Introduction
Throughout the history of the United States, the hallmarks of the country’s democracy, including prosperity, freedom, and opportunity, have been almost completely reserved for Whites. The intentional exclusion, oppression, and victimization of Blacks have become deeply embedded in society as manifested by people’s conscious and unconscious behaviors. Skin color became the basis of privileging or disadvantaging individuals as the physical presence of complexion was embraced as the symbol of identity and value. However, through aggressive civil rights actions and the progressive multi-racialization of communities, racism has mutated and adapted to the changing environment. As a result, people with racist tendencies make substantially fewer overt hostile expressions due to widespread disapproval of such actions despite entrenched underlying bias and attitudes against blacks. This evolution reflects modern racism, which is characterized by prejudices expressed in more nuanced, ambiguous, and subtle ways. Although most Americans think that racism has been eradicated, it has evolved and adopted numerous versions, some of which may be barely recognizable but deny the victim the right to be fully human.
Skin Color Prejudices
Skin color is an influential factor in human relationships because people are visual beings who respond to one another based on their physical presentation. Race-based prejudices reflect the perceptions, attitudes, behaviors, and treatment of individuals based primarily on their complexion. Over the years, American societies have attached enormous significance to skin color, effectively making it a clear signifier of value and identity. Consequently, skin color has served as the most influential criterion in determining whether a person will be privileged or disadvantaged. For instance, Milner et al. contend that the physical disparities between Whites and Blacks have been used as the basis for dispensing exclusion, oppression, and victimization against people of color (397). In this regard, the definitive characteristics of prosperity, opportunity, and freedom, which signify America’s democracy, are largely a preserve of the Whites. This implies that the daily experiences of the Blacks were characterized by actions designed to offend, humiliate, dehumanize, and generally deny their claim to be fully human.
Notably, the United States was built on the principles of racism and slavery. These foundational problems were not adequately addressed by such initiatives as writing a new constitution and the American Civil War. However, the previously held prejudices and biases that generated overt racist actions significantly subsided but continued to entrench throughout the entire strata of American society. For instance, the hostile treatment and brazen discriminatory actions against minorities were reduced substantially due to widespread disapproval and unacceptability of their direct expression. However, these changes in attitude do not indicate behavioral adjustment and embrace of the Blacks. Salter et al. argue that present-day racism became embedded through the maintenance of such covert skin-based prejudices and biases as the White objection to interracial marriages and view of Blacks as an inferior race (150). In this regard, communities of color experienced more nuanced forms of racism, reflecting skin-based prejudice’s ability to mutate and adapt to the changing environment.
Mutating Racism
Modern racism is the changing nature of prejudices based on skin complexion. Notably, these recent forms of biases do not openly endorse or express racist views or stereotypes. This implies that there is notable integration and acceptance of individuals with varying skin tones, but the prejudicial actions and tendencies are expressed indirectly or covertly. For instance, a racist person may avoid any meaningful contact with communities of color or condemn their cultural practices and values. Schaub notes that racist actions are no longer manifested in the conventional hostile versions but are accomplished through subtle practices that may go unrecognized (19). The trend reflects the ability of racism to respond to the rising sensitivity of the people and the widespread rejection of prejudice. However, the predisposition against people of color can still be identified in practices that elevate whiteness while considering the activities of the blacks as inferior or repugnant.
The mutation of racism is characterized by the rapid decline of overtly prejudicial practices that defined the Jim Crow era. Notably, this evolution is complex and significantly harder to observe due to the deep entrenchment of biases across traditions, institutions, and people’s unconscious lives. In this regard, explicitly negative attitudes and actions towards a different race have declined sharply while giving way to covert practices. Morris illustrates this perspective by demonstrating the shock suffered by the hosts of a tennis tournament after Lori McNeil, a black participant, eliminated Steffi Graf in the first round in 1994. The incident underscored the mutating racism that allowed McNeil to participate in the event, although nobody anticipated her win. According to Cramer, such biased expectancy is underlined by preferential predisposition and inclination toward Whites and the perception that Blacks cannot be as good as their light-colored counterparts (154). In this regard, racism has mutated and adopted subtle forms that increasingly entrench prejudice due to the absence of hostile or openly discriminatory features.
Generally, the mutation of racism into its modern forms has primarily been enabled by the changing public attitudes, which led to the almost complete elimination of segregation tendencies. In this regard, when racist acts are committed, they attract widespread condemnation and almost unanimous public outrage (Toosi et al. 1185). For instance, the murder of George Floyd was categorized as racially inspired, and the stereotypical attitudes of white police officers against Blacks were a causal factor that triggered Floyd’s brutalization and eventual murder.
In an incident that reflects similar negative biases against African Americans, Stephen Clark, a 22-year-old man, was fatally shot by police officers attending to a distress call after mistaking a phone in his hand for a gun. At the time of the incident, Clark was in his grandmother’s backyard, oblivious to the ongoing car break-in in the neighborhood (Alexander). While these openly discriminatory and hostile actions still occur, they are isolated and far in between. However, it is socially acceptable and expected that Blacks would have frequent police stops and the decision bar for searching was comparatively lower than that of whites (Pierson et al. 736). From this perspective, it is evident that the growing public disapproval of racism has significantly contributed to the reduction of overt hostile actions against Blacks. While those changes illustrate the behavioral adjustments of the Whites towards communities of color, the underlying attitude remains largely unchanged. As a result, Blacks still experience racism in such subtle forms as higher police stoppages and lower thresholds of a decision to conduct a search. Therefore, the declining tolerance for brazen racist behaviors has made life less hazardous for Blacks.
The impact of stereotypical thinking and negative perceptions inherited from the past and entrenched in societies for centuries is considerably difficult to eradicate. The absence of tolerance for hostile actions and practices against Blacks does not imply a genuine embrace of non-racist tendencies. For instance, such issues as equality of opportunity and fair treatment in the workplace are yet to be achieved. In this regard, modern racists will suppress their stereotypes and prejudices and strongly argue how racial equality has been achieved. Consequently, they will oppose the development of additional policies designed to promote equality or abolish the structural barriers that impede Blacks’ elevation. However, the underlying argument of such propositions is that racism has been neutralized, and the status quo should be maintained. By opposing policies or actions meant to minimize prejudices and biases, modern racists utilize such opportunities as outlets for their attitudes. Therefore, racism has evolved and become more oblique than confrontational and prejudicial attitudes are increasingly being expressed in nuanced and more subtle ways.
Moreover, the enormous strides taken to eradicate racism leading to the radical reduction of violent behaviors, have contributed to the trivializing of modern racist tendencies. This implies that such prejudiced actions as disagreeing with a policy aiming at improving the lives of the Black have been validated as not racism at all. While obvious and overt forms of prejudice and biases are increasingly becoming fewer due to widespread disapproval and changing attitudes, racists subtly exploit ambiguity to perpetuate their motives. In this regard, people’s understanding of racism ought to become more advanced and sophisticated to match the ever-evolving subtlety and elusiveness. For instance, in ‘My Mustache, My Self’, Morris decries the reality of people chiding his mustache. He understands that their dislike of their mustache emanates from the rich heritage of influential African Americans. Morris notes that mustache worn by such Black men as Ralph Abernathy, John Lewis, Jesse Jackson, and Martin Luther King Jr. signified such values as perseverance, rigor, seriousness, and ideological commitment to African American freedom. As a result, these individuals became the face of racially inspired exclusion, victimization, and oppression.
White supremacy is perpetuated by historical and contemporary norms, policies, and practices that have been altered to appear less intense or extreme. Consequently, a significant proportion of racist actions have become undetectable or unrecognizable. The false hierarchies of human value created by racism have been eroded by changing times and have even adopted such new fancy titles as white nationalism. For instance, a co-worker making assumptions about a person’s ability or competence based on their skin color can go undetected due to subtlety, absence of hostility, or nuanced nature. However, the lack of those characteristics does not invalidate the fact that the behavior or action reflects societal perceptions, rejection of hostility, and acceptance of other forms of racism. This new reality implies that society ought to recognize and address the emerging strains of subtle racism, which are destructive as the previous versions.
Conclusion
Over the years, racism has mutated and adopted different forms as it adapted to the changing environment. The evolution has become significantly difficult to observe due to continually changing public attitudes. Consequently, racists make substantially fewer overt hostile activities, primarily due to the widespread public disapproval of racially inspired actions. Although it is no longer acceptable to express prejudice and bias openly, it is being perpetrated through such implicit tendencies as opposed to ideas that elevate the Blacks or a dislike of behavior reminiscent of their struggles. In this regard, the absence of hostilities does not reflect the genuine eradication of racism as it becomes more oblique than confrontational.
Works Cited
Alexander, Elizabeth. “The Trayvon Generation”, The New Yorker, 2020.
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Milner, Adrienne et al. “We Need to Talk About Racism — In All of Its Forms — To Understand COVID-19 Disparities.” Health Equity, vol. 4, no. 1, 2020, pp. 397-402.
Morris, Wesley. “My Mustache, My Self”, The New York Times, 2020.
Pierson, Emma et al. “A Large-Scale Analysis of Racial Disparities in Police Stops Across the United States.” Nature Human Behaviour, vol. 4, no. 7, 2020, pp. 736-745.
Salter, Phia S. et al. “Racism in The Structure of Everyday Worlds: A Cultural-Psychological Perspective.” Current Directions in Psychological Science, vol. 27, no. 3, 2017, pp. 150-155.
Schaub, Jean-Frédéric. “Birth of Modern Racism in the 15th Century.” Communications, vol. 107, no. 2, 2020, pp. 19-30.
Toosi, Negin R. et al. “Recognizing Racism in George Floyd’s Death.” Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, vol 21, no. 1, 2021, pp. 1184-1201.