The Myths We Tell Ourselves

“A myth is something that explains the world; it is, mysteriously, bigger than itself.” (Charles Eisenstein from “The Conspiracy Myth,” May 2020)

In the introduction to my new book, I write that to interrogate the history of race and racism as a White person in America “requires reexamining how growing up in an America that’s been so White-oriented, White-dominant, and White-pervasive undoubtedly has influenced so many of our assumptions, presumptions, and systems of belief in profound ways.”

Not true, you might think—or even argue—until you realize how countless systems that White leaders set up and predominantly White communities bought into for more than two centuries benefited Whites near-exclusively. And disadvantaged, damaged, and harmed Black people. Yes, not just the 18^th and 19^th centuries, but for all intents and purposes, the twentieth century too.

Yes, all of it, with some notable but somewhat consequential exceptions. What are some of those exceptions? We finally expanded the rights of African Americans. We instituted affirmative action for employment in government—and contractors working with the government—as well as in colleges and universities. And we slowly allowed African Americans to live in the suburbs. However, we still kept those suburbs primarily segregated.

Yes, Black people finally had access to more colleges and universities. Yet in most select higher education institutions (think Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, and flagship state universities like the University of Texas), the percentage of Black students rarely rose to the level of their proportion of the general population. However, White females achieved the most significant affirmative action gains. Yes, that’s still not a very well-known fact in most circles, especially to those who think the gains have been primarily those who are African American. Having reached new heights collectively, a majority of White women are now opposed to the continuation of affirmative action.

Yes, Black people finally were able to move into industries where they were not well represented before, but on the whole, Black workers still work far more often on the lower rungs of the employment ladder than Whites do.

Affirmative action moved the proverbial needle, oh so gradually toward equality, but it stopped well short of the mark.

Most Whites probably agree or acknowledge the wrongs of slavery and Jim Crow. Yet, it never crosses their mind what restitution should have been owed for those long, dark histories that still plague us today. Passing Civil Rights laws surely was enough … wasn’t it? Allowing African Americans to access Medicaid or housing vouchers or food stamps should have closed critical gaps. I mean, really, America has done so much for African Americans after we purposefully ended the wrongheaded Jim Crow days. …. Haven’t we?

Ultimately, these were all minimal measures that merely kept American society slow-walking on the racial treadmill. Their impacts were neither long-lasting nor transformative by any means. In fact, we basically maintained or, in some cases, slightly shifted systems of prejudice, discrimination, and oppression that made it appear on certain surfaces like real progress was in the offing. But it didn’t change much about who sat at the top of the American racial caste system and who remained near the bottom.

The myths we still hold about race cause us to overlook troubling facts, problematic histories, and brutal truths. From where we live to how we access economic opportunity. And not just financial access. Access to quality education. To genuine justice. To full civil rights.

Thus, when I wrote the numerous drafts of my book over four years, I built it around eight interlocking myths; each (like Eisenstein says in the opening quote) is bigger than itself, and together, they create a labyrinth of mythology that is at once, immense, dense, and opaque to the unsuspecting American.

What are the 8 myths? Let me break them down one by one.

1. The Overarching Myth: America provides an equal playing field for all. Yet, the reality, as I shared in my previous newsletter post, is that nearly every industry and most organizations, public and private, have continued to tilt the playing field toward White people.
2. The Where We Live Myth I—Housing: Any segregation in housing and neighborhoods Blacks may experience is now strictly a result of individual choice. This chapter exposes the long history of formal and legal residential segregation and how what previously had been law remains codified mainly in policy, practice, and a more nuanced cultural and racial bias.
3. The Where We Live Myth II—Health Outcomes: If Blacks have worse health outcomes than Whites, it’s because of their own poor choices. Yet, we’ll find out that America has a long history of intentionally exposing Black neighborhoods (and other people of color) to environmental pollution and hazards while also underinvesting in health and medicine in those same communities. The result? Profound racially inequitable health outcomes.
4. The Access to Economic Opportunity Myth: If you work hard enough, everybody has the same opportunity to get a job, start a business, and build wealth. However, we make this unreasonably difficult for Black communities. This chapter details how economic discrimination and other economic barriers persist as African Americans attempt to pursue greater economic prosperity.
5. The Access to Educational Opportunity Myth: Blacks now have the same access to quality education as Whites do. Our education system is fair and square for all, right? Remarkably, as you’ll discover in detail in this chapter, nearly seven decades after Brown v. Board of Education, desegregation in education has barely budged, resulting in the continued lack of equitable and sufficient investment in the education of too many of our African American children.
6. The Access to Genuine Justice Myth: With some egregious exceptions, Black are treated fairly by our criminal justice and policing systems. It is likely the fewest number of White people still believe this, yet it is a myth worthy of being fully burst. We are a nation that is organized primarily into two justice systems – one for Whites and the other for Blacks. This plays out in the laws we write, how they are interpreted and carried out, how communities are policed, how cases are prosecuted and judged, how sentences are meted out, and how inadequately returning citizens are reintegrated into society.  
7. The Embracing Blacks’ Access to Rights and Progress Myth: The days of restricting the rights and progress of Blacks are long gone. Many African American authors have pointed out how every movement toward racial progress in the U.S. is always accompanied by pushback and resistance, taking different forms each time. Even after hard-fought wins of the 1960s, permanent triumph in these arenas has never been guaranteed. Throughout the 2000s, successes in many arenas are slowly and methodically being resisted, resented, or stopped in their tracks.
8. The Concluding Myth—Systemic Racism Doesn’t Exist Anymore: Racism is nothing more than individual acts of bigotry. Once you reach this chapter, I hope that it will be self-evident that systemic racism is alive and well in all its new and often latent permutations.

However, my book doesn’t leave you drifting into gloominess and despair. The final section commits to “ensuring systemic racism does not remain a forever chemical.”

I have crafted four chapters that propose transformative recommendations across just about every policy area to level the playing field. Those four chapters are:

• Part I: Transforming the Education Landscape for Our African American Youth that includes proposals like universal birth-to-PreK4 programs and creating a “Black New Deal” for postsecondary education
• Part II: Investing in Racially Equitable Communities to End Our Continuing Forms of Apartheid proposes massive investments in housing affordability, inclusive zoning policies, and robust environmental justice and health equity policies.
• Part III: Transforming Pathways to Economic Prosperity recommends a national baby bonds initiative, massive workforce development investments, and enormous increases in funding and investment in Black entrepreneurs and established Black businesses.
• Part IV: Shortening the Arc that Bends Toward Racial Justice recommends transforming how our policing and justice systems work. This includes reducing the scope of policing, reforming sentencing, prosecution, parole, and pre-trial detention systems, and making enormous investments in rehabilitation, reentry, and support systems for returning citizens.

In this regular newsletter, I will delve into each of the myths while regularly spotlighting important solutions on the ground around the nation.

I look forward to our joint exploration of all these issues and proposals!

All three images courtesy of ChatGPT.