The existence of institutional racism is a major point of Critical Race Theory (CRT), but the major cause of its existence has not been identified by CRT proponents. They only identified THAT the government was the cause, but not WHY the government was able to promote racism.
The institutionalization of racism
The institutionalization of racism was given a major boost by Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s explicitly racist New Deal policies, passed by a Democrat-controlled Congress and administered by a Democrat administration. These are described in uncomfortable detail in The Color of Law. [1] This government-sanctioned and government-enforced racism is a severe blot on American principles, and the history of the government’s role should not be swept under the rug, but be brought to the light of day so we may learn from it.
Government enables institutional racism
A summary of how government was the perpetrator of racism is taken from The Color of Law [1] and shown here. In the twentieth century, federal, state, and local officials endorsed and reinforced segregation actively and aggressively. Much of this was initiated by FDR’s New Deal policies.
- The government built racially separate public housing in cities where segregation hadn’t previously taken root.
- The federal government urged suburbs to adopt exclusionary zoning laws.
- The government told developers that they could have FHA guarantees only if the homes they built excluded African Americans.
- State courts ordered the eviction of African American homeowners in neighborhoods where association rules and restrictive covenants barred their residence.
- The government threatened the loss of tax-exempt status to churches, universities, and hospitals if they tried to remove their racially restrictive covenants.
- The police encouraged leaders of mob violence when African Americans moved into previously white neighborhoods.
- State real estate commissions approved licenses to brokers who claimed an “ethical” obligation to impose segregation.
- School boards placed schools and attendance boundaries to ensure the separation of black and white pupils.
- Federal and state highway planners used urban interstates to demolish African American neighborhoods which forced their residents deeper into urban ghettos.
- The government denied African American the same labor-market rights that other citizens enjoyed.
- The federal government exploited the racial boundaries it had created in metropolitan areas by spending billions on tax breaks for single-family suburban homeowners, while failing to spend adequate funds on transportation networks that could bring African American to job opportunities.
- The federal programs, to this day, reinforce racial isolation by disproportionately directing low-income African Americans who receive housing assistance into the segregated neighborhoods that the government had previously established.
Do you see the pattern? In every instance, it was through government that these polices were perpetrated.
What the author failed to do, however, was to identify the one common factor that was underlying the racist policies. Namely, that they were all brought about by governments at all levels doing things the government should not be doing at all, from banking and education to zoning and state real estate commissions.
Government involved in non-legitimate activities of a proper government
Government operates by force, and only by force. In these cases, those who wanted segregation used force against those who opposed segregation, including many whites and businesses. None of the activities listed above had anything do to with protecting people’s rights, which is the only legitimate function of government. Indeed, every one of them violated people’s rights. The only solution is to get the government out of the activities that government shouldn’t be doing in the first place.
The only proper purpose of a government is to protect our rights, which means to protect us from physical violence. “… to secure these Rights [to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness], Governments are instituted among Men.” [2] That is why we need a government in the first place.
Hence, a proper government is only a policeman to protect our rights, acting as an agent of our self-defense, and, as such, may resort to force only against those who start the use of force. The only proper functions of a government, then, are 1) the police, to protect us from criminals, 2) the armed forces, to protect us from foreign invaders, and 3) the courts, to protect our property and contracts from breach or fraud by others and to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law. [3] Period!
If the government were not involved in activities not related to protecting rights, then the racists who achieved control of the government would not have had the enforcement tools of force at their disposal to impose their segregationist will on the country.
This widespread legal racism was finally and fortunately stopped by more recent legislation and court decisions. Unfortunately, the effects are still with us and will be with us for some time to come.
It takes generations to change our notions about what a proper government should be limited to. We took a giant leap with the Declaration of Independence by saying the purpose of government is limited and exists only to secure our rights – to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This was NEW in the history of mankind. [4] In the name of freedom, we took major steps forward, but starting at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, have taken steps back toward collectivist politics.
We have allowed government to expand to the point where it is doing so many activities that are outside of, and even conflict with the purpose of protecting our rights. And this has been the major reason for the racism and segregation and inequality we have today. The racists took advantage of immoral government activities to forcibly impose their views on the country.
It is obvious that to truly combat racism, we have to root out the major enabler of it to make the racists impotent. Limit the government to its original purpose – to protect individual rights – and get it out of those functions it has no business being in, such as welfare, education, healthcare, banking, money, labor, housing, urban development, etc., which were the major functions through which institutional racism was created. Restrict the weapon of government force to just the police, the armed forces, and the courts.
Unfortunately, Critical Race Theory advocates, since CRT is collectivist in nature, would not want to decrease the involvement of government but to increase it in the name of “combatting racism.” They are not against a collectivist government; they just want one that supports their brand of collectivism, individualism and individual lives be dammed. See my post on Critical Race Theory.
If you want to do something about institutional racism, advocate getting the government out of activities it shouldn’t be in and return to a government that is limited in its activities to just protecting rights.
References
- The Color of Law: A forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein
- The Declaration of Independence
- “The Nature of Government” by Ayn Rand in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal by Ayn Rand
- America’s Revolutionary Mind: A Moral History of the American Revolution and the Declaration That Defined It by C. Bradley Thompson
Photo Credits
- Map showing redlining: Unknown Author, licensed under CC BY-SA-NC
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As you are probably aware, many discussions on this topic are sometimes unfriendly and contain logical fallacies. If you decide to leave a comment, or even outside of this post, if you decide to have a discussion, public or private, you might find it helpful to follow the suggestions on my post How to have a successful discussion.