What is equality and equity? Has People of colour experienced equality? Has People of Colour experienced equity? Why or why not?

Answer 1

Hi Maggie,

Definitions of equality and equity can vary depending on who you ask and what the context is. But in general, "equality" refers to equal opportunity and support, while "equity" refers to equal outcomes. For example, if two groups of people have the same chances to get jobs and earn income, that would be equality; if those groups earned the same amount of income, that's equity.

As for whether people of color have experienced equality or equity, the answer would depend on who you consider to be a person of color, what time period you're talking about, and what countries you're looking at. If you're referring to the United States, the short answer is that even as the country has taken steps toward equality — by abolishing slavery, reducing housing and employment discrimination — it hasn't always led to equity (take a look at mean incomes across racial groups). By some measures things have improved for people of color; in other ways there are still huge gaps between them and white people.

In the United States, the equality vs. equity distinction tends to arise in the debate over what to do about the effects of generational discrimination and prejudice. Some argue that equality is enough, that once explicit discrimination stops, we've solved the problem. Others argue that because some forms of discrimination leave lasting consequences — housing discrimination preventing people from building wealth, for example — solutions need to focus on equity, which would mean taking explicit action to ensure fairer outcomes.

Hope this helps!

Milton :)

Answer 2

There's a black economist, Thomas Sowell, professor at UCLA, then Stanford. He argues blacks in America descended from British colonies have an average income in the US, similar to whites.

While blacks in the South have a lower income, but similar to white Southerners.

He says Britain planned for peacefully freeing their slaves, with a transition that was more equitable.

While America with its Civil War plundered the South. Since most blacks were in the South, they suffered economically, but little different from Southern whites who also suffered due to the North's carpetbagging.

Sowell seems to have done more work on economics of races, than others.

Also, prison or a felony conviction sets back a person's income abilities. With Joe Biden and Bill Clinton's 1990's massive incarceration of blacks, they were set back even more.

The "systemic racism" in America is currently most related to the Biden 1990s crime bill than any other factor. So, that's unequal and lacking in equity, especially with our drug laws targeting blacks and the poor more than wealthier whites. Our drug law bans were originally started to incarcerate Chinese workers who brought opium with them. Then Nixon's war on drugs targeted blacks mostly. Then crack cocaine was punished 10 times as much as powder cocaine even though they were chemically the same. Yet blacks tended to use crack, while whites used powder. That's very unequal and inequitable.

There's also the theory advanced by a California newspaper that the CIA deliberately addicted blacks in inner cities, selling them crack cocaine. If true, that's entrapment, invidiously discriminatory enforcement of laws, and a major factor in lowering blacks' economic status.