The changes in civil rights law and policy in America in the 1950's and 1960's has superficially altered the face of racism and ameliorated some its harsher effects in some narrow instances. But, American true-believers in White racial superiority still exist and they, in turn, propagate new racists. Millions of such people occupy positions that empower them to perpetuate and create barriers on the basis of race in the distribution and availability of employment and housing and in unequal policing/incarceration, injustices that have never ceased to plague America's non-White communities. The most extreme examples result in lethal state violence, whether on the street or the gurney.
A gradual demographic shift, as older racists die off and fewer younger ones emerge, helps slowly ease the social, economic and cultural barriers for non-White persons, but structural barriers and challenges remain formidable and deeply unjust. In the meantime, no powerful mass movement seems to be lurking in the wings, that might help bring quicker and more significant inroads against the corrosion that racism causes to American society. At the rate we are going, it will take another 100 years for America to erase unfair discrepancies in housing, employment, education etc. and to normalize incarceration rates and policing of non-White persons. At the same time, such goals seem likely to become harder to achieve if society struggles, simultaneously, to cope with the upheavals from sea level rise, droughts, floods, blizzards, Arctic chaos and other byproducts of uncontrolled human CO2 emissions.
These views reflect the experience of a White male who grew up in St. Louis county over 50 years ago, now a retired attorney, who litigated civil rights cases for 37 years, who grew up in the 60's in a family with an unrepentantly and openly racist father figure and an older, civil rights activist brother, who sang in Black Gospel churches in the 60's while in college, who adopted an African-American newborn baby 30 years ago when Hollywood stars hadn't yet made it cool to do that, who often visited relatives as a child in the Jim Crow South, who worked during school vacations in a segregated manufacturing plant, in a union that, at that time, was just fine with that.
Although the stain of racism can easily be found all over America, fortunately, it does not exist everywhere in America. I know of a diverse and tolerant pocket, not a melting pot, but a savory, international tossed salad. Just moments ago I put a contract on a house in a wonderfully alive, diverse, international and multicultural neighborhood in the city of St. Louis. Although the 106 year old historic house is on a quiet street, it lies just a few blocks away from live music, a 277 acre city park, sidewalk cafe's, a diner, a coffee shop, an ice cream parlor, barbeque, a pub and several bars, sushi, Mexican, Thai, Indian, pho and Viet Namese, Middle Eastern, a vegan brunch, a deli/bakery, a dry cleaner, the post office, and a bank. The busy sidewalks on the main street are full of different styles of dress and the air shimmers with languages from three continents.
It would be nice to have an America that was mostly like this diverse and tolerant urban place, a fair and just country with only residual pockets of race-intolerant White people. Sadly, it is really the other way around. But the city of St. Louis, despite the city's and the neighboring county's racist legacies (different but equally troubling), contains several such pockets of diversity and those pockets' trends for growth look promising.
So, one can hope. Even if no mass movement emerges to give America some new breakthrough toward a more racially just society, maybe America can still accelerate a recovery from the awful disease of White racism, neighborhood by diverse neighborhood.