Amazing collection of statistics in the first post. Though its controversial, would re-iterate my contention that the most destructive form of racism (or bias) is that perpetrated by the government. When the government is racist or biased against its own citizens, it gives racist individuals the social legitimization they require to be racist. If the government turns its back (or even allows government officials to participate in) a lynching, then lynchers will feel as though their actions are legitimated by society and acceptable. If the government maintains a policy of apartheid, whites and minorities will see themselves as separate and unequal.
Post the Civil War, I think the most powerful mechanism for improving the condition of minorities in America have been the prohibitions on segregation (though as Amirox stated, we still have segregated schools- I'll get to that in a second). When segregation ended in the 50's, 60's, and 70's, it forced white Americans to confront their own stereotypes and treat black Americans as though they were their peers. Whites who had previously no interaction with blacks came to understand that African Americans simply sought the same things they did. Whites (most of them) came to understand- at least nominally, that black Americans were their equals in every aspect that mattered, and that differences in culture tended not to matter greatly.
The most important integration mechanism the government wielded to (unwittingly) cut down the majority of racism in America was public school integration. Integration at schools forced the aforementioned confrontation across all aspects of society at the earliest levels of development. By growing up in integrated schools, many white children could observe that their black peers could be just as intelligent and smart as they were even if their parents were racists. Those that went on to attend integrated colleges would come to understand this even further, by studying alongside some of the greatest minds in the African American community.
Public school integration was the most important anti-racism policy because it killed the "weed" at its developmental roots. Integrated schools offered a counter argument to the racism spouted by parents in the home. Thus, as each generation passes, racism generally will be reduced as white students are normalized to the existence of African Americans as peers within their own world- and not as a people separated from themselves.
That is- if we continue public school integration as a policy, which we're not. It is becoming very difficult to enforce integration today as a policy. The Supreme Court conservatives (all but one of whom are white) believe that racism is basically over and that we should not consider race a factor in anything, even if it is clearly to the benefit of society. Public school integration is very difficult to enact because power white suburbanites despise bussing, and conservatives can easily frame the issue as "black liberals want to trade schools with your kids." And the Supreme Court's rejection of race as a legitimate consideration forces administrators to use generic stats like the poverty rate to attempt to integrate schools.
However, the greatest problem with public schooling as a system in this country is the idea of "school districts" and the idea of a local school board. These are policies from the 19th century, and should be disposed with. There needs to be an administrative hierarchy beginning at the federal government, to the state, to the local municipality that runs education. The federal government should enact goals regarding the level of racial, income, and geographic diversity at the school, standards for academic progress, and general lesson plans. This would get rid of Texas' and Mississippi's bullshit about why we had the Civil War and other incidents of racial strife, enfoce integration as a uniform norm across the entire country, and enact uniform standards for all schools (no more "soft bigotry of low expectations").
As someone will eventually point out in this thread, I've argued theoretically that we could relax anti segregation laws on private business in relation to public accommodations, but (as I've said before) that it would have to be done in such a way that all Americans could access quality services. For example: if you had a bake shop, and it were the only bake shop in the entire municipality, you would be required to serve everyone. If there were a myriad of bake shops throughout the municipality, and minorities had relatively easy access to them, then I would be okay in allowing you to discriminate. Hotels, banks, restaurants, large department stores, and other such institutions that are critical to the functioning of society would not be able to discriminate. Of course, parsing out the different business types in a practical fashion would be very difficult, and would require significant change in our current societal feelings on this issue. I doubt that will happen, and I guess I find the status-quo to be acceptable.
I say this because I consider it incredibly hypocritical in a society that holds private ownership so dear, that in this, (and only this) instance that private entities are required by the federal government to do something for the benefit of society- whereas in a shitload of other instances, the federal government is not allowed to enact blanket regulations for private entities. If the government allowed to enforce integration across the entire public sector for the "general welfare" of society, why not in other areas? Now, if someone is willing (perhaps in another thread) to discuss with me altering the entire concept of private ownership in the country to a more "collective" understanding of ownership, and I would be happy to do so (and would argue on the side of collectivism). But if we're going to have private ownership in this country, we might as well have it or not. Not some hypocritical in-between construction we have now.
