The Systems of Race as Structural Inequality

Effects have causes. Since man became human, we have relied on cause and effect. A village elder eats an unidentified plant and dies two days later. A heavy rain precedes the flooding of the river. Consistently watering a plant produces larger fruit. After time, one can take note of certain actions and rely upon them for certain effects. But what happens when we add multiple causes and see one effect? Say on a windy day we place a ball on a slope. We know the effect; the ball rolls down the hill. But what is the cause? Was it the slope or the wind? Perhaps it was a combination of both causes. Fortunately, modern physics has equations where we can figure out exactly the causes based on the slope of the hill, speed of the wind and mass of the ball. This same mode of analysis is good for any Newtonian phenomenon. As long as we know all of the individual characteristics in a closed system, we can figure out the causes to certain effects. This paper will explore the idea that human thought is not Newtonian in nature, and is instead far more complicated in ascertaining the causes behind effects. It will apply a new mode of thinking, called systems thinking, in attempting to explain existing racial problems in society. It will then apply this new method of thinking to the body of law and comment on present jurisprudence.

CAUSALITY

Since the beginning of time, people have pondered causality. Aristotle was perhaps the first to offer a theory of causality regarding human action. He suggested that we only have knowledge of a thing when we have grasped its cause. His theory rested on what he considered the “four causes”. These were four things that could be applied to any why question – the material cause (that out of which), the formal cause (the form), the efficient cause (the primary source of the change or rest) and the final cause (the end, that for the sake of which a thing is done).

These four causes may combine with each other in order to provide an explanation for something. Fox example, imagine a car. How was this produced? The material cause is the aluminum that went into making the chassis. But aluminum is not only the material that went into manufacturing the car; it is also the material that is subject to change, in that it is what was changed in order to manufacture the car. Aluminum started as a deposit in the earth, which was then molded into the shape of a car frame. The formal cause of the production of the car is therefore the shape of the frame. To fully explain the production of the car, one must explore the efficient cause, or the principle that produced the car. A simplistic look into what principle produced the car would be the person on the assembly line. But to Aristotle, this principle is the art of car-making. While the laborer is the principle that actually makes the car, to Aristotle, all the laborer does in making the car is manifest a specific knowledge. So it is this specific knowledge that one should consider the efficient cause.

By picking the art, not the laborer, Aristotle is not just trying to provide an explanation of the production of the car that is not dependent upon the desires, beliefs and intentions of the individual laborer; he is trying to offer an entirely different type of explanation; an explanation that does not make a reference, implicit or explicit, to these desires, beliefs and intentions. In other words, the art of car-making is the efficient cause because it helps to understand what steps are required to produce the car. This is not the final step, as one must look at the final outcome of the production of the car. This teleological approach views each step of the car-making process as one performed in order to produce the car. Therefore the end product of a car existed at each step of the car-making process. Aristotle applied this theory to phenomena in nature, including human action. It is worth noting his ideas of causality did not depend on temporal classification. Classifications of before and after were not part of his analysis.

Aristotelian causality was not the only school of thought. Physicist Max Born summed up the thoughts that dominated the Newtonian physicists’ ideas of causality in 1949 :

1) Causality postulates that there are laws by which the occurrence of an entity B of a certain class depends on the occurrence of an entity A of another class, where the word entity means any physical object, phenomenon, situation, or event. A is called the cause, B the effect.
2) Antecedence postulates that the cause must be prior to, or at least simultaneous with, the effect.
3) Contiguity postulates that cause and effect must be in spatial contact or connected by a chain of intermediate things in contact.

This way of thought differs from Aristotelian causality in that it uses time as a factor. A is not a cause unless it occurs before or simultaneously with effect B. Humans use this way of thinking almost universally in the way we interact with the world. It is a linear way of looking at our environment, where A causes B. A person pulls the trigger of a gun. The hammer strikes a bullet. The gunpowder ignites. The bullet leaves the muzzle at a high velocity. The bullet strikes the target. Humans have come to rely on this linear chain of actions. We never expect the bullet to hit the target before we pull the trigger. We can use reduction to break the act of shooting a target down to its individual steps and study these steps individually. Once we study these, we can put the pieces together to get an accurate description of what happened. An act is therefore the sum of its parts.

Since this model of causality appears to be universal, humans often extend Newtonian ideas of causality to human behavior. But what happens when science shows the Newtonian model of causality does not accurately describe all of our universe? Perhaps we should reconsider applying the Newtonian model to behavior since it is no longer the only way to view the world. Imagine our solar system. We have a sun and eight planets orbiting the sun. We can predict with near exact accuracy where each body will be at any time. Now imagine an atom. Its properties are similar to our solar system in that there are electrons orbiting around a nucleus. If our ideas of Newtonian causality apply, we would be able to predict with near exactitude where each electron will be at any time. However, this is impossible. The best we can do is calculate the probability that an electron will be in a certain place at a certain time. Furthermore, if the electrons of an atom were to follow the laws of Newtonian physics, they would quickly smash into the nucleus of the atom. What happens is an electron exists in all states until we observe the electron. This observation is a wave function collapse.

This new science of quantum mechanics shows our understanding of causality to be far from complete. In fact, scientists see violations of our classical model of causality in subatomic particles. This arises with the phenomenon of entanglement. Particles which are arbitrarily far apart seem to be influencing each other, even though according to relativity this means that what seems to be causing an event from one point of view, from another point of view doesn't happen until after the effect being caused. In effect, there is no such thing as cause and effect.
We now know that we can follow Newtonian laws of physics for bodies larger than atoms and quantum physics for subatomic particles. To connect causality with notions of human thought, we must inquire – what is human thought? Is it analogous to the certainty of predicting where a ball will end up after striking it with a golf club, or is it more like predicting where an electron will be located around a nucleus based on a probability function? The author rejects the notion that the brain works in a way similar to Newtonian bodies floating through the air, where we can accurately predict behaviors based on conditions surrounding the brain. Instead, it acts as a quantum computer of sorts; it considers all possibilities at once and only computes an outcome when we consciously think (analogous to collapsing the wave function). It is simply impossible to reliably and accurately explain why a person acts in a certain way, even knowing everything about that person. Further, this approach rejects the teleological view that human behavior acts in accordance with an end. This adoption of a quantum probabilistic view of human behavior rejects both Newtonian and Aristotelian views of causality. Therefore, in order to examine race in our society, we must reject using old models of linear causality and use one that comports with the understanding that there are nearly infinite, unknowable factors affecting human behavior.

SYSTEMS THINKING

Instead of breaking down a system to its individual parts to study, systems thinking looks at the system as a whole. A system is an entity that maintains its existence through the mutual interaction of its parts. Interaction itself thereby becomes the focus of a system. Instead of individual parts, interactions become responsible for the characteristics of a system. The interactions of the parts become more relevant to understanding the system than understanding the parts themselves. One way of differentiating this approach from those outlined above is considering a system different from the sum of its parts, either lesser or greater. This difference from the sum of its parts is defined as emergence. Emergent properties are those that cannot be found in any individual part of a system. Consider a carbon atom. Now add five more and arrange them in a hexagonal shape. Now add more hexagonal groupings of carbon in a lattice. What emerges is graphite, a dark material that conducts electricity. Now, instead of a hexagonal shape, arrange the carbon atoms tetrahedrally. Arrange these tetrahedrons in a lattice. This arrangement creates diamond, a clear material that does not conduct electricity. The individual parts, carbon atoms, are exactly the same in diamond and graphite. Traditional reductionist thinking would break down these crystals to individual carbon atoms and find no difference between them. But how do we explain the difference in color, hardness and ability to conduct electricity? These are the emergent properties of the system. It is the structure itself, and not the individual properties of carbon atoms that leads to these emergent properties. Arranging carbon into certain structures creates properties that do not exist in carbon itself.

Systems thinking alters traditional thinking of causality. Instead of traditional linear causation, this model recognizes that effects have multiple causes and causes have multiple effects. Outcomes are a product of mutual, multiple and reciprocal interactions within a system. Systems thinking eschews traditional linear causality in the form of A -> B -> C -> D. An input does not cause, in a proximate or ultimate sense, an outcome in a system; it only modifies existing processes which produce those outcomes. Outcomes, or effects, therefore do not have a single, identifiable cause. Instead, these effects come about from the interactions of an entire system.

SYSTEMS THINKING AND RACE

Race in America is an example of a system at work. How do we explain the differences in societal status between races today? We can point to years in bondage, de jure discrimination, segregation, etc, as proximate causes. This would be correct, in that each of these examples in some way led to the current racial situation. However, examining each of these causes would follow the traditional reductionist approach of causality. Instead, we can view these examples as part of an overall system, and it is the interaction of these processes that is the “cause” of present society.

Consider a story to illuminate this system of interdependence. Redlining was a practice in the early 20th century where the government and banks drew red lines where people of color lived and refused to give loans to anyone within those lines. Imagine two different widget makers, A and B in 1900 in the same city. The government and a bank decide to give A money to help grow its business and do not give the same money to B. A can now afford to expand and reach out to new customers. A can buy the new widget machine it needs and this grows its production, creating economies of scale. B remains small because it can only spend its revenues. B has to wait 5 years to make the money it takes to buy the new widget machine. In this 5 years, A has expanded to sell its widgets outside of its original area. It makes multiple times more money than B.

A becomes well known in the community because of its business success. This provides it political connections, only helping to grow its business even further. A’s owners, and many like A, take their considerable resources and move to the suburbs. Their tax dollars go with them. They no longer purchase products in the city. This reduces the already small customer base for B and businesses like B. Schools are funded by property taxes. Higher property values lead to more school revenue, ultimately leading to better schools. Family A receives a far better education and grows up around successful role models. B's family grows up around other less educated, poor people.

Fifteen years pass. Patriarchs of A and B grow old and want to pass control of their businesses to their kin. The kids need to go to college. A has plenty of money to pay for college because of its business success (far better schools don’t hurt much either). B did all it could to survive, competing with larger A, so it is operating on a shoestring budget. Expensive college is not an option. A's kin go to college and study business. While there, they develop a social network of successful business types. B's do not. This creates many business advantages for A.
A accumulates more wealth than B over time. Patriarchs A and B die. A leaves more wealth to its kin. A's descendants begin life with more advantages than B's. A's kin can go to summer camp, play musical instruments, travel, hire tutors, etc. B's cannot.

A's community continues to develop economically, while B's remains stagnant at best, depressing more likely. Poverty begets crime. The community leaders think an austere approach to crime is the most appropriate, rather than a look at the underlying problems leading to poverty that lead to crime. They increase police presence in B's community and arrest members of the community at disproportionate rates compared to A's community. Many of the males go to prison, reducing their ability to work. This dulls the economic vibrancy of the community even more. They get out of jail and are unable to find work because of their criminal record. They resort to more crime.

This example in a vacuum shows how a community comprised of one race resulted from the interaction of many processes. How do we explain the present situation of crime and economic depression in B’s community? Can we say the single act of giving the loan to A over B caused the present situation? A traditional approach would answer that question in the affirmative. If the bank had given a loan to B, the story would not have unfolded in the way it did. Therefore, breaking the story down to its parts, giving the loan to A over B was the determinative factor in the outcome of the story. A systems approach would find this answer lacking. Instead, it would look at a multitude of factors. It was not just the denial of the loan that determined the outcome. It was the denial of the loan combined with many other factors that led to the outcome. Further, it was the way these other factors interacted with each other that produced the outcome. For example, consider A’s and B’s grandchildren when they are born. The advantages given to A’s grandchildren are greater due to the interaction of many factors giving A an advantage over B in society. People move to new neighborhoods all of the time. That alone does not have a significant impact on a community. But when people move, they move their money as well to a new tax base. This money goes to schools through property taxes. It is not just the increased budget that gives an advantage to members of that school. It is also the relative loss of money in the old school, lowering their quality of education. So it is the interaction of both of these factors in making one school much better than the other.

The racial situation in America is therefore a combination of innumerable interactions within a system. Consider this diagram developed by Barbara Reskin :


Note that the arrows are a mere approximation of the connections in the system. In reality, each node would connect to one another in a system of mutual interdependence. Further, each node would be made up of its own system. Take neighborhood segregation. Reskin suggests it could be made up of housing market discrimination, mortgage-market discrimination, location of public housing, zoning decisions, disparate economic resources and opposition to black neighbors. All of these form to create a system, which, when they interact with one another, lead to neighborhood segregation. Neighborhood segregation as a system then leads to other systems of effects. Reskin suggests some of these effects are school segregation, achievement test scores, exposure to crime, job segregation, racial stigma and lower property values. Note how school segregation and racial stigma are both causes and effects of neighborhood segregation. This illustrates the mutual interdependency of a system.

This new systems approach to the impact of race in America disregards Newtonian and Aristotelian notions of causation. It is impossible to know the exact causes behind present problems. This way of thinking is advantageous because it forces the observer to consider a far greater number of potential causes behind problems and enables a more comprehensive approach to fixing certain problems. Furthermore, a more comprehensive approach might identify better, more tailored solutions to problems. Instead of using the machete of traditional linear causation where you have one great solution to a problem, one can consider identifying smaller, more effective tactics using the scalpel of systems thinking.

RACE AS A STRUCTURAL SYSTEM

While the above has shown how different factors can combine and interact with each other to produce an outcome, little has been said about the system itself. The way systems set up to produce an outcome can be viewed as a structure. And it is this structure that produces certain groups. Peter Blau defines a social structure as a multidimensional space of differentiated social positions among which a population is distributed. The social associations of people provide both the criterion for distinguishing social positions and the connections among them that make them elements of a single social structure. He views individuals as being part of a greater social space, with their positions defined in relation to other individuals. The structure is therefore the web of connections between individuals. The structure is not just the connections themselves; rather, it is also the way they are connected. The relationships themselves are important.

Defining structures in terms of the rules and resources brought to actions and interactions, however, makes the reproduction of structures sound too much like the product of individual and intentional action. The concept of social structure must also include conditions under which actors act, which are often a collective outcome of action impressed onto the physical environment. To Jean‐Paul Sartre, this is the practico‐inert. Therefore we must look to the past to examine the structure of current systems. This is because most of the current systems are the product of layers of previous systems. These previous systems acted and produced effects that we see today. Processes that produce and reproduce residential racial segregation illustrate how structural relations become inscribed in the physicality of the environment, often without anyone intending this outcome, thereby conditioning future action and interaction. Realizing that one must look to the past to examine structures suggests the final step is looking at how structures influence the future. Since so many factors influence a system, it is nearly impossible to forecast all of the effects of changing a system. Because of this, unintended consequences might arise from changes in a system. Kind-hearted, good faith efforts today could lead to disastrous outcomes in the future.

Consider housing today. A great history unfolded to lead to the situation we have today. As mentioned above, racially discriminatory behavior and policies such as redlining limited the housing options of minorities. This confined them to certain neighborhoods. The people with the means to leave these communities did so. Often, the people with these means were non-minorities. Young outlines what naturally progressed from these circumstances: “Property‐owners fail to keep up their buildings, and new investment is hard to attract because the value of property appears to decline. Because of more concentrated poverty and lay‐off policies that disadvantage Blacks or Latinos, the effects of an economic downturn in minority neighborhoods are often felt more severely, and more businesses fail or leave. Politicians often are more responsive to the neighborhoods where more affluent and white people live; thus schools, fire protection, policing, snow removal, garbage pick‐up, are poor in the ghetto neighborhoods. The spatial concentration of poorly maintained buildings and infrastructure that results reinforces the isolation and disadvantage of those there because people are reluctant to invest in them. Economic restructuring independent of these racialized processes contributes to the closing of major employers near the segregated neighborhoods and the opening of employers in faraway suburbs. As a result of the confluence of all these actions and processes, many Black and Latino children are poorly educated, live around a higher concentration of demoralized people in dilapidated and dangerous circumstances, and have few prospects for employment.”

A structural social group is therefore a collection of persons who are similarly positioned in interactive and institutional relations that condition their opportunities and life prospects. Structural social groups are constituted through the social organization of labor and production, the organization of desire and sexuality, the institutionalized rules of authority and subordination, and the constitution of prestige. Structural social groups are relationally constituted in the sense that one position in structural relations does not exist apart from a differentiated relation to other positions. Racial minorities in America are examples of structural social groups. Because of immutable characteristics such as skin color, they exist in society in a similar position. They then go through the societal structure together with these characteristics as the guideposts. The structure itself also defines how these racial groups are restrained and what opportunities are given to them. It is the shared characteristics themselves that operate within a system that determine what opportunities are given.

Race relations would improve greatly if Americans would embrace a systems thinking approach to race as opposed to a “rugged individualist” approach, where every person is an island floating about the sea of society. Far too often, people want to break problems down to simple solutions. This practice engenders the practice of playing the “blame game”. An account of someone's life circumstances contains many strands of difficulty or difference from others that, taken one by one, can appear to be the result of decision, preferences, or accidents. This is the blame game – when someone sees a minority in a certain social position, they assume it was because of poor decision-making. Instead, a better way to look at this person is by looking at many events throughout the lives of those similarly situated, where one can see a pattern of interdependent relationships forming over time and leading to the present. What appears is a model of structural inequality, where peoples’ expectations and abilities in life are constrained or dictated by the structures they are a part of. This does not suggest we abandon the idea of individual responsibility. Rather, it suggests the systems thinking approach is an empathetic approach in that it forces people to understand that we are products of everything that has happened up to this point. So instead of thinking of race as the determinative factor in present society, the racial majority can understand that race is but one factor combined with many others in a system of mutual interaction. Everyone has gone through turbulent times in life, but not everyone is considered a racial minority. Systems thinking is therefore empathetic because the racial majority can think of how it has gone through tough times and how they are the people they are today because of those experiences. Systems thinking merely asks them to add race into the equation.

RACIAL STRUCTURES AND JURISPRUDENCE

A person's social location in structures differentiated by class, gender, age, ability, race, or caste often implies predictable status in law, educational possibility, occupation, access to resources, political power, and prestige. Not only do each of these factors enable or constrain self‐determination and self‐development, they also tend to reinforce the others. Over time, these systems interact with each other to develop even larger structures. Enter the American legal system. The present legal system is based on the traditional linear views of causality, where each legal harm can be attributed to an individual cause. For example, to succeed on a disparate treatment discrimination claim, a plaintiff must show that the defendant discriminated, that the plaintiff was harmed, and that the discrimination caused the particular harm, both as a matter of actual causation, but also proximate causation. This linear way of thinking strips all context from discrimination claims in that it only looks at a claim in a vacuum. Courts disregard the myriad other factors in a system leading to present day.
If the Supreme Court consistently viewed race in the context of systems thinking since its inception, society would be much different today. This paper will now give an example of a systems approach to race and then illustrate how a systems approach to race is better than current jurisprudence.

In 1951, thirteen parents on behalf of twenty students filed a class action suit against the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. These parents were concerned with the law set forth in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, which stated separate but equal treatment of races did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. The parents asserted this system of racial separation, while masquerading as providing separate but relatively equal treatment of both white and black Americans, instead perpetuated inferior accommodations, services, and treatment for black Americans. The Plessy Court said segregation did not violate the Equal Protection Clause because it inflicted no legally cognizable harm on blacks. The Brown Court considered that argument and, after remarking on the significance of educational opportunity in modern life, said, “To separate children from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.” This is perhaps the best example of a systems thinking approach to race used by the Court. This is because the Court did not adopt the linear causality approach and say, “The board of education is treating the races differently. Therefore, it is facial discrimination.” Instead it said,

"Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law; for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to retard the educational and mental development of negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racially integrated school system."

Note how the Court is considering several different factors in determining the harm to the segregated black schoolchildren as opposed to saying the segregation itself is the harm. This is the preferred approach because the Court recognizes there are many factors at play and not just reducing the issue to a binary evaluation of harm or no harm.

Unfortunately, as the years have passed since Brown, the Court has abandoned the systems thinking approach to race. Instead of thinking of each race as separate systems made up of many factors at play with one another, the Court now views all races as the same. This approach can best be summed up as the anticlassification principle, where it is the classification of race itself that is the constitutional harm. The 14th Amendment, once a piece of legislation enacted to remedy wrongs against former slaves, is now applied “equally” to all.

This anticlassification principle has disastrous effects in that it forbids governments from remedying past racial discrimination. Consider the City of Richmond in the 1970s. Its population was fifty percent black, but only two-thirds of one percent of its construction projects went to minority owned businesses over a five-year span. A federal government study found racial nepotism virtually defined the construction sector, and a near total exclusion of minorities receiving dollars from local trade associations. The mayor even said, “I can say without equivocation, that the general conduct in the construction industry in this area . . . is one in which race discrimination and exclusion on the basis of race is widespread.” The city felt it should do something so it, noting this historical pattern of discrimination, created a program setting aside contracting money for minority owned businesses. The actions taken by the city were an example of a systems thinking approach to solving the problem of very few minority owned construction businesses. Instead of resorting to a situation where every business would sue based on racial discrimination, the city understood that introducing money into the system of minority owned businesses could work out over time in order to end discrimination. The structure was set up over time so that minority owned construction businesses could not exist. No matter how much minority owned businesses tried to succeed, the structure itself prevented them from doing so. The city attempted to slightly alter this structure by adding money to one part of the system. If one minority owned business received a contract and did a good job, perhaps that would signal other companies to do business with them. Seeing a successful minority owned business could then change the minds of the people who thought minorities were incapable of success. These people would then be willing to do business with other minorities. That would bring more minorities into the system. Over time, successful minorities would build up, effectively altering the structure that once held them down. One small move by the city could produce tremendous change.

Can a city employ race-conscious measures to combat societal discrimination? The Court found in the absence of proof of a particular act, racism could no longer be used as an explanation for societal action. It said societal discrimination is an amorphous concept of injury that may be ageless in its reach into the past. This is a threshold moment – taking action to alleviate societal discrimination suffered over hundreds of years is no longer allowable. This is effectively a pronouncement that racism is over in our society. To suspect whites of discrimination without specific proof is now stereotyping whites. Without this specific proof, the Court presumes racial neutrality governs social and economic life. So instead of the city being able to employ small measures to induce systemic change, it can now do nothing. This systems approach of recognizing past wrongs and taking small steps to effect change is clearly better than the present system of requiring a minority owned business to produce evidence of intentional discrimination in a court of law and then letting the market even things out.

Now consider drug laws. These are often in the center of controversy because of the disproportionate numbers of minorities in prison due to these laws. African Americans are incarcerated at six times the rate of whites. Consider this part of the overall system of being black in America. If you are more likely to go to jail, you are more likely to become a felon and lose your ability to work certain jobs. If you are convicted on drug charges, there is a chance that you will lose your ability to receive financial aid to attend college. These factors work together and help to produce the differences in socioeconomic levels between races. This exercise in systems thinking is an example of how facially neutral laws can set up a structure harming one race.

Now imagine a state passes strong new drug laws. It feels one drug is causing more harm to the community than others, so it enacts harsher penalties for one over the other. The state then does a study and finds 98.2 percent of defendants convicted of possessing this drug are black. Following the anticlassification doctrine, only a showing of discriminatory intent by the legislature would violate the Equal Protection Clause. Again, a real world example confirms this. The Eighth Circuit argued that Congress did not adopt the sentencing differential “because of” its impact on African-Americans; rather, Congress had reasons for determining that crack cocaine posed a greater societal threat than powder cocaine, and this judgment in turn supplied justification for adopting the 100 to one sentencing ratio despite its foreseeable adverse impact on African Americans. The Eighth Circuit's opinion in Clary is especially striking because it overturned a lengthy lower court decision that used systems thinking to explore the history of racial bias in the criminal justice system and the sociology of the recent war on drugs, striking down the sentencing guidelines on the grounds that they manifested unconscious racial bias. A systems thinking approach would view these laws as pernicious to one race over the other, and understand that they create a structure that disproportionately affects one race. Over time, this structure will do far more harm than the anticipated good because of the systemic effects of imprisoning one race over the other. These disproportionate prison sentences might end up causing more crime because they so inhibit the ability of one group to succeed compared to the other. One might resort to crime if he is unable to get an education or employment. Contrast this with Congress's traditional causality approach of viewing one drug as more dangerous than the other without examining the impact disparate sentences would have.

Finally, the traditional causality approach does not address the externalities of race problems. There is much ongoing scientific research attempting to figure out the reasons behind such differences in racial economics. Blacks might not be getting the same jobs as whites because they do not have the same education. A black school could be lagging behind because the kids do not pay attention. The kids could not be paying attention because they do not have father figures at home. The father figures could not be at home because of selective enforcement of laws by police. The police might have myriad laws to enforce because of discriminating legislative bodies. The point here is there are countless factors within existing systems. Anticlassification rules are so harmful to the black community because when a body figures out the reasons behind one of these problems, they are not able to alter the existing structures by assisting the groups most in need. Any such measures would be classifying based on race and therefore unconstitutional.

CONCLUSION

This paper has shown that while Newtonian and Aristotelian approaches to cause and effect have a place in our world, they do not belong in predicting human behavior. Further, these approaches are lacking when attempting to explain problems such as segregated communities, disparate prison populations and chasms in education because these are problems that are greater than the summation of individual parts. The better approach is using a systems analysis that recognizes there is not one simple cause to every problem. Instead, one must look at the way society itself is structured. Examining the interplay within these structures gives a far more accurate picture of why society is set up the way it is today. While it is a much more complicated process, it can lead to more comprehensive and sometimes simpler solutions. Finally, the Court’s moving away from a systems approach to race to one based on a colorblind ideology seeking intentional harms is a roadblock to effective racial problem solving. Brown wisely said to consider the many potential effects of treating one race differently from another. Since that decision, the Court has mistakenly taken the position that the government has no interest in ameliorating past harms by changing the current societal structure. This is clearly against the aims of Congress when it passed the Civil War Amendments. The inability of the government to correct past harms by gently influencing present systems will only continue to retard the progress of minorities in America.