The United States recently turned 250 years old, and racism is a significant part of this history. Our country was founded during an era in which slavery and racial hierarchy were embedded in law and society, and shaped American institutions for generations.

 Over the past 60 years, we’ve collectively made significant progress toward greater equality. But just as Reconstruction was ended by Jim Crow, the advances have been followed by political and cultural backlash that weakens and reverses reform. How do we break that cycle? We cannot stamp out every racist belief, but we can end the ability of those beliefs to shape public policy. The most effective response is ensuring that people who promote and are indifferent to racism do not control the institutions that shape education, housing, employment, healthcare, or access to political power. 

Preventing racist beliefs from shaping American institutions is the most practical strategy remaining. Many racists reject policies designed to reduce racial disparities because they believe those disparities are natural rather than the product of historical and contemporary policy choices. If inequality is viewed as biological rather than political, programs such as affirmative action or targeted investment appear not as remedies for injustice but as unfair preferences. When thinking in those terms, efforts to address discrimination are misconstrued as discrimination themselves and corrective actions are defined as reverse discrimination. Those who foster and support these policies are labeled as the “true racists”. 

If changing hearts and minds is an unreliable path to equality, the remaining remedy is political power. Since racism cannot be eradicated from individual hearts, its power can be limited by preventing racists from controlling public policy and political institutions. Just as racists vote to use political power to oppress and dominate, we must use that same strategy to deny racist from holding political office.

We are Americans by right of birth and have an inalienable right to exercise political power. We must not fall into the trap of trying to convince racists that their beliefs are immoral or beg centrists to care. 

Racism may never be eliminated from individual hearts, but we can prevent it from governing our communities. The vote is the most powerful tool available for ensuring that racist beliefs do not become public policy.