The Race Discrimination System

Abstract

To understand the persistence of racial disparities across multiple domains (e.g., residential location, schooling, employment, health, housing, credit, and justice) and to develop effective remedies, we must recognize that these domains are reciprocally related and comprise an integrated system. The limited long-run success of government social policies to advance racial justice is due in part to the ad hoc nature of policy responses to various forms of racial discrimination. Drawing on a systems perspective, I show that race discrimination is a system whose emergent properties reinforce the effects of their components. The emergent property of a system of race-linked disparities is über discrimination—a meta-level phenomenon that shapes our culture, cognitions, and institutions, thereby distorting whether and how we perceive and make sense of racial disparities. Viewing within-domain disparities as part of a discrimination system requires better-specified analytic models. While the existence of an emergent system of über discrimination increases the difficulty of eliminating racial disparities, a systems perspective points to strategies to attack that system. These include identifying and intervening at leverage points, implementing interventions to operate simultaneously across subsystems, isolating subsystems from the larger discrimination system, and directly challenging the processes through which emergent discrimination strengthens within-subsystem disparities.

Standardizing Biases: Selection Devices and the Quantification of Race

“…For example, Reskin (2012) cites research showing how discretionary decisions by real estate agents, mortgage lenders, prosecutors, and public assistance workers all lead to discriminatory outcomes, but that the automation of mortgage lending has "reduced the racial gap" (Reskin 2012: 31) by removing discretion from the system. The example of mortgage lending is a useful one for thinking through the promises and perils of standardization.…”

Explaining intersectionality through description, counterfactual thinking, and mediation analysis

“…If we accept that disparities reflect the effects of a constellation of historical and current actions, policies, and other systematic forms of oppression [12], we can extend counterfactual thinking (and later, counterfactual methods) to examine the intersection of social statuses. The referent race disparity reflects effects of racism among those raised in families with greater socioeconomic resources (again, broadly defining racism to capture interpersonal and structural forms that disadvantage racial/ethnic minorities).…”

“…One might point out that higher SES does not necessarily translate into similar gains for blacks and whites because of differences in social networks, or discrimination in housing and other spheres of life [29], but this could reasonably be construed as reflecting the legacy of racism. The referent SES disparity reflects the effects of socioeconomic disadvantage among those whose lineage did not endure the oppression of slavery, Jim Crow, and other structural effects of racism-but who, as Schwartz points out, also benefit from some form of white privilege [12]. If in fact the effects of racism on the outcome did not vary by childhood SES, and the effects of socioeconomic disadvantage did not vary by race, we would expect the joint disparity to equal the sum of the referent race disparity and referent SES disparity, and this would necessarily imply that the intersectional disparity equals zero.…”

“…Contrary to Schwarz's assumption, our study did not consider race as a cause, nor did we consider potential outcomes for race. Early on, we made clear: ''In attributing disparities to race, we mean the historical legacy of racism in the United States (US) taking shape through various means, including slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation [12]. This legacy involves discrimination which may be intentional or the result of policies, laws or practices that systematically disadvantage blacks and shape economic opportunities [13] (and also) indirect processes whereby blacks are more vulnerable to economic or political shifts because of this legacy'' [14].…”

The Scarring Effects of Bankruptcy: Cumulative Disadvantage Across Credit and Labor Markets

“…Correll, Benard, and Paik (2007) have also shown how motherhood can restrict access to jobs for women. Other research demonstrates how historical labor market discrimination contributed to wealth accumulation in the black community, and how the current racial wealth gap exacerbates employment and education inequality (Oliver and Shapiro 1997;Conley 1999;National Research Council 2004;Reskin 2012). Although advantage and disadvantage accumulate exponentially at times within markets, they can also multiply across markets.…”