難関大向け｜英語長文問題121（歴史）741語＋和訳・解答解説

When people learn about the history of racial discrimination against Black people, they often imagine a clear movement from injustice to progress: slavery was abolished, legal segregation ended, and society gradually became fairer. This story contains important truths, but it can also create a misleading impression. If discrimination is understood only as a set of openly racist laws or individual acts of prejudice, then its decline may seem easier to measure than it really is. A more difficult question is whether inequality can continue even after many discriminatory rules have disappeared. To answer it, we must look not only at what laws say, but also at how institutions, habits, and past decisions shape the choices people have in the present.

The history of the United States provides a useful example. After slavery ended in the nineteenth century, Black Americans were legally free, yet freedom did not immediately produce equal access to education, housing, employment, or political influence. In many places, segregation and other restrictions limited where Black citizens could live, study, work, and vote. Such systems did more than separate people at one moment in time. They affected the ability of families to build wealth, gain secure employment, and pass advantages to the next generation. This matters because social conditions are cumulative. A family denied access to a desirable neighborhood decades ago may have had fewer chances to benefit from rising property values, and that difference may influence later opportunities even when the original discriminatory rule no longer exists.

However, this historical perspective raises another problem. If present inequalities are always explained by past discrimination, there is a risk of treating history as a complete explanation for every difference we observe today. Societies change, individuals make varied choices, and many factors—such as education, local economies, family circumstances, and public policy—interact in complicated ways. It is therefore too simple to assume that every unequal outcome proves current racial discrimination. At the same time, it is equally simplistic to argue that the disappearance of explicitly racist laws means race no longer matters. The challenge is to distinguish between direct discrimination, the long-term effects of earlier systems, and inequalities produced by several causes at once.

This distinction becomes especially important when people debate policies intended to reduce racial inequality. Some argue that institutions should treat everyone according to the same rules, regardless of race, because equal treatment is the fairest response to past injustice. Others reply that identical treatment can preserve unequal conditions if people begin from very different positions. Consider two students judged by the same admissions standard. At first glance, the rule appears neutral. Yet if one student has had access to better-funded schools, experienced teachers, and extensive academic support, while the other has not, applying one standard may not tell us everything about ability or effort. Still, attempts to correct such differences can create new disagreements about which disadvantages should count, how strongly they should matter, and how long corrective policies should continue.

Modern technology adds another layer to the issue. Decisions about loans, hiring, school admissions, or policing may increasingly be influenced by data and algorithms rather than by a person openly expressing racial bias. This can make decision-making appear more objective. Yet an algorithm learns from existing information, and that information may reflect patterns created by earlier inequality. If historical disadvantages are hidden inside the data, a system can reproduce unequal outcomes without containing any explicit instruction to discriminate. On the other hand, not every statistical difference produced by an algorithm is necessarily evidence of racial bias. Evaluating fairness requires asking how the system was designed, what information it uses, what outcome it is meant to achieve, and whether alternative explanations have been seriously examined.

The history of discrimination against Black people, then, is not best understood as a completed chapter followed by a separate modern age. Nor should it be treated as a single force that explains every present inequality. Its significance lies partly in the way past rules can continue to influence present conditions, even after those rules have been formally removed. Recognizing that connection does not require assuming that history determines everything. Rather, it requires a more demanding form of judgment: examining present institutions carefully, separating different causes when possible, and remaining open to evidence that challenges simple conclusions. Progress is real when unfair barriers are removed, but understanding whether equality has been achieved requires more than checking whether those barriers are still written into law.

Q1. Which statement best reflects the discussion of equal treatment in paragraph 4?

1. Equal standards are sufficient whenever institutions avoid explicit racial preferences.
2. Corrective policies are justified whenever applicants have unequal educational backgrounds.
3. Neutral rules inevitably conceal unfairness when candidates begin differently.
4. Identical criteria may overlook meaningful differences in prior opportunity.

Q2. What can be inferred from the historical developments described in paragraph 2?

1. Legal freedom quickly expanded Black families’ access to lasting advantages.
2. Earlier restrictions could shape opportunities long after their formal removal.
3. Rising property values mainly reduced educational inequality between racial groups.
4. Segregation mattered chiefly because it limited immediate political participation.

Q3. Which statement is NOT supported by the passage?

1. Judging racial inequality requires examining institutions as well as formal laws.
2. Data-driven systems may reproduce older inequalities without explicit biased instructions.
3. Present racial gaps can generally be explained by historical discrimination alone.
4. Past injustice can matter today without determining every current outcome.