Local opinion: Racial inequality persists, and worsens in today's America

The base of the Martin Luther King Memorial in Washington, D.C., appears unfinished – it’s symbolic of persistent racial inequality in America. Dr. King stands with his arms folded across his chest while sternly “looking through the Mountain of Despair” at the Jefferson Memorial — symbolic of his impatience with the unfulfilled promises of the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. If alive today, MLK would still see his mission as unfinished and the promises made at our nation’s birth unfulfilled.

The DC African American Smithsonian Museum begins in the building’s and the nation’s sub-basement of 1619. Visitors wind their way slowly and deliberately through the abject horrors of slavery. The exhibits are a graphic depiction of families destroyed, lives stripped of dignity and any hope of freedom obliterated by the all-powerful slave owners. The intent is to provide an accurate historical picture and a shocking lesson meant to prevent those atrocities from being repeated.

The current war on DEI is hellbent on not only erasing African American history but pushing back the MLK-inspired social, political and economic gains wrought by the freedom fighters' movement of the 1960s, including the Civil and Voting Rights Acts. Today’s far-right Supreme Court majority are systematically gutting those protections. Claims that slavery was beneficial, that Constitutional Amendments outlawing racism have time limits or that racism no longer plagues America are easily shown to be false and regressive.

The fear of a resurgence of discrimination, segregation and injustice is real for today’s African Americans. Because of racially based housing disparity, Black families are much more likely to live closer to refineries and industrial polluters, exacerbating a much higher likelihood of chronic illness. Infant and post-natal maternity deaths are disproportionately higher for families of color. Inner cities with high Black populations see fewer quality public schools and more unstaffed but crowded classrooms. African Americans working the same jobs trail their white counterpoints in wages but are much more likely to be prosecuted and incarcerated for the same infractions.

Repercussions caused by ending “affirmative action” for college admissions and programs aiding predominantly minority students have been immediate and dramatic, diminishing their chances of overcoming the systemic poverty suffered by their families. Teachers are intimidated from presenting factual American history regarding slavery, lynchings and obliteration of Black communities such as the Tulsa, Oklahoma, massacre of 1921. Majority-Black cities are militarized as moderate ICE officials are replaced by those committed to the blitzkrieg approach recently emboldened by court-approved racial profiling and ending due process under the law.

Reversed is the trend that began to open corporate director board and CEO positions to other than white men. S&P 500 Companies already see a drop for women by 11% and people of color by a whopping 25%.

Much of the recent push for midterm Congressional redistricting is more nefarious than merely political leverage. Maps proposed in red states focus on Black majority districts with mostly Black incumbent representatives. The net result is akin to “taxation without representation” for millions of African Americans. The budget bill that provides huge tax cuts for the wealthy, simultaneously guts food subsidies and health care for low-income families, disproportionately impacting veterans, elderly, disabled and of course minorities.

Belief that America has become a nation of equal opportunity for everyone is grossly misguided. In truth, there is an extremist political movement comprised of young activists who spout racial epithets, neo-Nazis who foster the twisted and racist “replacement theory” and elected officials who believe powerful women of color lack the intelligence required to perform in the positions they truly deserve and worked hard to attain.

An America that seeks to fulfill those founding promises must reject both the systemically historic and the newly resurgent racism of today. When we all share and work toward achieving Martin Luther King’s noble dream, we will be able to share and work in an America in which “all men (and women) are created equal” in “a more perfect union”. Today we can and must work, pray and hope so that our better angels prevail and we begin “looking through the Mountain of Despair.”