Institutional Discrimination in the United States

Race and ethnicity are at the forefront of many conversations today-be it in politics, the media, personal discussions, etc.  The United States and the world has had a long history of racial and ethnic tensions, and while many today believe that we have overcome our dark past these tensions never really disappeared but today new attention to these issues has been raised given a number of incidences (e.g. Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and many others).  Today’s blog post is, however, not dedicated to discussing these topics that are at the forefront of everyone’s attention but instead I will be discussing the underlying institutional discrimination that has been and continues to occur here in the United States.  The goal is to bring attention to these issues and inform the reader of them to explain the public outcry and need for change in our society.  Institutional discrimination is the mistreatment of individuals and groups of individuals by society and culture and the institutions (e.g. education, government, health care, etc.) within them.  Institutional discrimination as it relates to education, land and property, and healthcare will be addressed herein.

Education

Education is important for two reasons: first, it prepares individuals for further education and job training, and second, it provides the basic socialization skills necessary to navigate our very social world.  Students who do not receive a good education in primary school tend to do poorly in middle school and high school.  This leads to further detriments in regards to college/university education, which is meant to prepare individuals for specific occupations and careers.  Those who are not properly educated during primary school are less likely to be successful in post secondary institutions.  Minority students, however, often do not get strong educations due to how our current education system is funded and prejudices felt by educators and peers. 

The lack of equal opportunities in education, particularly higher education, are linked to de jure (legal) discrimination, also known as de facto segregation, which is the legal and socially acceptable means of discriminating against certain groups or individuals.  Unfortunately, the United States has had a long history of institutional discrimination, particularly that which has gone unchecked by society.  One of most common examples is segregation, the forced separation of people by race as a means of discrimination or unequal treatment, which very much affected equal access to education for minorities, particularly African Americans, in the United States throughout the 19^th and 20^th centuries. 

While educational segregation to that extreme is no longer legal, a trend of resegregation, a return to de facto racial segregation in public education, is occurring.  Starting in the 1970s, white middle class families left cities for the suburbs, which divided neighborhood public schools along racial and socioeconomic lines, creating inner city schools that are largely populated by lower-income, nonwhite students and those schools in the suburbs are populated by higher-income White students.  While this segregation was not legal, it was not illegal because it was not forced upon schools by the government, but it was instituted by society and its members (or at least the dominant members who voluntarily left one area to populate a new one).  This led to resegregation of the school systems because of how public schools receive their government funding.  Schools are funded based on the taxes collected from the local populations, so if the local population is proportionally made up of lower socioeconomic groups less money will be funded into the public school system than in areas where the local population is made up of higher socioeconomic groups.   Minorities on average make less money than whites due to expectations for pay and the jobs they are fast tracked into (e.g. low paying occupations), which leads to less funding going into the public schools where they live.  Less money creates many other problems, starting with not being able to hire quality teachers.  Lack of funding also inhibits quality textbooks, computers, and educational materials from being purchased, meaning students are learning inaccurate facts or less information compared to other schools that can purchase newer textbooks and technology.  The schools also cannot afford to expand or remodel, so heat, water, and capacity constraints become problems.  Also, students from poorly funded schools are not given opportunities to participate in extracurricular activities as the school cannot afford to hire and pay for coaches, equipment, stadiums/courts, uniforms, transportation, etc.  Collectively, this leads to educational disparities between urban, which are typically viewed as largely African American, schools and suburban, which are largely viewed as White, schools. 

Land & Property

Cities all over the United States have communities, suburbs, or neighborhoods that are considered to be characterized by a particular group: e.g. Los Angeles and Chicago both have Chinatowns, Dearborn, Michigan, is characterized as a Muslim/Arabic city; and Royal Lakes, Illinois, is considered an African American community.  These residential areas are characterized by their residential segregation, which assembles people in residential areas by defining characteristics, such as age, socioeconomic, status, religion, race, or ethnicity, but racial residential segregation will be the focus of this section.  

Residential segregation of any type may not be driven by choice but may be driven by either overt or covert discrimination.  Regardless of the cause, the results are very damaging to all races, but the consequences are harder on racial minorities, particularly African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans.  These groups are more susceptible to poverty, unemployment, welfare, unwed motherhood, and lack of education, which are perpetuated within segregated neighborhoods.

While we may be quick to think of residential segregation as a matter of the past, it remains a reality today.  One of the common reasons for why we see residential segregation continuing today is due to racial steering, which is the practice in which real estate agents “steer” or lead buyers or renters toward specific neighborhoods based on their race.  This keeps nonwhites from being socially mobile (i.e., increasing their social standing within society) and excludes racial groups from being contact with each other.  Between 1980 and 2000, the urban segregation of blacks decreased slightly everywhere except in the Midwestern and Eastern United States, but racial segregation of Asians and Latinos increased.  Residential segregation has occurred the least in the Southwestern and Western United States as these cities are relatively new, do not have established neighborhoods, and are continually growing and expanding.  Suburban segregation has decreased over this same period, as these areas are mostly populated whites, followed by Asians, then Latinos, and finally blacks, but this segregation is only in the sense that these minority racial demographics have increased but does not represent blending of neighborhoods.  The suburbs themselves are starting to resemble urban ethnic and racial segregation, with specific suburbs being labeled as the area of one racial group over another. 

Healthcare

Health is intimately linked to several factors, including physical fitness (how much one works out or is physically active), diet (what one eats), gender (males vs. females), socioeconomic status (access to personal funding or insurance to pay for medical expenses), as well as race & ethnicity.  It is a combination of these aforementioned factors that affect an individual’s access to health care, health risk factors, and quality of care, and it is continually shown in various studies that racial groups do have differential access to quality health care.  

The United States Congress, in conjunction with the Institute of Medicine, funded a study on health inequalities within the United States to determine what exact factors were at play in regards to health, and they ultimately concluded that race and ethnicity were primary factors as even in cases where other factors (e.g. SES) are equal.  There are several factors that cause race and ethnicity to be at the forefront of the factors of whether or not an individual will be healthy or not.  First, minorities are more likely to participate in unhealthy behaviors, such as smoking, drinking, drugs, etc., because of the stress associated with their lives from work and prejudice, which automatically puts them at a compromised health status.  Approximately 80% of African Americans  surveyed claim to have experienced discrimination and prejudice of some type, which puts stress on them and makes them fearful in their everyday lives.  These types of racism and discrimination range from subtle to blatant forms of discrimination, both of which wear on someone and make them stressed, leading to other negative health outcomes. 

Also, the preconceived notions of health care professionals who are biased against and have specific stereotypical views about racial and ethnic minorities affect how minorities are treated.  Prejudicial medical professionals may overlook a medical diagnosis because they feel a patient is lying to them or may treat the wrong medical condition due to these ideals.  There is also a long history of racial discrimination in medical practice in the United States, including the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment and the treatment of Native American women by the Indian Health Services throughout the 1960s and 1970s.  The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment occurred in the 1930s and was meant to treat African American men suffering from syphilis, but these men were provided false information as they were not receiving treatment.  Over the next 40 years (the length of the study) medical professionals studied the long term effects of syphilis on untreated men, and syphilis was unknowingly spread by the men to various women, many of whom were their spouses.  This led to the spread of the disease, as well as the poor health and deaths of several African Americans.  Ultimately, this led to distrust among African Americans against the medical community that was supposed to help them.  A few decades later, several Indian Health Service locations that provided health care to Native American women began sterilizing them without their knowledge or consent because the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare encouraged sterilization of poor and nonwhite populations.  Those who did know that the intention was sterilization were coerced into undergoing the procedures under false pretenses (e.g. being falsely told that they required the operation or they would die).  Because Native American women had limited health care options and Indian Health Services was funded largely by the federal government these women were taken advantage of, and the repercussions continue today as many Native Americans are incredibly distrustful of medical practitioners and the US government as a whole.

Conclusion

Today, race and ethnicity are commonly discussed, but there is a lot of misinformation and misunderstandings as to why these topics are continued to be discussed.  In today’s society there is the false perception that everyone is not only created equally but treated so as well, but as noted in this blog post that is not the case.  There has been a long history of discrimination that continues today, and minorities are becoming justifiably frustrated and seeking resolutions.  It is my hope that this blog post has informed you, the reader, of some of these injustices and makes you more sensitive and aware of the issues at play.  These are only some of many injustices that have and continue to occur in our society and culture, and I encourage you to learn more about the issues so you can be part of the positive change and the solution.

  

References Cited

Centers for Disease Control and Prevent.  2015.  "U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study at Tuskegee."  CDC Website.

Pearson, M.  2011. Think Race and Ethnicity.  Pearson.

Population Studies Center.  No Date.  "Racial Residential Segregation Measurement Project."  University of Michigan.  

United States Department of Justice.  2015.  "Types of Educational Opportunities Discrimination."  DoJ Website.