There are many people who would like to believe, that in the year 2021, we are living in a post-racial society, but the evidence continues to prove that racial discrimination remains deeply entrenched in different power systems globally.
That doesn’t mean that people are not taking action and fighting back!
Australia
Image by Simon Maisch
The state of Western Australia is re-drafting heritage laws meant to protect sacred Aboriginal sites so that developers may have the right to appeal, while denying appellant rights to Aboriginal Groups.
While the updated draft of the laws emphasize agreement between the indigenous Aboriginal groups and developers, it also maintains that the government retains the final decision in land disputes; and gives developers the opportunity to appeal that decision while withholding that same right from Aboriginal peoples.
A group of five Aboriginal Australians have filed a complaint with the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, stating that this is "a continuation of systemic and racial discrimination.” The Thomson Reuters Foundation reports that “while the UN has no authority over Australian state legislation, the group hopes getting the committee involved could help put pressure on the state government to make changes.”
Already, there has been the destruction of culturally significant, Aboriginal rock shelters by developer Rio Tinto.
The United States
Image from Twitter/@NoahWicks
In the state of Mississippi, six Black farmworkers have filed a lawsuit against Pitts Farms (one of the largest farms in Mississippi) for discriminating against them in favor of White foreign laborers from South Africa. Pitts Farms hired the White South African workers through an allegedly illegal use of the federal government’s H-2A visa program, “which allows U.S. farmers to hire foreign workers only when no U.S. workers are available to do the job.”
“With the unemployment rate in the Delta hovering at around 10 percent, it is unacceptable and unlawful that local farmers are looking to hire foreign labor before people in their own communities,” said Ty Pinkins of the Mississippi Center for Justice, which filed the lawsuit along with Southern Migrant Legal Services.
“Pitts Farms once employed a majority Black workforce drawn from Sunflower County, which is over 70% Black,” however, beginning in 2014, Pitts Farms “began recruiting and hiring only White farmworkers from South Africa, a country that is over 80% Black. In 2020, the lawsuit says, Pitts Farms laid off most of the plaintiffs while it recruited more White H-2A workers than ever, (Mississippi Center for Justice).”
In addition to discriminatory hiring practices, Pitts Farms also violated federal law by paying Black workers less than the White H-2A workers. Black workers received the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour with one dollar an hour more for weekend work, while the White workers from South Africa received $9.87 an hour in 2014, “and that rate increased most years until it reached $11.83 an hour in 2020” (CBS News).
To Conclude
It’s not just unfortunate that situations like the two mentioned here continue to happen, it’s unacceptable! This is what is meant when people say institutionalized or systemic racism, and yes, it is still happening in 2021.
Discriminatory practices are ingrained in much of the fabric that make up different societies, and are embedded in policy making and business operations.
These are not two outlier examples, they are proof of the continued and calculated acts meant to grant certain rights and privileges to one group while intentionally withholding those same rights and privileges from others.
There is power in collective efforts. It’s time for our communities to come together and hold institutions and systems accountable. Community-ownership, especially by impacted and marginalized people, of Development processes is a vital part of that accountability. When people are re-powered and understand that together they can affect positive change, we will begin to see equitable and inclusive social transformations that benefit those who have been traditionally underrepresented.