In my gut, I’ve always known that laws are merely expressions of a society’s dominant beliefs. It’s the beliefs that must shift in order for outcomes to change. When policies change in advance of the underlying beliefs, we are often surprised to find the problem still with us. America ended the policy of enforced school segregation two generations ago, but with new justifications, the esteem in which many white parents hold Black and brown children hasn’t changed much, and today our schools are nearly as segregated as they were before Brown v. Board of Education. Beliefs matter.
From ”The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone And How We Can Prosper Together” by Heather McGhee