COLUMN-Fighting discrimination, as inequality grows

August 28, 2013|Reuters

(Bill Schneider is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed
are his own.)

By Bill Schneider

Aug 28 (Reuters) - I grew up in the segregated South. I tell
to Bloomberg's Department Store on High Street in Portsmouth,
had been on a black woman's head.


In his "I Have a Dream" speech 50 years ago, Martin Luther
King Jr. said, "The life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by
the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination."
While the problem of discrimination has not been fully resolved,
the country has made great progress since King spoke in 1963,
which was before passage of the Civil Rights Act.

King also addressed the problem of economic inequality,
saying, "The Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the
midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity." In many ways, the
problem of economic inequality has gotten worse. And not just
for African-Americans.

In his speech commemorating the 50th anniversary of the
March on Washington, President Barack Obama focused on economic
inequality. He told the New York Times that the civil rights
coalition "wasn't just folks who believed in racial equality. It
was people who believed in working folks having a fair shot."

Obama is the first national African-American leader who did
not come up through the civil rights movement. He came up though
the progressive political movement. Race has never been at the
top of Obama's agenda, and he has addressed race only
occasionally as president. Obama's big causes have been economic
and anti-war. His coalition is not racial but multicultural,
united by a commitment to diversity and inclusion. I call it the
New America.

Many years ago, I did some research in Northern Ireland. It
bears the burden of centuries of hatred between Protestants and
Catholics. But a casual visitor could not tell much difference
between them. They look the same, talk the same and
economically, the two groups seem roughly equal. Nonetheless,
the religious divide is deep and rigid and often violent.

Every summer, Ulster Protestants march defiantly through
Catholic neighborhoods to commemorate the Battle of the Boyne in
1690, when King William of Orange defeated Catholic King James
and ensured the continuation of the Protestant ascendancy in
Ireland. I asked one marcher what he had against Catholics. "Are
ye daft?" he replied. "Their religion, of course."

In Northern Ireland, the problem is discrimination more than
inequality. In the United States, inequality has become the
bigger problem.

Both whites and blacks in the United States believe civil
rights has changed the country for the better in their lifetime,
according to this summer's Gallup poll. Most whites say it has
"greatly improved." Most blacks say "somewhat improved."

The area where both blacks and whites see the least
improvement: dealing with the police and the courts. The Trayvon
Martin case shined a harsh light on that problem. The area where
there has been the greatest improvement: voting rights. Since
the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, the turnout of black
voters has moved closer and closer to the turnout of white
voters until, last year, the black turnout rate actually
surpassed the white rate for the first time.

At the same time, economic inequality has gotten worse. The
Pew Research Center reports that the wealth gap between blacks
and whites has increased since the 1960s. The huge and widening
gap in household wealth is truly shocking. In 2011, the median
net worth of white households was $91,405. The figure for black
households was $6,446.

Whether government can or should do something about that
kind of inequality is a central problem on the political agenda.
According to Gallup, 54 percent of blacks believe government
should play "a major role" in improving the economic and social
welfare of minorities in this country. Only 22 percent of whites
agree. The role of government is at the core of the partisan
division in this country. It's a racially charged issue - but
it's a lot bigger than race. Obama wants to commit the federal
government to reducing economic inequality. It's a way of
addressing the race problem without talking about race.

Republicans are terrified by the demographic changes in the
country that brought Obama and the New America to power. So what
have Republicans done? As soon as the Supreme Court ruled in
June that the Voting Rights Act was out of date, Texas and North
Carolina moved to impose tougher restrictions on voting. Those
restrictions are a threat to the New America's political
survival. The Obama administration is responding aggressively by
suing to block the Texas restrictions.

In defending the decision to strike down the core of the
Voting Rights Act, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, "Our
country has changed."

Maybe not so much.

(Bill Schneider)