Race and Rights in Contemporary US Politics

Native Americans and Racial Equality in the US
Native Americans make up 2.9% of people.
Approximately 20% of Native Americans live on one of the 574 federally recognised tribal reservations today.
Only 5% of Native American reservation land is owned privately by Native Americans, with much of the remainder being held in trust by the Federal Government
Native Americans cannot mortgage their assets to gain loans like other Americans.
Native Americans are far less likely to own property than other racial groups and are significantly more likely to live in poverty (26.2% compared to white poverty rates of 8.1%)
Native Americans were twice as likely to die of COVID-19 in 2020 compared to the white population
Pressure group NARF serves as a legal advocate in the US court system to assist the 574 federally recognised tribal nations seeking land return, protection for sacred places, access for subsistence hunting and fishing, and other issues like defending the right of Native people to vote

NAACP
National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People is the oldest racial rights group in the US. Have a Legal Defence Fund, not only fighting cases in court but also completing a great deal of lobbying and protests. They have campaigned against voter registration restrictions and have organised a series of demonstrations- Moral Mondays. In 2023, the group organised rallies in Washington as part of their campaign to forgive student debt of up to $50,000, going beyond the $10,000 agreed by Biden

BLM
Formed in 2013, the groups calls for non-violent civil disobedience in protests against police discrimination and violence against Black people. It developed after a series of high-profile killings of Black people by police. Became more prominent after killing of George Floyd in 2020 and organised a series of protests across US. They campaign for reduced police funding, a national register of police violence campaigns and held a get out the vote campaign to maximise Black turnout at the 2020 election.

Methods user by racial rights campaigns
Litigation
Groups take the government or other authorities to court. NARF have a legal wing responsible for successful cases e.g. Cobell v Salzar (2009). Court declared that the Federal Government had mismanaged Native American land and other assets and were forced to pay compensation to Native American tribes
Protests
There has been a long history of peaceful civil disobedience, e.g. sit ins, to overcome racial discrimination. The NAACPs Moral Mondays campaign blocked access to state legislatures or occupied their entrance areas. BLM organised several demonstrations after the death of George Floyd in 2020
Get out the Vote Campaifns
Racial minority groups have worked hard to gain and keep access to voting and are active in ensuring that minority members can and do use their vote. BLM held a WhatMatters2020 campaign in which they helped people to register to vote and the NAACP contracted 675,000 Black voters in 10 swing states during the 2020 elections to promote turnout

The effectiveness of racial rights campaigns
Affirmative action
Is any attempt to overcome the effects of previous discrimination. It goes beyond creating legal equality to give additional support or benefits to groups historically discriminated against. It was introduced in the 1960s as an acknowledgment that legal equality did not do enough to overcome major social and economic inequality; racial minority groups disadvantage will continue to cause disadvantage. This policy takes different forms. It began with provision from President Kennedy in 1961 to ensure that Federal Government took more care to utilise racial minority companies. Since then, it grew in use by Federal Government employment, housing and education. Quotas in education have been issued as one form of affirmative action reserving a fixed number of places to members of a racial minority group. The success of affirmative action can be measured by the extent to which it has helped to reduce socio-economic inequality on racial grounds

Voting rights
Voting rights have been a major battle for racial minority groups. Although the right to vote was extended to all men with the 15th Amendment in 1870, and to all women with the 19th Amendment of 1920, there have been repeated attempts to restrict voting by race. States introduced a number of practices from the 1920s onwards to attempt to restrict minority voting:
1) Gerrymandering on racial lines. This can be done by drawing boundaries to ensure that areas with high racial minority populations are split into separate constituencies to dilute their political influence. It has also involved drawing boundaries to ensure that a constituency with a high % of racial minority member has a lot more people than the average. In this way ‘white constituencies’ get much greater representation than ‘Hispanic or Black constituencies’
2) Literacy tests. It was common to impose literacy test, but these were often used in areas with higher concentrations of minority citizens
3)Felony voting restrictions. People in prison are banned from voting and, in many states, voting restrictions continue after a prison sentence has been fulfilled. Given the higher incarceration rates particularly of Black makes, ,felony voting restrictions have a disproportionately negative effect on access to voting of racial minorities

Minority representation
Racial minority groups have been hugely underrepresented in positions of power. This includes representation in businesses and in the media as well as political office. This may mean that policy outcome do not always reflect the interests of racial minorities, and also perpetuates ideas and stereotypes about who can take powerful positions in society.

Immigration Reform
The US has the highest number of immigrants than any country in the world standing at over 40 million in 2023. It is particularly the development of unauthorised immigration, however, that has been a major social, economic and political issues in recent years
The Pew Research Centre estimates that there were 10.7 million unauthorised immigrants in the US at the start of the Trump presidency and 10.5 million at the start of the Biden presidency. President Obama protected around 700,000 children and young adults with an order not to deport anyone who arrived as a minor in an executive order called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). In addition, immigrants from some countries have temporary protected status (TPS) due to the levels of violence in the countries they left
Illegal immigration is a driver of inequality in US society for several reasons:
Socio-economic poverty caused by people not being able to work legally. This leads to low wages, maltreatment and unemployment. Illegal immigrants will find it much harder to gain access to health, welfare and education, although it is common for states to provide education for undocumented immigrants
Law and Order issues. The immigration process itself is tied up with smuggling, kidnapping and murder. High levels of poverty also connect with high rates of crime
The Democratic and Republican parties have typically taken very different approaches to the issue. On the whole, Democrats have sought a more liberal or permissive approach, attempting to solve the problems outlined above by making it easier for illegal immigrants to gain citizenship or the right to remain in the US. There has been more humanitarian assistance provided by Democrats. Republicans tend to favour greater restrictions on illegal immigration putting more emphasis on preventing people from coming to the US and providing a harsher environment to discourage illegal border crossings. Whilst there is overlap amongst moderate Democrats and Republicans, they do differ

Success of the policies
Democrats claim that their approach is the only one that will solve social and economic issues surrounding illegal immigration. The US has around 10 million illegal immigrants and it is impossible to remove a significant number of these. Granting legal status will make huge progress in overcoming inequality and social issues by giving people easier access to healthcare, education and jobs.
Democrats emphasise the need to treat people more humanely in the immigration process, protecting fundamental human rights and providing for basic human necessities
Republicans argue that Democrats are making the problem worse by encouraging more immigrants to come to the US. This is backed up by figures showing a major increase in people trying to cross the border at the start of the Biden presidency, including a rise in children who are not accompanied by an adult
The Republican Governor of Texas has been strongly critical of the Biden administration on this issue and has taken a tougher line, revoking housing shelter licences to any organisation in Texas that houses unaccompanied migrant children.