Portside

We keep running in circles when it comes to addressing racial justice in the US. This means that with every advance we almost come back to the same place and must fight the battles all over again. It doesn't mean that progress has not been made, but the progress retrogresses due to the immediate backlash that charges any advance to rectify past racial injustices as an affront to white people. At best there is an ebb and flow when it comes to rectifying the racial harms and damages of the past. 

Race history and the many initiatives to rectify past wrongs are more of a circle than a linear line. It may be an expanding circle considering advances, but for every victory won, there is a vicious throwback. It is almost like the 1993 movie "Groundhog Day," where morning after morning we awaken to histories repeating itself, and where victories of racial justice are swept away by the courts or a change in the body politics. The struggle continues, and in many cases, we must begin again.

Every racial justice victory in the United States came about because of the Civil War and the various modes of resistance employed by victims of racial injustices. Mass protests and resistance have generally forced those in power to seek easy answers to placate the anger of the victims of racial injustice. But every attempt to satisfy and pacify the various protests is met with vociferous protests that erase hard-fought victories. Just a few examples over four centuries in US history serve as evidence. At each juncture of political protest, those in power have historically responded with various initiatives designed to calm the uprisings and unrest. However, any advance is quickly eradicated under the guise of reverse discrimination.

After the Civil War, one man/one vote was militarily imposed, resulting in the elections of Black men to numerous political offices in the South. With those advances came the passage of the 13th Amendment in 1865, abolishing slavery. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 granted citizenship to people born in the US. This served as a response to the 1857 Supreme Court Dred Scott decision that ruled Blacks were not citizens. The 14th Amendment passed in 1868 addressed and attempted to rectify state laws that abridged the rights of Black people. In 1870, the 15th Amendment was adopted that attempted to grant the right to vote to Black men (It should be noted that it wasn't until 1919 that women had the right to vote). In 1871, another Civil Rights Act was passed, also known as the Klu Klux Klan Act, which was a response to the growing terrorism used by whites against Blacks and advances in civil rights. These acts of terror were designed to take away the vote, enforce racial codes, and re-imposed the restrictions on Black people that had been granted post-Civil War. The backlash turned back the clock on the numerous advances that sought to correct the racial injustices of the past.

In 1865, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, and Andrew Johnson became President. Andrew Johnson was a southerner who worked to turn back the numerous advances made in racial justice. Under his administration, amnesty was granted to Confederates. Confiscated lands (plantations) were returned to those who rebelled against the Union. The last remaining Union troops were withdrawn from the South in the Compromise of 1877, resulting in the reestablishment of pre-Civil War policies that completed the circle of restoring white southern rule, reinstating the Black Codes, and allowing states to make policies that re-created de facto enslavement. 

The circle turned 360 degrees from voting rights, citizenship, anti-terrorism, social rectification, and attempts at inclusion to making it virtually impossible for Blacks to vote, live and work, or engage in the routines of life without fear and intimidation. Reconstruction, a response to racial injustices and calls to the nation to be inclusive and equitable, was short-lived, from 1865-1877, and in that short time it ushered in amendments and Civil Rights Acts. However, it was attacked from the beginning, sabotaged, and died because of white backlash. Most of the steps forward were spurned within 12 short years, and all the advances undone. The circle of racial justice took Blacks from winning to having to fight all over again.

In response to the racial justice organizing in the 20th century and the social unrest through demonstrations, sit-ins, and mass marches, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. This act prohibited discrimination in labor and attempted to end segregation in public facilities, public schools, and federally funded programs (keep in mind that 10 years prior, in 1954, the Supreme Court had already ruled segregation in public schools unconstitutional and ordered schools to desegregate). In 1965, The Voting Rights Act was passed to challenge the many schemes employed by states to abridge the ability of Blacks to vote. It also required southern states to seek permission to substantively change voting practices. However, in 2013, the Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder gutted these protections, arguing that they were "based on 40-year-old facts having no logical relationship to the present day." Hence, voting protections enacted in 1965 were gutted, effectively rendering the act a relic of the past. This is an example of the ebb, or the circular motion to the nature of racial rectification in the US.

In the 21st century, white resistance to the freedoms of Blacks to move and live within society coupled with continued fears of whites towards Black people resulted in "Stand Your Ground" laws. These were boilerplate legislation written by the American Legislative Exchange Council and offered to state legislators, which produced glaring and frightening consequences for Black people. Black people were shot for ringing the wrong door bell, or for being in the wrong neighborhood. But all of this played into a larger scheme to erode equal rights and turn back the clock on racial rectification.

The reaction to racial justice is relentless and comes whenever strives are made to make the nation more inclusive. As the Black Lives Matter movement emerged, trying to hold people and society accountable, the movement was spurred on by the killings of Michael Brown and Ahmaud Arbery by vigilantes. George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Sandra Bland, and Philando Castile were examples of police killings. In the streets, voices chanted "Defund the police," and bodies blocked expressways and intersections. Political leaders and bodies across the country entertained discussions on the matter. 

Corporate America responded along with other entities employing "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion" (DEI) measures. DEI became part of the discussion in the economic, political, and educational arena. The corporate world responded to the various outcries of disadvantaged groups that included racial and the LGBTQIA community and sought ways to demonstrate their desire to include and sell to these groups. Among those employing DEI initiatives were Amazon, Meta (FaceBook), McDonald's, Walmart, Ford, Lowe's, John Deere, American Airlines, Boeing, Jack Daniel's (Brown-Forman), Caterpillar, Harley-Davidson, Molson Coors, Nissan, Polaris, Toyota, and Anheuser-Busch.

The criticisms, however, grew louder as the "Turn Back the Clock" and Make America Great Again activists homed in on "wokeness" and began to attack those corporations for their support of racial justice and gay rights. The 2023 Supreme Court decision on college admissions, which struck down affirmative action programs declaring that race cannot be a factor in college admissions, was used to advance charges of reverse discrimination and of lowering standards. Then, with the election of Trump, the attacks on DEI found greater energy, and corporations demonstrated lesser courage. Each of the corporations mentioned has since rolled back or eliminated their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs. This is another example of a 360-degree turn in the struggle for racial justice and inclusion within society, culture, and workplace.

Blacks have been historically wronged and remain disadvantaged. We continue to lag behind our white counterparts in terms of education, economics, and wealth. If progress is linear, then we could surmise that at some point Blacks would catch up to whites. Instead, in most categories, the gaps and disparities have grown wider. 

The only way to explain this phenomenon is that we are engaged in a circle of gaining and then losing. The circle may grow larger, signifying the progress being made, but the hard-fought victories in terms of racial justice are always met with a vicious backlash that makes progress a circular motion where we end up, it seems, where we began. 

If the United States is ever going to create a society of real growth and opportunity, it needs to stop chasing its tail. It needs to change its belief that correcting past wrongs is somehow to penalize someone else. The irony is that those who complain about reverse discrimination are the ones who have been the beneficiaries of a system of discrimination. A strong society must come to terms with its history, tell the stories of the good, the bad, and the ugly, and muster the courage to create and maintain policies, programs, and systems that correct the sins of the past.

Rev. Graylan Scott Hagler is an advisor with FOR-USA and the founder and president of Faith Strategies USA. Until retiring from his position in 2022 Hagler was Senior Minister at Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Washington, D.C.

In 2008, Dick and Sharon launched the LA Progressive — intentionally bringing to the fore the progressive voice in Los Angeles with a focus on the centrality of race. Their mission was and is to provide a platform for progressive thought, opinion, and perspectives on current events.

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