Racism 4.0, Civity, and Re-Constitution

Racism is deeply imbedded in our culture and can be grouped into four distinct manifestations over the multi-century arc of our nation's history. These manifestations are identified as Racism 1.0, Racism 2.0, Racism 3.0, and-the current "operating system"--Racism 4.0. Racism 1.0 and 2.0 include slavery and the reign of violence and lynching during which Whites sought to control and marginalize Blacks, primarily but not exclusively in the South. In the South, Racism 3.0 took the form of "Jim Crow," legislatively enacted separation by race with "separate but equal" rhetoric and "separate and unequal" reality.

The Civil Rights Movement and its accompanying legislation neutralized Racism 3.0 overt discrimination. Unlike earlier forms of racism, Racism 4.0 manifests itself as patterns of racial disparity and does not result from explicit or intentional racial discrimination. These disparities, which come in the form of the mass incarceration of Black males, high rates of poverty amongst Black families, and substandard educational opportunities for Black children, lie beyond the reach of current anti-discrimination law because they do not result from an identifiable discriminatory law or policy. In order to combat Racism 4.0, its causes must be addressed.

Implicit bias and White privilege contribute to Racism 4.0 through innumerable interpersonal interactions. While implicit bias may be pervasive, once we can identify it, we as a society, can take action to diminish or eliminate it. Civity offers a framework. to do just this. Civity-people working together to tackle complex civic challengesemerges from relationships of respect, empathy, and trust across social dividing lines and the vibrant civic networks that result from those relationships.

Through civic movement, we can sculpt and "re-constitute" our social and psychological constitution by shifting our collective perception of who we are as a people. To overcome Racism 4.0, we need both civity and the re-constitution-social, psychological, political, and legal-that will result.