While President Trump has claimed that the best path to combating racism is equal opportunity and economic prosperity, he is wrong. The history of white American responses to efforts to combat structural inequality during the 1960s and 1970s reveals that black Americans need equal results in all areas of life, not simply equal economic opportunity. When Americans claimed equal opportunity worked, they measured progress for black Americans against the lives of earlier African American generations. While equal opportunity had opened doors for a few African Americans, “so long as black people are at a disproportionate disadvantage in jobs, health, education and housing,” according to Young, equal opportunity operated as a “cruel myth.” Redefining equality as equal results for all Americans, however, would move the nation closer to eliminating these persistent inequalities. By 1980, presidential candidate Ronald Reagan reaffirmed the American myth of “the noble concept of equal opportunity” while criticizing affirmative action.

Source: Washington Post July 15, 2020 09:56 UTC