Color Me Skeptical: The Fool's Gold of Race Neutral Policies

Color Me Skeptical: The Fool's Gold of Race-Neutral Policies

[00:00:00] Oh my god, y'all. The U. S. courts are trying to bring back racial injustices. They're trying to rewrite racism back into the law. And like Jesse Spano on caffeine pills, I'm so scared. I've got some explaining to do. Let's get into it. Well, that was a wild intro, huh? Hey, ALL-iens. Welcome back for another episode of Ayana Explains It All, the podcast hosted by me, Ayana Fakhir, the lady lawyer, Muslim lady lawyer, by the way, who has an opinion on everything.[00:01:00]

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 I'm recording this on Friday, June 14th, 2024. And this episode is about something so [00:03:00] incredibly pressing and important. And, once again, go to AyannaExplainsItAll. com and get all things podcast. Let's get into the show. Once again, here it is. The U. S. of America is being called to the large carpet to defend itself against allegations of anti Black racism.

They're not just my allegations. Lots of people feel this way. But the United States has long had to defend itself. The United States, citizens of the United States, corporations, they have long had to defend themselves against accusations of anti black racism, anti black prejudice, and It has not always been in the business interest of the United States to give a damn, you know.

American slavery created a racial caste system in the U. S. that benefited [00:04:00] politicians and private entities and private owners for a long time. And even though that no longer exists, and some people believe we are equalized, we're in a post racial, post caste society. Once the final Civil Rights Act of 1967 was passed, and then we elected a black president, and that was supposedly proof, proof of the power. That black people now had of being able to achieve anything in the U. S., in the American, in the U. S. American society. That things have finally been equalized. That there is no more racial injustice. That these problems have been solved.

Look, your black president. Look, your black representatives. Look, there's black people playing in the NBA. Before it was just a dream. But the election of a black president was the dream realized. It was the final stone on the ring [00:05:00] that gave black people the power. I'm laughing because I'm thinking of Thanos ring and he had the five, uh, the five stones.

And when he finally had the fifth one, oh, he could do big things. But, black people own land. We live, we work, and we're educated alongside people of different races. We marry, we procreate, we inter, what is it, we intermarry. We attend universities, we're doctors, we're engineers, we're lawyers, we're teachers, we're secretaries, we're hairdressers, we're nurses, we're on TV, we're celebrities, we're in movies.

It's wonderful. Oh, but, there is something insidious. Something insidious, if you can smell it, if you can smell it. I don't know what it would smell like. Probably raw sewage. Probably acidic. Oh, what is that? [00:06:00] It's our old friend, white supremacy. Never left. Never left. White supremacy as a theory and as a practice still exists in the United States. And as long as it does, then there is no post racial anything.

There is no post racial. There is no racial justice. There is a caste system where certain people are placed on certain levels. As long as an idea of supremacy exists based on race, black people are in trouble in this country. Because it's never black supremacy that reigns.

It has never been black supremacy. It's never been Native American supremacy. It's never been Latino supremacy. It's never been Asian American supremacy. No, it's always been white supremacy. White people are still colonizing parts of the [00:07:00] world. There's still colonialism. The United States is engaged in it.

There is no post nothing,

but we're supposed to believe that society is now colorblind and everyone says I can't see color like we're all walking around like a bunch of idiots. I don't see color. I don't see color. I have friends who are black. I have, I don't care if you're purple or blue. Listen, yes the fuck you would care if I was purple.

Okay, let's just put that to rest. You would care. It would bother you. You wouldn't want your kid marrying someone who's purple. You wouldn't want, uh, someone who's purple making your sandwiches at the subway. But the concept of colorblindness, the idea that racial classifications do not affect a person's opportunities or treatment by others, ignores [00:08:00] several key things.

When you say you are colorblind, You are ignoring the persistent racial inequality permeates every fucking system in this country. Statistics show significant disparities in wealth, education, employment, healthcare, and criminal justice between different racial groups. And I've done episodes on so many of these.

So many. I've done it on health. I've done it on employment, I've done it on healthcare. I've done it on criminal justice. The differences in outcomes in the criminal justice system that black people receive versus whites, the differences in health outcomes that black people receive versus whites.

The difference is in educational outcomes, employment outcomes,

and we're still paid less than our counterparts. The [00:09:00] median wealth of white families is significantly higher than that of black and Hispanic families. When you say that you are colorblind and that this is a post racial colorblind society, you ignore systemic racism. Historical and ongoing systemic racism affects many aspects of life for people.

for people affects many aspects of life for racial minorities in the United States. This includes policies and practices and institutions that disproportionately disadvantage certain racial groups. And when you say you are colorblind, you also ignore implicit bias. I've done an episode on implicit bias.

Research indicates that implicit biases, which are unconscious attitudes or stereotypes, can affect decisions in [00:10:00] hiring, policing, judicial sentencing. It can affect employment, how people are treated at work, how people are treated riding the fucking bus. And when you say you are color blind, You ignore the lack of representation and visibility of racial minorities in this country.

Racial minorities are often underrepresented in positions of power and overrepresented in lower socioeconomic brackets. This lack of representation can perpetuate inequalities and limit opportunities. I argue that we are not a colorblind society. We're not. Just put it out of your head and you can be colorblind all you want to.

But this is right at your doorstep because I guarantee you go into work and some implicit bias. It [00:11:00] plays a role in how you treat customers, coworkers,

your managers, how you feel about where you work,

but then you also are ignoring while you're at work, the fact that your coworkers who are black or Hispanic, if you are white, are paid less than you for doing the same job or that when they go to negotiate for a pay raise, their raise will be less than yours, or that when they go for a promotion, they're likely to be told, no, just wait, it's not your time.

It's not your time. So when you say you are color blind, what you're really blind to is the truth.

The dismantling of [00:12:00] racial and legal apartheid in the United States through legislation such as the Civil Rights Act of 1967 is often seen as the end of white supremacy. But it is not the end, because the fiber and the cloth that make up the fabric of this nation is still pro white racism.

As Michelle Alexander states in her book, The New Jim Crow, and this will become important later. It may be impossible. To overstate the basic structure of American society, the structure and content of the original constitution was based largely on the effort to preserve a racial caste system, slavery, while at the same time, affording political and economic rights to whites, especially propertied whites.

The Constitution [00:13:00] itself was colorblind, in that the words slave or Negro were never used, but the document was built upon a compromise regarding the prevailing racial caste system. Even the method for determining proportional representation in Congress and identifying the winner of the presidential election That is the electoral college were specifically developed with the interest of slave holders in mind.

And Ibram X. Kendi describes in his book, Stamped from the Beginning, the origin of things such as psychology, standardized tests, and intelligence tests as they relate to classifying members of American society. And of course, They were devised in such a way to make black people seem less intelligent than whites, he said.

Eugenicists ideas also became [00:14:00] part of the fledgling discipline of psychology and the basis of newly minted standardized intelligence tests. Many believed these tests would prove once and for all the existence of natural racial hierarchies. Standardized tests became the newest objective method of proving black intellectual inferiority and justifying discrimination.

And a multi million dollar testing industry quickly developed in schools and workplaces. American Psychological Association President and Princeton Psychologist Carl C. Brigham used the results of the Army Intelligence Tests to conjure up a genetic intellectual racial hierarchy, and a few years later, he constructed the SAT test for college admissions.

They're still being used.

 The BMI chart used for determining, [00:15:00] uh, if a person is overweight or underweight or obese

the American Medical Association says that the BMI is racially biased. and has issued new guidelines on how the metric should be used, saying it's an imperfect measure of body fat and that it was based on historical data from white populations and doesn't take into consideration a person's body shape, gender, age, race, or ethnicity.

And it's the same thing with all of these other standardized tests that, uh, doctors and industries are using to measure. What category a person should be placed into to measure where someone's worthiness. And you tell me there's no caste system. If you get a low SAT score, you're placed into a certain category and that [00:16:00] category says denied admissions.

And you're telling me there's no caste system? As Nicole Hannah Jones author, college professor and commentator and Irish alumni hey

Affirmative action was devised under JFK and the civil rights act under Lyndon Baines Johnson, but a deeply divided Congress did not pass this legislation simply because it realized a century after the Civil War that descendants of slavery deserved equal rights.

The violent suppression of democratic rights of its black citizens threatened. to destabilize the country and had once again become an international liability as the United States waged war in Vietnam. But as this nation's racist laws began to fall, conservatives started to realize [00:17:00] that the language of colorblindness could be used to their advantage.

Now, this article of hers is brilliant, brilliant. You have to read it. It's called The Colorblind Trap and it was published, uh, last week. She goes on to, to invoke the words of Barry Goldwater during his presidential run in 1964 as he said, Our aim, as I understand it, is not to establish a segregated society or an integrated society.

It is to preserve a free society. The U. S. Supreme Court also, plays a key role here, though. The U. S. Supreme Court has been, so far, what we've used to usher in racial justice in the United States. Although, Clarence Thomas would argue that the court does not have that broad sweeping power I imagine that's how he talks.

The U. S. Supreme Court has a history of striking [00:18:00] down laws that degrade and separate the races. There are some we are familiar with, such as Brown versus the Topeka Board of Education, but there's also Cooper versus Aaron, Green versus the County School Board of New Kent County, Swan versus Charlotte Mecklenburg.

Milliken versus Bradley and regents of the university of California versus Bakke, where the court came to a mixed decision on the issue of racial preference in university admissions, laying the groundwork for educational standards that still exist today.

But, more recently, the Supreme Court has struck down the use of race as a in school admissions and in the community schools case from 2007, the Supreme Court struck down voluntary school desegregation plans and Seattle and [00:19:00] Louisville ruling that race as a criterion in school assignments was unconstitutional. The decision emphasized a preference for race neutral policies. Race neutral, race neutral, those policies in the United States have evolved as a means to address racial disparities without explicit reference to race.

While these policies have had varying degrees of success, they represent an ongoing effort to balance the pursuit of equality with legal and societal constraints against race conscious measures. And as Justice Clarence Thomas pointed out in a concurring opinion on a case about race and gerrymandering, surmising that the court in Brown v. the Board of Education had invented a remedy Because it was not [00:20:00] satisfied with the pace of desegregation. And that in doing so, devised a flexible power because it was useful at the time.

Now whether he was suggesting that segregation was legal is debatable. But as Goldwater stated, we want a free society. We're not trying to have a segregated or an integrated society. We want to have a free society, and I suppose that is what Clarence Thomas believes is the power of the Supreme Court is to make sure that the U.

1. is a free society, not that it's necessarily desegregated. I'm sure he thought at some point we would have gotten to that because he said we were dissatisfied, the court was dissatisfied with the pace of desegregation. But what he was saying is that the court had no authority to end segregation using the Equal Protection Clause.

very much. The framers, remember? The framers of the U. S. [00:21:00] Constitution did not design the document to be flexible, is what Clarence Thomas believes. He's a strict constitutionalist. But what Mr. Thomas forgets is that, as I mentioned previously, they designed it to defend the rights of slave holding whites.

They designed it to preserve a free society. Sure. But for white people, for white people, they designed it to be free for white people. And it was going to be segregated because they were not going to allow black people to be anything more than property. And then somewhere along the way, it became in the business interests.

of the United States to end slavery. And then it became in the business interest of the United States to [00:22:00] end Jim Crow. And then it became in the business interest of the United States to desegregate public schools. And then it became in the business interest of the United States to allow black people to have a guaranteed right to vote.

That was in their business interest. We could all be free. But our rights depended on what their needs were at the time.

Our rights depended on what their needs were at the time.

So how long would we have lived under the inflexibility of a document that was not intended for the life, freedom, and liberty of all Americans? How long would we have had to live under segregation, Mr. Thomas? How long would we have had to live with the knowledge that yes, we are free, but no, we are [00:23:00] not worthy of being free together.

So if colorblindness and race neutrality are the hallmarks of a free society, why then are color consciousness and racism remarkably prevalent in healthcare, education, hiring, firing, environmental policy, school policy, funding, politics, government, policing, policing? Community outreach attitudes

because racist whites, they want a free society, but they don't want competition. They do not want competition for America's resources. They don't want it from foreign nationals. They don't want it from nationals who are not white

and laws and policies favoring descendants of slaves, black people, as Miss Hannah Jones points out, though these laws were [00:24:00] developed, though these laws were adopted to protect descendants of slavery from racial discrimination and subordination. In the minds of white people, they created an unfair advantage.

In the minds of white people, this created reverse discrimination.

As Ms. Hannah Jones says, the truth is that those who were for race consciousness to permit a free society ultimately came out against race consciousness when it no longer served their political interests. And that is what we are now seeing. This is what we have been seeing since Reconstruction!

Now that we have civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination based on race and affirmative action policies are in place to promote diversity in education and employment,

there is an increasing awareness and discussion about racial issues [00:25:00] and people are starting to advocate more for equality and justice. And you would think that in a country where there are civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination based on race, that we wouldn't need this. But we do need it. We do need it.

We need race consciousness, even though there are numerous examples of people of color achieving significant success in various fields, which some interpret as evidence that opportunities are becoming more equitable. If you turn on the TV, you go to the movies, who do you see?

White people. White people.

 There still is not the diversity we should be seeing based on the diversity of American society.

 Where I work at, and I work for an outfit that you might be familiar with, I'm not going [00:26:00] to say their name, but I, if you work in a certain area in a certain office where I started my career at, a lot of black people, a lot of white people too. But then I moved to a different office, and I think I was one of four black people working in the office.

Which is ridiculous considering the people we represent. And it's ridiculous considering the neighborhood, the region that they serve. It's ridiculous. Doesn't make any sense.

So the fact that we think that it is no longer the business interest of the United States to promote racial equality and advancement, you need only look around. Look around at your neighborhood. Go to your kid's school. Go to your doctor's office. Go to a store in your neighborhood.

Who owns the [00:27:00] stores in your neighborhood?

You have a bunch of where I live at. I live in the pristine suburb of Shaker Heights, Ohio. Most of the businesses are owned by white people. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but there are a lot of black people living in this neighborhood. A lot of Indians, Latinos. Where are the Latino owned businesses?

We have a spackling, or what do they call it, a smattering, whatever the hell, of black businesses. Most of the stores are owned by white people.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. No, no, no. Ayanna, you're so racist. You're terrible. No, I'm not. I'm calling attention to something that needs your attention. There ain't shit wrong with white people. I don't [00:28:00] care. But I'm black. I care about things that concern me. And I see a lot of racial injustice in my own fucking neighborhood, in my own state of Ohio.

And I'm gonna bring attention to it. And if it makes you feel uncomfortable, oh well. Feel uncomfortable. That uncomfortable feeling perhaps will prompt you to do something about it. When you go to the polls, when you talk to your senators, when you talk to your representatives, when you talk to the governor, when you talk to your school boards, why is there racism in policing where black people live?

Why is there racism in healthcare where black people live?

That is what we're facing where I live at in Northeast Ohio.

Northeast Ohio, the home of Cleveland, one of the most racially segregated [00:29:00] cities in the country

it isn't because the blacks and whites don't want to live together, certainly some of them do. It's because the black people were not seen as good enough to be lived with. Even after busing. They had busing in Cleveland until, I think it was 1999? Some ridiculous year. Did it work? Fuck no! Still racially segregated.

And yes, I'm pissed off. There are certain things that just get me worked up, honey. And the F bombs will fly. They will fly! Don't get me to talking about something that I'm deeply passionate about, which is a lot of things by the way.

But to say now in 2024 that we no longer need race conscious laws and policies. When there are states that are eliminating the teaching [00:30:00] of African American history and public schools, you want to know African American history looks like when it's integrated into us American history classes. A blurb about Martin Luther King Jr. Harriet Tubman.

Those palatable black people. They don't talk about the nitty gritty stuff. They don't talk about the dirty stuff. No. If you want to know the dirty stuff, you're going to have to go to a library and get a book. If you can find the books at your library, because there are white parents who want certain books removed from school libraries.

Please. There are white people who want certain books removed from public libraries. There are certain books you can't find. You can't find them where you live at.[00:31:00]

And you don't have to wonder why.

Now switching gears in 1866. Yeah. We got to go way back. The U S Senate voted to pass the first civil rights act. This was the very first civil rights act in 1866 after slavery. It ended. During Reconstruction, hey, we need to make society equal for these people, we need to make things easier for the free, the freed people.

The U. S. Senate voted to pass the first Civil Rights Act, one that would bestow full citizenship rights on black Americans, and invalidate any law aimed at denying anyone full rights under the Act simply for being black. To protect Black people and fully restore us to the human position that slavery had attempted to erase.

But its target was Black [00:32:00] codes, those public laws of discrimination. But the Act was limited to race based language and laws of discrimination. that signaled discrimination. It did not cover private entities or local enclaves. And, uh, Miss Hannah Jones explores this in her article too. But you can go online and Google the Civil Rights Act of 1866.

The biggest blow to the Civil Rights Act was when President Andrew Johnson vetoed the law. I don't like them niggers. They don't deserve nothing. I he was a vile racist piece of shit. But guess what? Congress overrode his veto. And thus began Southern Reconstruction. Which white people hated. Hated it. Hated it. [00:33:00] Couldn't wait to get rid of it. Reconstruction meant embracing change. Including the emerging equality of former slaves.

Ew, yucky. And through decades of laws and court cases, the United States attempted to judicialize and legislate. to a colorblind society, but it remains a myth. It remains a myth. And now we are moving backwards to the time when race consciousness kept the best of everything secured for white Americans,

D E I diversity, equity, and inclusion. It's now a slur by the way, it's now being used as a slur to refer to affirmative action hires, affirmative action admissions. Or black people who look like [00:34:00] they're not qualified to belong. Like that president of Harvard who was fired. Claudine Gay. It's being called a diversity hire. Anytime you see a black person in power, there's some white person fuming. She's just a diversity hire. What is she doing here? She doesn't belong here anyway.

It wasn't for that damn Supreme Court.

But now we have conservative groups, nonprofit organizations. One specifically, using the courts to attack grant and scholarship and other programs that give racial minorities a hand up and out of the pernicious, impoverished, inequitable, invisible corners of the United States. And they hate that. They hate it.

A hand out? Fine. A hand up? Fuck no.

There's a gap. And this gap [00:35:00] exposes the delay in creating an equalized society. These special programs and scholarships and grants are trying to close it. They're trying to achieve. Racial justice, what the law can no longer provide in affirmative action or equal protection or in racial equity.

Institutions and non profit organizations have attempted to remedy. Yes, there are people left behind. Even after all of the legislative and judicial advances, there were people who were still left behind in terms of opportunity because of their race and class in the United States. And so these, they're non profit organizations or venture capital firms, or they're trying to bring people up out of the shadows.

And then some motherfucker decides, Wow, what about [00:36:00] me?

What about me? I'm white. I deserve to have that money that black people have. Can you imagine? Can you imagine being so fucking miserable that you despise a black person because they're receiving a grant? That helps them during their pregnancy when black women have the highest maternal mortality rate in the United States.

And you despise them for receiving money to help with prenatal visits, to help with transportation to and from doctor's offices, to help with daycare. It bothers you. It bothers you. They shouldn't be getting help. I'm white. I need help. Yeah, Medicaid pays for most of the pregnancies in the United States.

And I'll leave you to guess, who is the [00:37:00] highest number of recipients of Medicaid? White people!

But just as Jim Crow laws were a response to the fear that whites had about blacks invading their neighborhoods, travel ways, restaurants, shops, homes, Using their water fountains, these new crops, this new crop of lawsuits against special programs are a response to the fear that whites feel of being bested by what they view as inferior non whites.

The recent Supreme Court decision that dismantled affirmative action in college admissions, conservative groups have used that ruling to once again

Subjugate Black people by challenging race based giving in grants, loans, and scholarships. The [00:38:00] aim is to dial back racial justice, to pause the pace of progress. Though racial disparities remain in U. S. society, there was at least some hope of achieving equality in, for instance, healthcare outcomes.

The Abundant Birth Program. Is a grant program by the city of San Francisco and this information is coming from, an article at nineteenthnews.org it's called Affirmative Action Backlash in Maternal Health Program, black Women. And it talks about San Francisco. California's. Abundant Birth Program, the program was designed to counter. The obstetric racism that researchers say leads a disproportionate number of African American people to die from childbirth.

The project has provided 150 pregnant black and Pacific [00:39:00] Islander San Franciscans a 1, 000 monthly stipend. But the future of the abundant birth project is clouded by a lawsuit alleging that the program, the first of its kind in the nation, illegally discriminates by giving the stipend only to people of a specific race.

The lawsuit also targets San Francisco Guaranteed Income programs serving artists, transgender people, and black young adults. This litigation is part of just a growing number of lawsuits that the U. S. Supreme Court is, is, is being asked to rule on. But in healthcare, as the article points out, legal actions threaten efforts to provide scholarships to minority medical school students and other initiatives to create a physician workforce that looks more like the nation.

The lawsuits also endanger other measures designed to reduce [00:40:00] well documented racial disparities. Black people are three to four times more likely than white people to die in labor or from related complications in the United States. And black infants are twice as likely as white infants to be born prematurely and to die before their first birthdays.

Racial and ethnic minorities also are more likely to die from diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma, and heart disease than their white counterparts, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. And the article goes on to cite a number of lawsuits that are pending. Such as the one brought by Do No Harm, a non profit formed in 2022. It has sued health commissions, pharmaceutical companies, and public health journals trying to stop them from choosing applicants based on race.

And the organization responsible for the lawsuit in the Abundant Birth Project is the Californians for Equal [00:41:00] Rights Foundation. They allege that the program violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution's 14th Amendment by granting money exclusively to black and Pacific Islander women.

Recall, now, recall, put on your constitutional thinking caps. The 14th amendment was passed after the civil war to give rights to formerly enslaved black people. So if it benefits black people, yeah, that was the fucking point. But now the lawsuit says public money used for the project and the three other guaranteed income income programs are discriminatory giveaways that are illegal, wasteful and injurious.

Because remember, we are now. Race neutral. We are race neutral. No more racial bias. We are race neutral because we are a colorblind society. [00:42:00] And the article goes on to say that Kiera Bridges, a Berkeley law professor and anthropologist, who has talked to beneficiaries of the Abundant Birth Project, said that the Supreme Court ruling on college affirmative action could actually support the argument that the program is legal.

Now listen to this.

While statistics on potential benefits from the project are not publicly available, bridges and others familiar with the program expect researcher researchers to demonstrate that it saves and improves lives by comparing the health outcomes of families who received the stipend with those of families who do not, the outcomes could justify employing race to choose program participants.

When the statistics are telling you that the health outcomes for whites and blacks are drastically different. Drastically different. And that these programs are [00:43:00] saving the lives of black people

and in entrepreneurship, where the Civil Rights Act of 1866 is being used to defund and deplatform programs aimed at committing racial justice.

The Fearless Fund is a venture capital firm that focuses on investing in women of color led businesses that was founded in 2019 by Ariane Simone, Ayanna Parsons, and Keisha Knight Pulliam. The fund aims to address the funding disparities faced by women of color entrepreneurs by providing capital, Mentorship and support to help these businesses grow and succeed.

The primary mission of the fearless fund is to bridge the gap in venture capital funding for women of color founders. The fund seeks to level the playing field by providing access to capital and resources that are often out of reach for those entrepreneurs. And why is that? As [00:44:00] Nicole Hannah Jones points out, black women receive just 34 percent of venture capital funds. 34 percent! And so here's this program, the Fearless Fund, attempting to level the playing field. And what happened? Some crusty, dusty, old, fart ass white man said, No!

It's unfair! It's racist! Discriminates against white people because they only give money to women of color!

The aim of the fearless fund. is a more inclusive and equitable entrepreneurial ecosystem where women of color have equal opportunities to thrive and succeed and someone took that personally. The name of that group is the American Alliance for Equal Rights and they sued the Fearless Fund in federal court to block their grant program on the [00:45:00] grounds that it discriminates against white people.

And in a recent court decision called American Alliance for Equal Rights versus Fearless Fund Management The The U. S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in a two to one ruling, held that Fearless Funds Grant Program to provide capital funding to small businesses run by black women violated a key federal civil rights statute.

That dates back to the Civil Rights Act of 1866 known as Section 1981. Now, this is about to get very technical, so just massage your brains, massage it, massage it, get ready to receive this information.

In American Alliance for Equal Rights vs. Fearless Fund Management, the U. S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in a 2 1 ruling held that the Fearless Funds Grant Program to provide capital funding to small businesses run by black women violated a key provision [00:46:00] of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 known as

section 1981 of the U S civil rights act of 1866 is a crucial piece of civil rights legislation. Now, remember the civil rights act was enacted.

To protect the rights of newly freed African Americans in the aftermath of the Civil War. After the Civil War, the US government aimed to integrate formerly enslaved individuals into American society as full citizens. So that's what the Civil Rights Act did. It was one of the first federal laws to do so, to define citizenship, and affirm that all citizens are equally protected by the law. The statute states all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every state and territory to make and enforce contracts. To sue, be parties, give evidence, [00:47:00] and to the full and equal benefit of the laws and proceeding for the security of persons and property, as is enjoyed by white citizens.

Now you're saying to yourself, well, it's a contract. This is charity, right? That was the argument. That the, that the plaintiff made is that when the fearless fund gave money to black women in this matter that it created a contract and you cannot have racism and you can't have racism in contracts. No, you can't.

Provision 1981 ensures that all individuals regardless of race have the same rights to enter into and enforce contracts. This includes employment contracts, leases, and other legal agreements. Section 1981 guarantees the right to sue, be parties in lawsuits, and give evidence in court. This provision ensures access to the judicial system on [00:48:00] equal terms with white citizens.

Again, this was for the benefit, for the benefit of black people, for the benefit of black people. It ensures that all individuals receive the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property. But over the years, while it was for the benefit of black people over the years, numerous court cases have interpreted and expanded the scope of section 1981.

The Supreme Court's decision in Runyon v. McCrary in 1976, it affirmed that Section 1981 applies to private acts of racial discrimination in contracts. Section 1981 has been seen as an essential tool in combating employment discrimination. It provides a federal cause of action for individuals facing racial discrimination in the [00:49:00] workplace, supplementing other laws, Like Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Unlike some other civil rights laws, Section 1981 applies to both public and private discrimination. This broad applicability makes it a powerful tool for addressing racial discrimination in various contexts. The Civil Rights Act of 1991. Expanded section 1981 to include protection against retaliation and clarify that it covers post contract formation conduct, such as discriminatory termination section.

1981 remains a foundational element. element of the U. S. Civil Rights law. It affirms the principle of racial equality in the making and enforcing of contracts and access to legal proceedings, providing a vital legal [00:50:00] mechanism to combat racial discrimination and ensure equal treatment under the law. So with that, the American Alliance for Equal Rights says that these contracts that the fearless fund is making with black women.

are discriminatory because they only benefit white, they only benefit black women. They're only allowed to give money to black women. They're only giving money to black women. And this discriminates against white women in contracts. And you can't have that. So it's illegal. And the court agreed. The court agreed.

The fearless fund, however, their attorneys argue that Rules for the grants are criteria for being eligible for a discretionary gift. They're saying it's a gift and you can give to whoever you want. Or whoever you don't want to give to, you don't have to give to [00:51:00] them. They said do not create a contract, and charitable giving is a form of free speech under the U.

1. Constitution's First Amendment. For And in that case, the Fearless Fund is giving grants to further its belief that black women owned businesses are vital to our economy. And that if you can use your own money, religion to deny someone a wedding cake, then you can use race to decide how to express yourself through charity.

And this was published in a Reuters article called conservative activists uses civil war era law challenging us corporate diversity. But again, the argument that it's charitable giving was unsuccessful. And the court, 11th circuit held that giving money in this manner creates a contract, and that there cannot be any racial discrimination in contracts.

And hey, I agree, no [00:52:00] discrimination in contracts. Absolutely. But this is not a contract. This is charitable giving. This is charitable giving. They're grants. They don't have to pay them back. They don't have to do something. Like, they don't have to be successful at something.

It's here. It's like, uh, your uncle gives you a thousand dollars to start your business. He doesn't give a thousand dollars to your other siblings. Can you sue him? Can you? It's a gift. It's a gift. And either your business is going to fail or it's going to succeed. But there are no conditions. Maybe you use the money to buy a giant ass calculator.

Who knows? It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. The legal wrangling that people are doing to end racial justice. They're doing all of this because something benefits black people when black people have such a [00:53:00] small slice compared to the giant slice of the pie that white people have. As the Reuter article points out, the logic used by the majority opinion is that permitting a grant program open only to black women would be anathema to the principles that underlie all anti discrimination provisions.

and preliminarily enjoined its operation. So for now, they cannot give out any money. Their aim to redress the discrimin so their aim to equalize society has been put on hold. And instead, all of these programs that are trying to redress the horrors of enslavement in the Reconstruction era.

and trying to bring racial inclusion into American society are now being blocked. They're now facing barriers. [00:54:00] They're facing barriers. And we're being introduced to racial subordination and economic injustice. Yes. Yes, we are. Yes. Ah, now shake your head all you want to. This is what is happening.

Because white people are upset that black people are getting something. This You think that we are, are, are receiving the same amount of things that you're receiving because again, you're thinking colorblind. So you're not seeing implicit bias. You're not seeing systemic inequalities. You're not seeing that because you don't believe that shit exists, but that's the shit that's been keeping us below you in American society.

That's the stuff that's been keeping us from being on pace with you. Those are the things that are holding us back and these programs, these scholarships, these admissions, all of these things are [00:55:00] trying to equalize society and bring racial justice to American society and you're mad. You're mad.

Because someone who receives only 0. 34 percent of all venture capital funds might be getting some money

as opposed to The very small amount of money, the very, very teeny tiny amount of money that they're already receiving without a program like the fearless fund. Oh, you poor thing. Oh, you poor baby. Can you imagine? And I know this happens, but there are people who actually despise the poor.

There are people who despise the poor, despise them so much. Why is she getting welfare and food stamps? Why are they buying crab legs with their food stamps? They shouldn't be allowed to buy hot food with food stamps. They should have to go [00:56:00] to the pantry that my parents went to to get the big block of cheese.

The big wheel of government cheese. Back in my day, we had to go and get a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter.

 But as another writer points out, this is a direct quote, The colorblind reading of Section 1981, advanced by the majority opinion, is profoundly anti textual.

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was intentionally written in a race conscious manner. The Act declares that citizens of any race Every race and color shall have the same right to make and enforce contracts to sue, be parties and give evidence to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold and convey real and personal property and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property as enjoyed by white citizens.

Recognizing that enslaved black Americans never had rights to [00:57:00] contract and property rights essential to equal citizenship. Congress used sweeping language to ensure that persons of every race and color would enjoy the same economic freedoms as white citizens. The statute is not aimed at the use or consideration of race at all.

Instead, it uses the rights of white citizens as a baseline to guarantee, to black Americans rights. To guarantee to black Americans rights of economic citizenship that white citizens have long taken for granted, which the majority in this fearless opinion ignored. The writer goes on to say, Congress chose this text for good reason.

The Reconstruction Era Civil Rights Act was critical to enforcing the 13th Amendment. Eradicating badges of slavery and ensuring that black Americans freed from bondage were entitled to basic [00:58:00] economic rights and enjoyment of the fruits of their labor. It came in direct response to former enslavers seeking to impose new forms of servitude you sharecropping and reduce black Americans to serfdom.

 With these new race conscious protections, the Reconstruction era civil rights acts framers insisted, That all features of slavery which are oppressive in their character, which extinguish the rights of free citizens, and which unlawfully control their liberty, shall be abolished and destroyed forever.

The Fearless Fund for Freedom. Ruling perverts the statute's roots in securing economic justice, even as it forbids Black led businesses from using their own money to ameliorate systemic patterns of economic exclusion and inequality. Congress understood the need for far reaching [00:59:00] remedies to rectify centuries of racial enslavement, oppression, and violence, and to ensure some measure of economic justice to Black Americans.

Thank you Now, it cannot be now that we are looking at the United States, the American society, the U. S. American society, and saying, Yes, we've done that! We've done that! We've done all the things that Congress wanted. We've ameliorated systemic patterns of economic exclusion and inequality. Yes, yes, yes, we've done it!

Pick up a fucking book. Read a newspaper. Go outside! Look, look around. How can you say that? Everything is not good, man. Everything is not good. We're seeing white supremacy weaponizing civil rights law against programs and opportunities aimed at [01:00:00] achieving racial justice, fairness, and equality in the United States.

It ain't all good. We're seeing courts now decide that what was meant to bring blacks out of slavery and into equal society with whites being used to say that whites are now the victims. It ain't good.

It's not good.

Black women are dying during pregnancy and childbirth at a higher rate than women of any other race. And yet a program meant to help them with pre and post natal care is somehow illegal because it does not give to women who are not dying at the first or even second highest rate. And now private entities are being frightened into discontinuing scholarships.

Grants, giving programs specifically for uplifting blacks and other racial minorities in the United States. Universities are suspending scholarships, [01:01:00] universities are suspending scholarship programs. Employers are ending DEI initiatives all because they don't want lawsuits. They don't want to be dragged into court because a white person thinks that they're not getting a job or a slot or a spot or money because it's going instead to a black person.

They don't want black people to be treated special. There's a large number of people. who support these lawsuits and they don't want black people to be treated special even though white people have been treated special since the greco roman era. They own the most land, most of the wealth, most of this country, most of the CEOs, most of the professionals, most of the entertainers you see on TV and movies, most of the real estate, most of the housing, most of the lending, [01:02:00] neighborhoods that favor their interests, politics that favors their interests.

The U. S. House and Senate, look at your own state House and Senate. Most of those people are white. Most of the civil service, white. Most of the farmers, white. And it's not that black people aren't there, that they're not applying, that they don't want these positions. They're not being chosen. They're not being chosen.

Even with DEI and affirmative action, and all this other shit, black people are not being chosen.

It's not that we don't want to farm. We certainly do. But we are met with racism when doing so. It's not that we don't want to own homes. We certainly do!

It's that we are met with [01:03:00] racism when we want to own a home that was even owned by a white person. And I saw this story on Twitter. Her name is Dr. Raven Baxter. She's a molecular biologist and an incredibly beautiful and savvy on social media black woman. She told her story to the New York Times and on Twitter of how she was closing on a condo in Virginia Beach, Virginia, when the seller discovered that Ms.

Baxter is a black woman and refused to sell to her. This is in 2024. Refused to sell to her and attempted to undo the contract. Now, if you know anything about contracts, bitch, you cannot just not perform. You got to perform once you sign and say, yes, this is what we're doing. Once you contract, you got a contract,

I don't care [01:04:00] what you think about the person that you have contracted with. It's not about opinions. This is business. And it took much fighting, much fighting on behalf of Ms. Baxter and her real estate agent and others and all this wrangling. And this week, it was announced that the sale would be going through because of course it would be.

Of course. Remember, no discrimination in contracts.

But her story prompted others to respond with their own stories of being denied opportunities to buy homes in certain neighborhoods because of their black race. This is still going on. There was even a person who told a story about a racial covenant that was in their, uh, that was in their deed that said this house cannot be sold to black people.

Those things existed in so many places in the [01:05:00] United States. Read the book, . The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein, and it covers discrimination, racial discrimination in housing in the United States. Excellent book. Lots of facts and figures, which is what I like, of course. But, it talks about racial covenants, housing discrimination, about people being pushed off their land to make way for white neighborhoods.

This is in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s? People who experienced this are still alive today. They're still alive. It shows you that it was not that long ago that people were playing these dumb ass tricks because they didn't want to live even near black people. They certainly didn't want them in their neighborhoods.

They certainly didn't want them as their next door neighbor. You can have a Ford plant and the white people had a neighborhood that was just for them that was close to the plant and the black people had to work. [01:06:00] And the black people had to live at least an hour from where the plant was and commute an hour each way because they were not allowed to live in certain neighborhoods.

The law barred them from living in certain neighborhoods.

It's not that we don't want to live in integrated neighborhoods. It's that we're met with racism when we try to do so. It's not that we don't want to be CEOs or work in boardrooms with big tables and give PowerPoint presentations to overseas connects is that we're met with racism when we apply for these jobs.

And when we're in these jobs, it's not that we don't want to attend predominantly white institutions for undergraduate and graduate programs. It's that we are met with racism when we do.

We're met with racism when we apply. [01:07:00] Remember the SAT? Based in racism. Based in the idea that blacks are intellectually inferior to whites. Yet, legacy and donor based admissions are perfectly fine. But racial admissions, no. No, no, no. But legacy admissions, yes. Legal, perfectly fine. Johns Hopkins got rid of legacy admissions, and they saw the diversity of their student body rise once they got rid of legacy admissions.

I think this was like 10 years ago. Diversity is on the rise. But now that affirmative action is being eliminated too, I don't think Is that diversity going to decline? That remains to be seen.

As Nicole Hannah Jones pointed out recently on Twitter, I love her by the way. I keep quoting her because I love her. She is the author of the 1619 Project with which, republicans, [01:08:00] conservatives, whoever the hell, evangelicals, they hate it. They hate it. How dare you say that America is a racist country?

First of all, hold your horses. It's the United States. But as she pointed out recently on Twitter, black people are 5 percent of the physician population in the United States. But historically black colleges and universities with medical schools are met with threats of lawsuits. If they try to help black people attend medical school,

when good people try to write these injustices, one grant, In scholarship at a time now, they are met with legal roadblocks. It's not that we don't want to do this. It's not that we don't want to be there. It's not that we don't want to participate. It's that we are not able to. And now [01:09:00] this inability is being recodified into state legislation and court cases.

And here we are again, going back to the 1800s, to 1866. Thinking of a remedy for racial injustices that does not offend the whites. And this has been Ayanna Explains It All brought to you by Facts, Figures, and Enlightenment. Take care. [01:10:00]