You can wish upon a star but not equality

In light of the new supreme court decision on affirmative action, I am greatly troubled. Recently The United States Supreme court vote 6-2 in favor of allowing the state of Michigan to make laws that do not use races as a factor when admitting students to college. After Taking this class as well as some others at Rhodes I feel this is one of the greatest mistakes the supreme court could possibly make. Chief Justice Roberts argues that to get rid of racism we must stop talking about race. This idea instinctively sounds promising. If we just consider everybody equal and do not discriminate, then we will all live in a truly egalitarian society. But to do this is to forget our past and the effects that racism has had on the contemporary moment. In my Capitalism class as well as in this class, I have researched significantly the housing discrimination that ensued through laws that deliberately discriminated against the entire African American community. This issue has had lasting impacts on the African American community long after the law were changed not to discriminate.  An example is that blacks still live disproportionally in the poorest of neighborhoods due to the impact of redlining and white preventing blacks from moving into white neighborhoods for the sake of profit. Consequently, these same people go to the lowest quality of school because of public schools heavily reliance on property taxes.  So to say that we are not still effected by the effects of our past is simply not true.  Justice Roberts and the other 5 members who voted in favor of the state of Michigan fail to recognized that we are still an extremely divided country. They fail to recognize that on average African Americans make 13 times less than the average white person.  Blacks are also less likely to be employed with a college degree than a white American is. This is why we must continue to consider race in college acceptance. Even though we have attained legal equality, there is still substantial inequalities economically and socially between the white and black communities. To truly get rid of them we cannot simply wish them away and say everyone has an equal chance at achieving in this capitalistic system. To achieve an equal playing field, we have to remember the past and right the wrongs of it. Things like affirmative actions is one way to achieve that, but that is not the only place we can do better. We must also make a conscious effort of making employment more equitable, housing more equitable and even healthcare more equitable. These are all major disparities that still continue to impact African American communities across America in 2016. So to Justice Roberts, can you and your old white friends realize that we don’t live in a magic world where everyone now has an equal chance at success and start helping to address some of these problems rather than further promoting them.

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