The Root Cause: The History of Discrimination in the US

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The United States of America was founded on the principles of liberty and equality. It has not been a perfect exemplar of those principles. It has stumbled, and sometimes it has sunk deep.

Yet, the beauty and the power of the United States is that it changes. It is always striving for the better. ITS PEOPLE are always striving for the better.

The History of Discrimination in the US

The dark history of discrimination that pervades the United States lingers and still shapes the current landscape of society. But there is a future where the arc of the moral universe finally bends toward justice.

Only when this sordid and messy history is acknowledged can true reconciliation be possible.

The Root Cause: Slavery and Colonialism

The greatest stain on the history of the US and its espousal of liberty and equality is the institution of slavery and its displacement of the Native Americans. It cannot be denied that there is great irony in a nation founded on egalitarianism and rationalism while also permitting the ownership of other humans and the ethnic cleansing of people groups.

The slave trade across the Atlantic forcefully unsettled millions of Africans, delivering them across the sea to different shores of the Americas, where they were forced into labor and dying in droves. Enslaved Africans were denied basic human rights, subjected to brutal treatment, and made to forget their cultural heritage. This dehumanization would not let up for centuries.

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On the other hand, the native peoples of the Americas were also victimized by the tide of European settlers and colonialists. They were pushed from their ancestral lands, often under the threat of violence. Treaties that supposedly justified their claims were broken by the very parties that they signed with until they were left only with slivers of land. Many Native American tribes were genocided, their names forgotten forever, and their histories completely erased. Their loss is a great tragedy that can never be recovered.

To many Americans, especially those of White descent, these events have passed into history, but their impact on the current day, especially on the descendants of their victims, still persists in many unseen ways.

The Root Cause: Jim Crow and Segregation

After the Civil War, things were looking up for actual racial integration, yet that dream would be deferred. Racial segregation was codified in the American South, restricting the rights of millions of Black Americans. What was basic to the White man was denied to them, from education to employment to housing to voting. This period in American history was a dark time of violence, both covert and overt, and–to many–has yet to truly end.

While Jim Crow laws–as they became known to be–have largely been removed, their legacy still haunts the lives of many Black Americans today.

Addressing the Root Cause of Discrimination

The history of the United States is tinged with a great deal of darkness, but significant progress has been made. But it is still far from enough. Discrimination continues to be a big problem today. The many institutions that were founded during and after the inception of the nation were made in periods where ideas of racial integration and anti-discrimination were still seen as fringe concepts. As such, many of these institutions still bear the same character as they did back then.

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If the United States must fight against discrimination, then it has to:

• Promote understanding and empathy through robust education, presenting history from the side of the voices that were suppressed.
• Enact laws and policies that seek to alleviate the uneven conditions of marginalized groups, especially Black Americans and Native Americans.
• Foster communities where diversity is an essential pillar and multiculturalism is celebrated.
• Challenge preexisting prejudice and discrimination within institutions and interpersonal interactions.

The history of discrimination in the US is a painful one. It’s only through understanding its roots and identifying how it manifests today that the nation and its people work towards something more just and more equitable.

To better learn more about racism and its current effects on the United States, Racism in White America is a book by DeHaven Jacque Alexander that explores discrimination as it manifests from America’s ruling ethnic class. Click on the link above to order a copy of the book.