The Matriculation of James Crow Esquire

"Racism still alive, they just be concealin' it". Kanye West said this back in 2004 on his debut album The College Dropout. Since then time and again both White and Black people will agree that there is still racism in the United States. However it has become more difficult for all people to see incidents of racism. Where one sees racism, another may see an individual's poor decision. Gone are the days where all reasonable people regardless of race could look at a situation objectively and collectively conclude the racism present. Today some see racism others see unfortunate happenstance.

The apparent evidence of this can be seen in the rebuilding of New Orleans. With the Superdome having hosted two seasons worth of NFL games, and the New Orleans Arena been the home for the 2008 NBA All-Star game, some may feel that the city is back up on its feet. However, if you look closely you will see that only a certain section of the city is doing well. A vast part of the residential sections including the Lower Ninth Ward is still in shambles and goes largely unmentioned by mainstream national press. Even still, nearly four years after the hurricane colleges still organize alternative spring break trips down to New Orleans to help rebuild the large parts of the city that is has been neglected. Many of the lower to moderate income African-American residents who moved to places like Atlanta and Houston have not come back. The city is repopulating with middle and upper income Whites.

This is racism for the 21st century. The United States no longer bears witness to Jim Crow. Instead the country watches his son James Crow Esquire run amok. This new racism can be seen across the country. In Jena, Louisiana six African-American boys faced adult charges after several fights involving both Black and White students. In one of the fights a White boy brought a gun into the fight. That student was disarmed and beaten yet the only charges stemming from that incident were levied against the Black boys. James Crow Esquire no longer needs racist cops to hose down African Americans in the street, he no longer props up governors who will stand in the doorway to the state colleges and universities. Instead James Crow Esquire uses the subjectivity of the criminal justice (or lack thereof) system and the stinging effects of gentrification.

Another masterful trick created by James Crow Esquire is that the racism present in the United States is no longer executed by individuals on a person to person basis. Rather this new racism is institutional. With this being institutional, people and groups of people are now allowed to absolve themselves from any wrongdoing because it is not them the individuals doing anything wrong. The best examples of this lie in the numbers.The national high school graduation rate is about 80%. White American graduate high school at a rate of about 82%. As of today only 53% of African-Americans graduate high school. That means nearly half the African American students in this country do not graduate high school. This number alone should appal people. Keeping in mind the United States is no longer a place that manufactures a lot of its products, people without education or skills training cannot be expected to provide for themselves. More evidence of James Crow Esquire at work is the research done by the Center for Responsible Lending. They found that African Americans with fair to good credit and middle to upper middle incomes were still more than 35% more likely to be subject to predatory lending than their White counterpart.

What we are finding here is that the United States is invariably tied to the subjective criminal justice system, the inconsistent and faulty education system and the subjective lending and financial institutions. Numbers show that these institutions are now carrying out the racism that individuals carried out decades ago. Sadly good hearted people with the best of intentions find themselves working in and for these institutions that are perpetrating these atrocities against Black and Brown people in the United States. Individually they may see themselves as simply doing their job, but their job is the product of James Crow Esquire. Here in the 21st century racism is indeed still alive and its legacy is being preserved by the more crafty intelligent son of Jim Crow, James Crow Esquire.