According to Delridge L. Hunter’s “Law of Position”, boundaries are created to form distinctions

between groups. It is impossible for someone to reach another group without crossing the boundary that

separates them. Once the distinction is made, it becomes the way that you are identified. The reasons for

making distinctions, and labeling each group is to create values for the different groups. Society creates a

socio hierarchal system where the group who is most valued holds the favored position. Whereas the

group that is least valued holds the least favored position.1 This socio hierarchal system creates a lifelong

objective for each group. The objective for the group holding the most favored position is to never be in a

condition where it crosses the boundary into the position occupied by the least favored group. The goal

for the group in the least favored position is to do everything in its power to cross boundary and occupy

the favored position. But what happens when society creates extra boundaries that makes it even more

difficult for the group occupying the least favored position to crossover into the more favorable position.

For this literary review I will analyze several articles, text, and primary data and statistics from several

government databases.

In the United States there is a three class social system, the upper class, middle class, and the

lower class. The upper class are the people that are very wealthy and powerful. The middle class is made

up of people that are professional workers, and small business owners. The lower class consist of people

who mostly lives paycheck to paycheck. They are the ones who rely on low paying jobs to live day to day

and often experiences poverty. With the system being set up mostly on a fixture of earnings, it becomes

very difficult for someone in the lower class to cross boundaries into the upper class. The gap between the

upper class and the lower class continue to widen. The rich in America continues to get rich and the poor

get poorer. According to a study done by Sociologists Dennis Gilbert and Joseph Kahl the upper class

with earnings of millions to billions of dollars per year in America is only 3%. The middle class with

yearly salary ranging from $76,000 or more for upper middle class while the lower middle class yearly

income is $46,000-$75,000. The middle class make up 40 % of America’s population. The working class

1 Hunter, Delridge Va Leon. A Strange Case of Bad Faith. 2013.

which makes up 30% of the population, earns from $19,000-$45,000 yearly. The group holding the least

favored position is the lower class, they make up 27% of the population. Gilbert and Kahl divided the

lower class into two groups, the working poor and underclass. The working poor made up of 13% earns

$9,000 to $18,000, while the underclass making up %14 of the population earned less than 9,000 a year.

America is one of the world’s global superpowers and people are expected to survive on less than $9,000

a year. 2

Studies shows that wealth and income is highly bias along ethnic lines. Although people of all

race experience poverty, the number is vastly higher in communities heavily populated by people of

color. A study of the U.S Census Bureau for the city of Chicago, shows that in 2009 22% of Chicago’s

resident had an income that was largely below the poverty line. It is also evident that from the 22% who

lived below the poverty level in 2002-2009, blacks experienced higher poverty levels than that of Asian,

Whites, and Hispanic/Latino. From 2002-2009 30% of blacks were consistently below the poverty line.3

2 Gilbert, Dennis, and Joseph Kahl. "The American Class Structure in an Age of Growing Inequality, 7th Ed." Reference & Research Book News, August 1, 2008.

3 "American Community Survey (ACS)." American Community Survey (ACS). http://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/.

When analyzing the information to strengthen my stance, the statistics from the U.S Bureau

shows that these aforementioned numbers tend to be in line with numbers for America as a whole. The

interesting thing about these numbers is that no matter how much America tries to show that it improved

racially, the disparity in living seems to stay the same. In an article in The Atlantic Phillip bump states “In

2012, 35 percent of blacks lived in poverty, compared to 13 percent of whites. In 1970, those rates were

33.6 percent and 10 percent, respectively. Poverty in the black community is higher, and has been

consistently” (Bump, Phillip the Atlantic 2014)4

There are a lot of factors to show why the numbers in the graph shown above, which also

represents so many urban cities across America looks the way that it does, and I will continue to present

literary facts to back my stance. People that grow up in impoverish environment have a harder time of

making it out. Often in impoverish communities the lack of resources tends to make the cycle continue

for the following generation. Residential segregation and ongoing poverty has left a lot African

Americans in some of the least favorable housing in some of the poorest communities in America. Due to

much higher poverty rates families in neighborhoods have to survive with less resources. Couple the high

poverty rate with lack of resources, and the continuance of the cycle of an impoverish people is almost

inevitable. Neighborhoods with high impoverish rates experience a lot of disadvantages. Some of these

disadvantages apart from money includes lack of jobs, underfunded schools, single parent household, lack

of healthcare and in a lot of impoverish areas high crime rate.

It is not just the kids of color from the poor urban cities that are affected, middle class kids tend to

experience the same outcome. In a study by economist Julia B. Isaacs, she highlights that a high majority

of kids born into middle class families will drop down to a poorer income bracket as adults. According to

her surveying of the Census Bureau data she states that 37 percent of white children born to parents in the

middle group move up to the bracket economically whereas only 17 percent of black children whose

parents share the same levels of income. She also highlights in her findings that 45 percent of black

4Bump, Phillip, “The Source of Black Poverty Isn’t Black Culture, its American Culture,” April 1, 2014, http://www.thewire.com/politics/2014/04/the-source-of-black-poverty-isnt-black-culture-its-american-culture/359937/.

children whose parents were solidly middle class ends up falling to the bottom of the income distribution

compared to 16 percent of white children. When analyzing these numbers, it is clear that being middle

class does not seem to protect black children from future economic adversity the same way it protects

white children. In the case of both groups coming from poor families the numbers is even more alarming

54 percent of black children that come from poor families stay at the bottom of spectrum where as 31

percent of whites share the same fate. Julia Isaacs also explains in her article that an important reason for

the decline in numbers is because “middle class black children are much more likely to grow up in

neighborhoods with high rates of poverty than middle-class white children.” 5

In the case of education, one of the reasons that it is difficult for someone in the lower class to

cross boundary to the most favored position is lack of funding. A report from the U.S Department of

Education shows that More Than 40% of Low-Income Schools Don't Get a Fair Share of State and Local

Funds. The report also showed that Schools in impoverish communities receive less than their fair share

of state and local funding, leaving students in high-poverty schools with fewer resources than schools

attended by their wealthier peers6. With these type of statistics we see the blatant inequalities between the

different classes. In the state of Illinois the results of the 2013 grade school exams further exposed

differences in how students perform at schools in wealthy communities compared with those in

disadvantaged communities.

There are other extenuating factors that cause kids in impoverish communities do worse than

children in better off communities. One reason is that Children living in poverty have a higher number of

absenteeism or leave school all together because they are more likely to have to work or care for family

members. Parents in impoverish communities are often poorly educated and may struggle with health

problems, both of which can interfere with their ability to prepare their children for school. Some poor

parents may have deficits in parenting skills, struggle with addiction or have employment problems that 5Julia B Isaacs, “Economic Mobility of Black and White Families,” Huffington Post (The Brookings Institution), November 1, 2007, black and white-Isaacs.6

“More Than 40% of Low-Income Schools Don't Get a Fair Share of State and Local Funds, Department of Education Research Finds. November 30, 2011

interfere with their ability to care for their children. A study done by Will Dobbie and Roland Fryer in

2005 shows that at nine months, there is no cognitive differences between black and white babies.

Differences began to appear as early as age 2. Dobbie and Fryer also stated that by the time that black

children enter kindergarten they lag whites by 0.64 standard deviations in math and 0.40 in reading7. As

the children both black and white continue to grow and progress through school, the achievement gaps

widens as well. This study shows that most healthy children start at the same pace, but lack of resources

in impoverish communities allows kids of color to lag behind. The lack of resources in urban

communities reinforces the systematic discrimination that plagues the cities across America.

Again like I have previously elucidated in previous paragraphs, people of color that come from

poor communities are not the only ones affected. The system tends to affect colored people regardless to

status or class. In 2008 using data from the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE), the

company Higher Education Careers Services Unit (HECSU) conducted a survey to see the number of

graduates from each ethnic group that graduated in 2003/2004 and 2005/2006. According to their

statistics, they analyzed how many students received jobs sixth months after graduation. The numbers

showed that graduation rate in 2003/2004 to 2005/2006 for Africans Americans and others (Caribbean

etc.) trended upwards up to 39.9% from 29.2%. Using the same graduation statistics (HESCU) gauged the

unemployment of students six months after graduation.

While the statistics show that all ethnic experienced unemployment, studies showed that

unemployment for colored minorities were remarkably higher than that of their white peers. The statistics

show that in 2006 5.7 percent of white graduates unemployed, and in comparison 13.3 percent black

African graduates. To my amazement, there studies have also stated that an African-American male with

an associate’s degree has around the same chance of getting a job as a white male with just a high school

diploma8. 7 Dobbie, Will, and Roland G. Fryer. "Are High-Quality Schools Enough to Increase Achievement Among the Poor? Evidence from the Harlem Children's Zone." American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 3, no. 3 (November 2011).

8Charlie Ball, “What Do Graduates Do - and Where Do They Do It?” Huffington Post, June 18, 2013, http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/charlie-ball/graduate-jobs_b_3107007.html.

In terms of crossing the socio economic boundary, the system shows that African Americans have

to work twice as hard to achieve some of those in the favored position. According to data from the Bureau

of Labor Statistics, US Census Bureau. Analysis conducted June, 2014, from ages 18-34 shows that

attaining a professional, both black males and white males bring in marginally the same income,

difference averaging $1,000. However according to these same studies, a black male who receives a

bachelors makes slightly less than a white male who only received his associates. A black male with a

bachelor’s degree brings in a median income of $45,300, whereas a white male with an associates median

income is $46,000. The number is even more alarming as the lower you go on the education attainment

scale. A white male with a High school diploma has a median income of $37,400 in comparison to a

black male who attainted an associate’s degree median income is $35,300. These statistics show that

black males that achieved twice as much in the education field are still valued as less than their white

counterpart9.

From these statistics we see that systemic discrimination is clearly evident against people of

color. These stats shows that African Americans are disproportionately unemployed and downgraded to

lower paying jobs in comparison to the white counterpart. Clearly this level of systemic inequality favors

white workers, because in terms of economics which is power, this allows them to remain at the top of the

hierarchal system. Being at the top of the hierarchical system is the more favored and desired position.

There are so many barriers in place to prohibit blacks from crossing boundary to the desired position. It

just a constant reminder that above everything else the color of your skin is one of the biggest factor. It is

a daily reminder that because of a different skin pigmentation people treat you different and unjust.

Constantly people of color are reminded that their path to success is even more arduous, so when the

effort to succeed is met with push back, it becomes disheartening. A lot of people of color face many

barriers and hurdles whether it is the feeling of isolation in abandoned impoverished communities, lack of

9

O'Sullivan, Rory, Konrad Mugglestone, and Tom Allison. Closing the Race Gap: Alleviating Young African American Unemployment through Education. 2014.

care for young adolescent, higher loans and insurance rates, or high unemployment rate just to name a

few.

Another case that furthers the argument that systemic discrimination truly exist is a study done

for CNNs “Black in America” by Devah Pager, a professor at Princeton. Her study showed that a black

man with a clean record has the same chances of getting a job as a white man with a felon. In her study

conducted in New York and Milwaukee, she took a group of men both black and white and assigned them

resumes with equal levels of education and experience, and sent them to apply for real entry-level job

openings all over the city. Her findings were that when men from both race have a clean criminal record

whites applicants were more than twice as likely to receive a callback compared to equally qualified

blacks. Pager and her team then created fake criminal records for white potential applicants, where on the

applicants would admit to felony drug offense on their application. After a year of conducting the study,

her findings showed that whites with a felony conviction fared just as well, if not better, than a black

applicant with a clean background. The interesting thing about her case study is that on the resumes that

she created for black young men, they were posing as college kids, models of discipline and hard work

and yet there application still got looked over10.

The systemic discrimination does not only affect people of color in 6economics, and education

alone. These two staples are what leads to success in life, lack of either one can have a downward domino

effect. Not only does it affect a person, it negatively affects his or her community as well. The impact that

systematic discrimination can have on a people or neighborhood is disconcerting. This negative effect can

be felt for generations, “Joblessness has a significantly higher impact on…obesity, alcohol consumption,

poverty, and income (Jake Dean). To believe this statement to be true, history have to be explored to see

how people of color were affected. It would be a disservice and an injustice to the proposition if actions

were not taken to verify how the systemic discrimination against earlier generations played a part on

present, and therefore future generations.

10 Pager, Devah. "Study: Black Man and White Felon – Same Chances for Hire." Anderson Cooper 360 RSS. August 09, 200/. http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2008/08/09/study-black-man-and-white-felon-same-chances-for-hire/.

The systemic discrimination does not only affect people of color in economics, and education

alone. These two staples are what leads to success in life, lack of either one can have a downward domino

effect. Not only does it affect a person, it negatively affects his or her community as well. This negative

effect can be felt for generations, “Joblessness has a significantly higher impact on…obesity, alcohol

consumption, poverty, and income.” 11 To believe this statement to be true, history have to be explored to

see how people of color were affected. Must also verify to see how the systemic discrimination against

earlier generations played a part on present, and therefore future generations.

Another historical event that enabled blacks to being systematically discriminated against is the

ruling in the Plessy v. Ferguson case. Plessy v. Ferguson was a very important Supreme Court case that

legally upheld the constitutionality of segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine. Separate but

equal allowed for Jim Crowe laws to permeate in the south. The Jim Crowe laws were laws created to

allow racial segregation. The law enacted the separation of race in all public facilities, which was in result

to the “separate but equal” decision in the Plessy v. Ferguson case. It is widely known that the conditions

of all the public facilities for African Americans were consistently inferior and underfunded compared to

those provided for whites. These decisions, being the “separate but equal”, and Jim Crow laws established

a number of economic and educational disadvantages in black communities that still lingers today. The

actions of segregation and “separate but equal” led to systemic discrimination in regards to bank lending

practices, job discrimination, including discriminatory union practices for decades. A lot of the actions are

still being used in present day, just more covertly12.

During this time, prior to the era of Jim Crow laws and the acknowledgment of “Separate but

Equal”, the south passed other laws known as black codes and pig laws. As previously stated, the black

codes were laws that prevented African Americans certain rights. African Americans were not allowed

11 Blackmon, Douglas A. Slavery by another Name: The Re-enslavement of Black People in America from the Civil War to World War II. New York: Doubleday, 2008.

12 Postema, Gerald J. Racism and the Law: The Legacy and Lessons of Plessy. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997.

the rights to testify against whites, to serve on juries or in state militias, vote, or start a job without the

approval of the previous employer. These laws were repealed during reconstruction era, but the failure of

the reconstruction era allowed the south to create new laws that systematically discriminated against

people of color. Again, some of these laws created required literacy tests, poll taxes, elaborate registration

systems, which was an effective way of excluding black to vote. “Pig laws” was a blatant act of

discrimination that is still present today. According to Robert Sauté’s book For the Poor and

Disenfranchised Pig Laws unfairly penalized poor African Americans for crimes such as stealing a farm

animal, and other laws like vagrancy statutes made it a crime to be unemployed. Many misdemeanors or

trivial offenses were treated as felonies, with harsh sentences and fines. He also states in his text that “the

law defining the theft of any property over $10 as grand larceny quadrupled the prison population”13.

Remnants of “pig laws” and black codes is very much in existence today. In response to “pig

laws” passed in the 1800s, during that time it made the prison population quadruple. These bias laws were

made to imprison people of color. Today’s laws are bias as well at the expense of colored people. In 2011

according to FBI database there are 7 million people imprisoned. These numbers include federal, state, or

local prisons and jails. These numbers makes the United States number one in the world in incarceration

rate. The disturbing fact about these numbers is the racial makeup of the 7 million people imprisoned.

According the 2013 census bureau with an estimation of 45,003,665, blacks accounted for 14.1 percent of

the United States population. Whites on the other hand accounted for 77 percent with an estimation of

245,532,000 people. These numbers included Hispanics who identified as white. African Americans only

make up 14.1 percent of America Yet in 2011 according to FBI database, black Americans constituted

30% of persons arrested for a property offense and 38% of persons arrested for a violent offense. A study

showed that

African-American males are six times more likely to be incarcerated than white males and 2.5 times more likely than Hispanic males.3 If current trends continue, one of every three black

13 Sauté, Robert. For the Poor and Disenfranchised: An Institutional and Historical Analysis of American Public Interest Law, 1876-1990.

American males born today can expect to go to prison in his lifetime, as can one of every six Latino males—compared to one of every seventeen white males. (sentencingproject.org/)

These startling numbers shows that the system needs to be reformed. The criminal justice system is a

race based institution where African Americans are directly targeted and punished in a much more

aggressive way than other races. According to an article in the Wall street Journal “Prison sentences of

black men were nearly 20% longer than those of white men for similar crimes in recent years” (Palazzo,

2013). The system is supposed to be fair and just, but the disparity in these numbers says otherwise.

It is a known fact that it is harder for people of color to get approved for a bank loan, and if they

are approved the interest is much higher. According to Stephen Ross, “getting approved for credit in

today’s market after the market crash is hard, coupled with being someone of color, it can go from bad to

worse.”14 .There are many examples of banks discrimination against people of color that were qualified

for loans. In 2006 in the state of California, Bank of America agreed to pay $355 million to resolve issues

of alleged discrimination against people of color. The Huffington post reported that according to

complaints made to the department of justice, Bank of America’s affiliate Countrywide charged over

200,000 African American borrowers’ higher fees and interest than that of whites who shared similar

credit profiles. According to the complaint made to the Department of Justice, the reason for these higher

fees and rates was more because of their race than any other criteria. In response to the ruling in

Department of Justice against Bank of America Attorney General stated the obvious that "These

institutions should make judgments based on applicants' creditworthiness, not on the color of their

skin,”15. Wells Fargo also practice system discrimination when it came to giving loan to people that are

qualified. Wells Fargo the nation’s largest home mortgage lender agreed to pay upwards of $175 million

to resolve issues that its broker discriminated against people of color who were looking to get loans. Just

14 Ross, Stephen L., and John Yinger. The Color of Credit: Mortgage Discrimination, Research Methodology, and Fair-lending Enforcement. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002.

15 Eskow, Richard (RJ). "That $335 Million BofA Settlement: The Good, the Bad, and the Very Ugly." The Huffington Post. December 21, 2011. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/335-million-bank-settleme_b_1164053.html.

like Bank of America’s affiliate countrywide, independent brokers associated with Wells Fargo charged

higher fees and rates to more than 30,000 minorities. Wells Fargo’s brokers charged people of minorities

more than whites even though both shared the same credit profile and posed the same risk. The New

York Times article also reported that “Wells Fargo brokers also steered more than 4,000 minority

borrowers into costlier subprime mortgages when white borrowers with similar credit risk profiles had

received regular loans”16. This just goes to show the bias and unjust against people of color. These two

examples out of many shows that lending discrimination is real, and that blacks borrowers face higher

hurdles.

Although the country has grown substantially when dealing with race relations, these finding

proves the harsh reality that the country is still a long way from having equality amongst different racial

group. Hatred is a mind state, in order to have progress hate must be eliminated from the cognitive.

Conversations need to be had to have understanding about people who are distinctively different.

Educating society on the history of hatred experienced in America and how it negatively affected large

groups of people, is vital in eliminating hate in future generations. When acts of racism and

discrimination against any one of any race, it must be exposed and condemned. Expose the hate and

promote unity amongst all. Preach tolerance, this way everyone can learn to live together. To have a

society without discrimination, then we must eliminate discrimination in the process of building this

society.

16 Savage, Charlie. "Wells Fargo Will Settle Mortgage Bias Charges." The New York Times. July 12, 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/13/business/wells-fargo-to-settle-mortgage-discrimination-charges.html?_r=0.

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(huffington Post).Blackmon, Douglas A. 2008. Slavery by Another Name: The Re-enslavement of Black People in

America from the Civil War to World War II. New York: Doubleday.Bump, Phillip. 2014. "The Source of Black Poverty Isn't black culture, It's American Culture."

the Atlantic. Dobbie, Will, and Roland G. Fryer. 2011. Are High-Quality Schools Enough to Increase

Achievement Among the Poor? Applied Ecomomics, New York City: American Economic Journal.

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August 08.

Postema, Gerald J. 1997. Racism and the Law: The Legacy and Lessons of Plessy. Kluwer Academic.

Ross, Steven L., and John Yinger. 2002. The Color of Credit: Mortgage Discrimination, research Methedology, and Fair-Lending Enforcement. Cambridge: Mit press.

Saute, Robert. 2000. For the Poor and Disenfranchised: An Institutional and Historiucal Analysis of American Public Interest Law.

Savage, Charlie. 2012. "Wells Fargo Will Settle Mortgage ias Charges." The New York Times . U.S. Cencus bureau. 2011. "A Profile of Health and Health withing Chicago's 77 Communities."

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of State and Local Funds."

Systematic Discrimination

Keith Boyce

Senior Seminar

Professor Awolabi

April 12, 2016