The racial divide today 159The Racial Divide Today
The racial divide today begins with the unequal treatment of racial minorities, women,
gays, and lesbians and is rooted in the gulf that remains between minorities and whites,
in terms of their objective condition as well as their political views. Although
substantial progress has been made in bridging that gulf, political, social, and economic
inequalities remain.Discriminatory Treatment
Discrimination is much more common today than many people realize. The Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed an average of 90,000 charges
of employment discrimination each year in the past five years,^23 while the National
Fair Housing Alliance reports an average of 28,000 cases of housing discrimination a
year.^24 The Justice Department has won dozens of lawsuits against banks and mortgage
lenders who engage in discriminatory practices, winning settlements totaling several
hundred million dollars in the past three years.^25
The experience of a former graduate student in our department who is white and
whose wife is black puts a human face on these statistics. The couple wanted to rent
a bigger apartment, so they searched the want ads and made appointments to see
some apartments. One landlord told them to meet him in front of the apartment at
a specific time. They waited where they were told, but the landlord didn’t show up.
Later they remembered seeing a car that slowed down and almost stopped but then
sped away. They wondered if this was a case of a “drive-by landlord”—one who checks
out potential tenants’ race from a distance; if they are not white, he or she skips the
appointment and tells them it is rented if they ask. This is exactly what happened. This
couple called the landlord, asked what had happened, and were told that the apartment
was already rented. To check their suspicions, they had some friends ask about the
apartment, and the friends were told it was available. Their friends (both white) made
an appointment to meet the landlord, and this time the same car pulled up and stopped.
The landlord showed them the apartment and was very friendly. The next day, the
graduate student filed a racial discrimination lawsuit.
These types of stories, ranging from irritating and demeaning to serious violations
of the law, are familiar to nearly every racial minority, woman, and LGBTQ person
in the United States. Consider the well-dressed businessman who cannot get a cab
in a major city because he is black, the woman who is sexually harassed by her boss
but hesitates to say anything for fear of losing her job, the teenage Latino who is
shadowed in the music store by a clerk, the Arab American who endures taunts about
her head covering, or the lesbian couple who cannot find an apartment. Such anecdotal
evidence, as well as extensive government data and academic research, indicates
continuing discrimination in our society, despite significant progress in the past
generation.Differences in Voting Access
The United States has a long history of discriminating against racial and ethnic
minorities in the election process. Although African Americans voted at a rate that
was quite similar to that of whites in presidential elections from 2008 to 2016, their
turnout in midterm elections has been somewhat lower than that of whites, and otherANALYZE INEQUALITY
AMONG RACIAL, ETHNIC,
AND SOCIAL GROUPS
T O DAYDID YOU KNOW?
Bank of America paid$335 million
in 2011 to settle the largest
mortgage discrimination case
of its kind.
Source: New York TimesThere are very few African-
American men in this country
who haven’t had the experience
of being followed when they
were shopping in a department
store. That includes me.—President Barack ObamaFull_06_APT_64431_ch05_148-197.indd 159 16/11/18 1:27 PM