Is America a Racist Country?

In the Republican response To President Biden’s speech, Senator Tim Scott made the statement that “America is not a racist country. “ Say what?!

Now Senator Scott is not one of the extreme members of his party. And his comment was greeted with inappropriate name calling in social media. My immediate reaction was a desire to see him debate an expert like Ibram X Kendi. But I’ve given his statement a little thought.

Racism has been called America’s original sin. We’ve had 245 years of slavery followed by a century of Jim Crow segregation. And since the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act of the 1960s, the struggle has not been easy.

Not to mention how Native Americans were conquered and oppressed as our nation expanded. And the treatment of other groups of non-white immigrants.

Racism was a factor in the election of the Former Guy and Asian Americans have been being attacked as of late. There seems to be overt racism in law enforcement and a disproportionate number of black people in prison. In my opinion, the Black Lives Matter movement is justified.

On the other hand, not all Americans are racist. As a thought experiment, I wonder what the results would be if the entire country took the Harvard Implicit Association Test. Although there are plenty of racists and bigots, most people do not fall into that category.

Having grown up in a small town in the 1960s, I picked some racist attitudes from my family and community. It wasn’t until I moved into an urban environment and become exposed to a lot of different people that I realized my attitude was wrong, so I consider myself a recovering racist.

Our Founders owned slaves and wrote the three-fifths compromise into the Constitution. This mistake was later corrected by the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments and a century later by legislation during the civil rights era. So our laws are no longer inherently racist.

There is a philosophical difference between the left and the right in this country. Conservatives believe that there already is equality of opportunity (if a person works hard enough). Liberals believe that we still have not achieved our ideals.

So after giving Senator Scott’s statement a little thought, I have concluded that we are a country of recovering racists. America is not a racist country in theory. In practice, not so much.