{"id":25173,"date":"2015-11-16T09:58:41","date_gmt":"2015-11-16T14:58:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=25173"},"modified":"2015-11-16T17:04:21","modified_gmt":"2015-11-16T22:04:21","slug":"confronting-racism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2015\/11\/confronting-racism\/","title":{"rendered":"Confronting Racism"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Plessy_marker\"<\/a>In Plessy v. Ferguson<\/em><\/a>, Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote \u201c[o]ur constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.\u201d [1] Today, most people might say they too are color-blind. However, race relations have been prevalent in the news as of late<\/a> because the state of racism in America has mutated. Racism is rarely as bold as the cross burnings of yore, but no less insidious. [2]<\/p>\n

Because racism is different, our understanding of our inherent biases must also become different. I believe the modern definition of racism has shifted. I define racism as taking a negative action towards someone, whether explicitly or implicitly, on account of their race. This means that people can take racist actions without being aware that they are doing so<\/a>.[3] We can no longer oversimplify racism, and instead need to confront it within ourselves and as a community.<\/p>\n

As a country, we need to do a better job confronting racism. A plethora of high profile incidents, involving police brutality and campus outrage, have given us another opportunity to confront our inherent biases. Unfortunately, too many \u201ccolor-blind\u201d people have not heeded the second part of Justice Harlan\u2019s dissent and have instead tolerated or even justified <\/a>the systemic mistreatment of classes of citizens. [4]<\/p>\n

Indeed, even as a campus community, we must do a better job of destroying the castes we unknowingly assign to people. Far too often, we as a campus have been disinterested in efforts to address racism. However, we all have a role to play, especially as developing lawyers, to end racism. Pretending racism does not exist on this campus is the same as tolerating <\/a>that same racism. [5]<\/p>\n

And this is what my generation must fix. This is what we can fix. We have come a long way since Plessy v. Ferguson<\/em>, but we still have a long way to go. That requires an affirmative effort; tolerating the systemic mistreatment of classes of people is no longer acceptable. While it is important to be proud of whatever culture one comes from, that pride need not come at the expense of others. I encourage you to take the Implicit Association Test <\/a>as a first step towards addressing the inherent biases we all hold.<\/p>\n

[1] 163 U.S. 537, 559 (1896), overruled by Brown v. Bd. of Ed. of Topeka, Shawnee Cty., Kan., 347 U.S. 483, (1954).<\/em>
\n[2] http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/06\/12\/business\/economy\/discrimination-in-housing-against-nonwhites-persists-quietly-us-study-finds.html<\/em>
\n[3] http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2014\/11\/26\/us\/ferguson-racism-or-racial-bias\/index.html<\/em>
\n[4] See http:\/\/mu-warrior.blogspot.com\/2015\/06\/self-righteous-marquette-diversity.html<\/em>
\n[5] http:\/\/www.marquette.edu\/provost\/climate-results.php<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Plessy v. Ferguson, Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote \u201c[o]ur constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.\u201d [1] Today, most people might say they too are color-blind. However, race relations have been prevalent in the news as of late because the state of racism in America has mutated. Racism is rarely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":203,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[98,44,122,57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civil-rights","category-political-processes-rhetoric","category-public","category-race-and-the-law","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/203"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}