bpd30280-blog

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Introduction

The United States of America continues to battle the ongoing issue of racial disparity and how race intersects with different areas of life. The Civil Rights Movement during the 1950’s and 1960’s helped bring awareness and change to this in some respects. However, discrimination based on race has been an issue this country has faced since its birth and has continued throughout its lifetime. Unfortunately, we still face racial differences in many areas of day-to-day life. The three intersections I am going to focus on include the racial disparities concerning education, criminal justice, and employment. It is not uncommon to turn on the television or scroll through social media without seeing an issue pertaining to race and criminal justice. This issue is makes it to the forefront but is not the only racial disparity the country goes through. Along with shining light on racism as it pertains to criminal justice, I will be discussing the issues Black students face in the classroom and in the job market. One of the biggest issues in my opinion is the lack of conversation surrounding these topics. They are topics that make people feel uncomfortable but that is how change generally starts. Join me as I provide facts and insight on the racial disparities we today face as a nation.

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How Race Intersects with the Education System

Racial disparities continue to intersect with the education system of today. A great deal of Black students experience an entirely different education than that of White students. In a journal titled Inequality at School, Kiersten Weir reports several of the dissimilarities between Black and White students in schools. There are obvious differences in the ways teachers and administration treat Black students as opposed to White students in schools. Teachers are not as likely to recognize Black students for their academic achievements as they are White students. Weir provides a statistic from Sean Nicholson-Crotty, PhD. and colleagues’ Early Childhood Longitudinal Study,stating that Black students were 54 percent less likely than White students to be recommended for gifted-education programs. This finding was concluded after adjustments for factors such as the standardized tests scores of students. However, based on Nicholson-Crotty’s findings, it was three times more likely for a Black student to be referred for the gifted programs if their teacher was Black rather than White (Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 2016). Aside from the recognition of excellence in students, or lack thereof, teachers’ expectations for certain students also contributes to educational racial differences. With a statistic from a study by Seth Gershenson, Phd., included in Weir’s journal, this theory is concluded. According to Gershenson “when Black and White teachers evaluate the same Black student, White teachers are 12 percent less likely to predict the student will finish high school, and 30 percent less likely to predict the student will graduate from college” (Economics of Education Review, 2016). There are racial disparities in regard to disciplinary action taken in schools, as well. Black students are more susceptible to disciplinary action than White students in the United States, putting them at a higher risk for life outcomes that are negative, such as criminal justice system involvement (Riddle, Sinclair, 2019). Racism in schools contributes majorly to the “achievement gap”, a sociological issue that focuses on the educational disparities between White students and minority/ disadvantaged students (Abramson, 2018). More steps should be taken to close the achievement gap. Potential changes could include ensuring all students a higher-quality education early on in life, perhaps starting in preschool, and giving all students the opportunity to have high quality teachers. These changes would give all students an equal opportunity to succeed (Porter, 2019).  

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How Race Intersects with the Criminal Justice System

As previously mentioned in brief in the educational intersection of racism, racial disparities are extraordinarily prevalent, intersecting with the law and criminal justice system. Implicit bias, an immense sociological issue that describes the automatic association people make about groups of people and stereotypes about those groups, is being used vastly by police officers. There is an overwhelming amount of evidence pointing toward this notion. Seventy-one percent of Blacks have reported having experienced discrimination or unfair treatment from police based on ethnicity. This number is compared to the 30 percent of Whites who have reported the same experience. Eighteen percent of Blacks have reported being unfairly stopped by the police, while only 3 percent of Whites have made the same claim. Furthermore, 84 percent of Blacks, in comparison to 50 percent of Whites voice that Blacks are treated more unfairly in several settings, including in the system of criminal justice (Hetey, Eberhardt,2018). The statistics are undeniable in regard to racial disparities experienced by Blacks. These numbers give a generalized overview of the racial bias in the United States criminal justice system. As a result of the multitude of racial inequities in the system, there are far more Black and Latino males in jail than any other race. Blacks comprised 34 percent of the 6.8 million incarcerated population in 2014 and are more than five times the rate of Whites to be incarcerated. Blacks and Hispanics comprised 56 percent of all incarcerated people in 2015 (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 2019). To put a stop to racial disparities bias in the criminal justice system and law, change should start with an understanding of what implicit bias is. Awareness of implicit bias among police officers should be raised to educate officers and all other levels of police organization that implicit bias is, in fact, an issue (Keesee, 2015).

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How Race Intersects with Employment

The gender differences are a well-documented issue when it comes to wage gaps in employment. However, less talked about, yet a prevailing issue, are the disparities amongst Blacks and their White counterparts in the workplace. The unemployment rate is twice as high for Blacks and the wages are far lower compared to Whites. Experimental studies based on hiring decisions prove discrimination and White preference in the workplace with powerful evidence. In one experiment, researchers mailed identical resumes to employers using racially identifiable names. Resumes with White names, such as Emily and Greg, received a 50 percent higher callback rate than resumes with Black names, like Lakisha or Jamal. With discoveries like this, it is hard to believe that some people deny that there is an existing racism issue in this country. A large number of White people believe that a black person has the same chance of getting the same jobs as they do, with equal qualifications (Pager, Sheperd, 2008). Even in the epicenter for policy change, Washington, D.C., there are racial discrepancies, even larger than the national average. Although D.C. has some aspects that might discourage discrimination in the workplace, like a large public sector, which tend to have fairer labor practices regarding minorities and women, the capitol of the nation is indeed susceptible to this national crisis of discrimination. D.C. is one of the highest segregated cities in the country. As mentioned prior, the Black unemployment rate is double the unemployment rate of Whites. This number is even larger in Washington, D.C., with unemployment rate of Blacks being six times higher than the unemployment rate of Whites (Strauss, 2019). Racial differences like this reflect on the issue of institutional racism in this nation. Institutional racism refers to institutions and dynamics that may seem race neutral but actually end up disadvantaging minority groups (Conley, pg. 385).  Disparities in employment in the United States have occurred as a result of institutional racism.

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Conclusion

As you can see, this nation still faces a huge crisis with racial discrimination as it intersects with education, criminal justice, and employment. The Black student should never have to worry about their teacher making assumptions about them going forth to graduate college. The Black citizen should never have to be stopped by the police based on skin color. The prospective, Black employee should not be given an unfair chance at a job based on their own name. It still is shocking and unsettling to me, that even almost in 2020, we are having these discussions. These are three areas that race intersects with that are never going to vanish from everyday life. We need change. We need elected officials to make it a priority to combat these issues. We need people who are not afraid to have the uncomfortable conversations. It can start with just one person. Nothing is impossible. It is up to each and every one of us to continue to educate and advocate for change. There are many organizations and groups that already exist that are fighting these issues. Hopefully one day they can all prevail. We all have a voice and joining in unison is what this country needs to defeat this opponent.

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References:

Weir, K. (2016). Monitor on Psychology, Nov, 2016. PsycEXTRA Dataset, 47(November), 42–42. doi: 10.1037/e513892016-001. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/monitor/2016/11/cover-inequality-school.

Sean, Grissom, Jason A, N.-C., Jill, Redding, & Christopher. (2016, April 16). Disentangling the Causal Mechanisms of Representative Bureaucracy: Evidence From Assignment of Students to Gifted Programs. Retrieved from https://academic.oup.com/jpart/article-abstract/26/4/745/2223023.

Riddle, T., & Sinclair, S. (2019, April 23). Racial disparities in school-based disciplinary actions are associated with county-level rates of racial bias. Retrieved from https://www.pnas.org/content/116/17/8255.

Abramson, A. (2018, February 21). What Is the Achievement Gap and What Can Educators Do About It? Retrieved from https://www.rasmussen.edu/degrees/education/blog/what-is-the-achievement-gap/.

Rethinking the Achievement Gap. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.gse.upenn.edu/news/rethinking-achievement-gap.

Criminal Justice Fact Sheet. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.naacp.org/criminal-justice-fact-sheet/.

Keesee, T. L. Three Ways to Reduce Implicit Bias in Policing. Retrieved from https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/three_ways_to_reduce_implicit_bias_in_policing.

Pager, D., & Shepherd, H. (2008, January 1). The Sociology of Discrimination: Racial Discrimination in Employment, Housing, Credit, and Consumer Markets. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2915460/#R14.

Battling Racial Discrimination in the Workplace. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/publications/battling-racial-discrimination-in-the-workplace/.

Conley, D. (2019). You may ask yourself: an introduction to thinking like a sociologist. New York, NY: W.W. Norton.