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Systemic racism is alive and well in America [1]
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Date: 2023-05-11
In 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character” As of now, this nation has a long way to go. Systemic racism is still a huge problem in America, with people of color being discriminated against in many legal and social institutions.
Systemic vs. Interpersonal
When most people think of racism today, they think of an old southern white guy carrying a gun and yelling racial slurs for no apparent reason. This is an example of interpersonal racism. The real problem facing this country is not interpersonal, but systemic racism. Systemic racism is when people of color are discriminated against by the system. This could be with unfair hiring practices, unequal education, unfair treatment by the justice system, or discrimination in any part of society. The entire system being built to attack people of color is much worse than one individual having a personal vendetta against people of color.
In the workforce
A 2017 Harvard Business School study found that when people of color “whiten” their resumes, they are more likely to get called back for an interview. To prove this, they sent the exact same resume twice, once with mentions of race, such as being a member of a Black organization, and once without any mention of race. The resumes without any mention to race were called back 25 percent of the time, versus only 10 percent for those that did. This was true even for businesses that claimed to be an Equal Opportunity Employer.
Racism does not only exist in hiring practices, but also pay grade. According to Insider, “In 2021, overall income for Black Americans was 49% lower than for whites.”
Many employers use an employee’s network to find new workers. When most employees in a company are white, this creates a huge problem. To prove this, the Washington Post conducted a survey which found that 75% of white workers don’t have any non-white friends.
A common fix to this problem is simply flinging money at it. Unfortunately, this is not very effective. Instead, companies need to reexamine their business structure to ensure they do not have racist practices, intentionally or unintentionally. Truly living up to the Equal Opportunity Employer status, building networks to include more people of color, and weeding out individual racists are all great ways to end systemic racism in the corporate world.
Education
Likewise, racial disparities exist in education. In the words of EdWeek: “In a nationally representative survey, conducted by the EdWeek Research Center, 87 percent of teachers, principals, and district leaders agreed that Black students face higher rates of school discipline than their white peers due to discrimination."
As a result of redlining, people of color disproportionately live in lower income neighborhoods. Schools receive funding from local property tax, and this causes majority black schools to have low-paid teachers and inadequate supplies. Without proper education, black students are set behind early.
Moreover, Black students are less likely to have internet access. A Joint Economic Committee report revealed that 30 percent of Black households do not have any broadband connection, compared to just 18 percent of white households. When students are forced to go to a Starbucks or a Library to do their work, it creates a huge disadvantage. This problem could quickly be fixed if internet was made universally accessible.
Schools could have plenty of funding if some of the tax money from higher income neighborhoods was allocated to lower income schools. School funding should just come from State tax revenue, so that the quality of schools isn’t dependent on the income of the students’ families. Disenabling internal racial biases that teachers have, especially when said teachers don’t realize they have, can be tough, but can be achieved with trainings and weeding out intentionally racist educators and administrators.
Justice System
Systemic racism can also be found in the criminal justice system. Data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics shows that people of color get stopped by police much more often than whites. More data finds that Blacks are incarcerated at a far higher rate than Whites. A for-profit prison system that benefits from having as many inmates as possible targets people of color. This is why America has way more incarcerated individuals per capita than any other nation in the world. Imprisoning hundreds of thousands of Black people does not bring down crime, in fact, America still ranks number in one in mass shootings among developed nations by a long shot.
Many states have sentencing enhancements that target people of color. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, White people commit more white-collar crimes, and people of color commit more street crimes. When sentencing enhancements such as extended time for repeat offenders are placed solely on street-level crimes, this targets people of color. Sentencing enhancements need to be equally placed across all types of crimes, not just on certain ones. The incarceration problem could be fixed by changing the American prison system so that it does not profit from inmates.
The key to ending racism in America lies within dismantling systemic racism. If systemic racism is ended, then although some individuals may still have racist thoughts, they are not authorized to act on them. Police officers would no longer be allowed to kill unarmed people of color, because they would face sharp consequences. Banks would be punished for refusing mortgages based on race, and equal opportunity employment would be fully enforced. The removal of systemic racism would also likely spell the end of interpersonal racism. Once people are not encouraged by the system to continue their racist beliefs, it will be much harder for any action to gain traction, therefore causing interpersonal racism to be wiped out and effectively ending all racism in America.
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