Conclusion and Reflections: Impacts of Racism in the Age of Trump

Abstract

In this, the third edition of Impacts of Racism, we reiterate the main points made in 1981 and 1996, and then build upon and extend them with new findings, insights, and prescriptions. Previous editions pointed out that if White racism was not sufficiently addressed in the ensuing years, our national circumstances would become more desperate. The violent attack by White American “patriots” on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, showed precisely that. Racism was intrinsic to the attack as it is to the continuing danger posed by the attackers and their millions of sympathizers. January 6th told us a lot—the most important of which is that we do not have another forty years to ignore racism and do nothing about it. In this concluding chapter, we discuss strategies to disarm and dismantle racism on cultural, institutional, and individual levels.