A bank chooses where branches will open and who it will lend to. A business decides to locate where labor is plentiful and taxes are low. A local government decides to cut funding for public transit to address a budget shortfall.  Collectively, decisions like these structure the world we live in, and determine what opportunities and challenges we face. Whether we have decent housing, quality healthcare and good schools, among many other things, is helped or hindered by these interactions.   

How are our policies serving us? Do they impact all of us in the same way?

Unemployment is too high. And today, people of color are nearly twice as likely to be out of work.  African-Americans have, on average, one-tenth of the assets of similar white families. Few of us feel the public school system serves our kids adequately, but the system is increasingly segregated.  Schools that have a majority of students of color typically lack funding and other resources, and have significantly lower graduation rates as a result. Too many people lack health insurance in this country, 47 million Americans, but half of the uninsured are people of color. Something isn’t right.

These disparities are too high to be explained by individual choices or behavior. Nor can they be explained by completely by conscious racism on the part of individuals.  To understand racial disparities in the U.S. and why many of us across race lack the health care, education and quality jobs we need, we must look across our policies that have structured society.

“Structural racism” is a lens for understanding the root cause of disparities in wealth, health care and other areas.  It locates the cause in a systemically uneven playing field, created out of countless unrelated decisions that affect how our common resources are deployed. It requires that we see the relationship between how race affects policy decisions and the problems we all face regardless of our race. If our structures aren’t working for those of us who are the worst off, they often aren’t working well enough for any of us.   

If policy is the root of the problem, it is also the place to find a solution.  We can craft public policy demands that chip away at structural racism, and that work together to build a vibrant and opportunity-rich society.  We must recognize, as a growing body of research shows, that policies that explicitly address the needs of communities of color will build a healthier society that improves the well-being of us all.