The issue of race in the 1990‘s: segregation and justice scandals

Résumé du document

To begin with, African Americans were more and more segregated. They gathered in the same cities, living in Baltimore, Chicago, Gary, Cleveland, and Detroit, LA... The white flight phenomenon led to a loss of population in the cities, and to a loss of jobs (jobs were moving to the suburbs). Poverty and despair were everywhere in inner-city neighborhoods. Public schools were also more and more segregated. In 1990, one in three public school students was nonwhite. Because of the white flight, there was less local tax and so less income to the city. The consequence was a lack of resources for public schools and a bad quality of education (poor equipment, less experienced teachers, lower test scores, higher dropout rate).

An important issue in the nineties was the battle over Clarence Thomas's nomination. Bush announced he would nominate Clarence Thomas as a justice in the Supreme Court in 1991. Clarence Thomas was a conservative African American of little judicial distinction. He would fill the seat of Thurgood Marshall, who was the first black member of the Supreme Court and who had taken Brown v. Board of Education to the Supreme Court. The administration was aware that senate democrats, liberals, and civil rights groups would have troubles opposing an African American.

Extraits

[...] This case shows us again the racial divide of the US population over a criminal case. At the end of the nineties, debates over affirmative action reappeared. In November 1996, the proposition 209 in California passed. It banned any preference based on race and sex in determining college admissions, contracting, and employment by the state. Blacks and Latinos opposed it. Other states passed similar laws. The feeling of abandon was still there, and many African Americans turned to black nationalism. [...]

[...] The issue of race in the 1990‘s: segregation and justice scandals Segregation To begin with, African Americans were more and more segregated. They gathered in the same cities, living in Baltimore, Chicago, Gary, Cleveland, Detroit, LA . The white flight phenomenon led to a loss of population in the cities, and to a loss of jobs (jobs were moving to the suburbs). Poverty and despair were everywhere in inner-city neighborhoods. Public schools were also more and more segregated. In 1990, one in three public school students was nonwhite. [...]

[...] The four officers were charged with use of excessive force and assault with a deadly weapon, but they were acquitted in April 1992 by a white jury. This lead to riots in Los Angeles during three days. African Americans were joined by Latinos. This were multiethnic riots, and the area was not limited. The results were 58 deaths, destroyed and burned buildings, and 5000 people arrested. This was the deadliest urban riot in over a century. Bush promised a federal prosecution of the officers. [...]

[...] This showed how out of touch Reagan was with the struggle for racial justice. During Reagan presidency, a debate also developed over the massive immigration. This led to the Immigration Reform and Control Act in 1986 which gave legal status to undocumented aliens who had lived and worked in the US but imposed fines on employers who hired new undocumented workers. But Reagan also allowed some advancements we can not deny. Even if he said in 1980 that the Voting Rights Act was "humiliating to the South», he signed in 1982 the legislation extending the Voting Rights Act. [...]

[...] Donna Brazile, a black Dukakis aide, resigned after accusing Bush of running a racist campaign for ``using the oldest racial symbol imaginable-a black man raping a white woman . Jesse Jackson accused Bush of sending number of rather blatantly race-conscious signals.`` Bush responded by saying that democrats were raising the issue of racism as a last-minute maneuver, that it was only a campaign tactic. He said ``There isn`t any racism. It`s absolutely ridiculous. What about their ad about the halfway house? Is that racism against Hispanics? [...]