.

Racism results from failing to empower our children with personal responsibly and healthy self-esteem, as discussed in my article The End of Racism, and certain institutions like the police have been infiltrated by violent and racist actors to exploit its institutional power. Much of our current political climate is also currently an Us Versus Them mentality perpetuated by both major political parties which incorrectly characterizes the real problems and motivations of American voters. Guaranteed Universal Income can undo much of the consequences of past institutional racism and stabilize our economy, and replace unhelpful policies like minimum wages laws which do not.