The Virginia Society for the Preservation and Appreciation of High-Quality Posts

[Skunk]

You know, it's funny. I used to think like you. I was a naive white suburban pre-teen who thought we had solved racism and that people discussing racism were just being oversensitive. After all, we had a black President! We did away with legal segregation and Jim Crow decades ago! I hadn't experienced the cruel lash of racism myself, so I assumed it wasn't an issue for anybody in this day and age.

Then I matured a little bit. I got into high school and started to develop more of an interest in politics and the world around me. I befriended more people with backgrounds, races, ethnicities, appearances, cultures, and stories different than my own. I started to read more and pay attention to the news. And I started to realize that my thoughts on racism were foolish and underdeveloped. I didn't think racism was still a problem in this country because I was fortunate enough not to have experienced it personally.

My ignorance was regrettable, but in my own defense, I had yet to be truly exposed to other perspectives. You, on the other hand, have almost certainly been confronted with piles of evidence in your time trolling political communities like this one. But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt one more time. Let's review some of the most poignant realities. Let's review racism in this country today.

You talk about race being a distraction from bread and butter issues. People trying to put food on their table. So let's start there. Food insecurity disproportionately impacts racial minorities. While only 9% of white households in the US struggle with food insecurity, it’s a problem for 22% of black households and 18% of Hispanic households. In fact, according to Drexel’s Dr. Mariana Chilton, “you cannot take on poverty and hunger without taking on historical and contemporary discrimination.”

Let’s talk about poverty. According to the Census Bureau, for every $100 earned by white families in the US, black families earn an average of $57.30. That’s just income. In terms of actual wealth, for every $100 held by white families, black families hold $5.04. While only 10.1% of non-Hispanic whites live in poverty, 23.6% of Hispanic Americans do, alongside 26.2% of Black Americans and a shocking 28.3% of Native Americans.

How about jobs? According to Pew, for six or seven straight decades, the black unemployment rate has consistently been twice as high as the white unemployment rate. This affects black college graduates as well. Back in 2014, the unemployment rate for black college graduates was 12.4%. Overall, the unemployment rate for college graduates was 5.6%. Even higher education can’t outpace the scourge of racism. That’s not even getting into the well-attributed phenomenon of people with white sounding names receiving as high as 50% more callbacks for employment than those with stereotypically black names.

Let’s get back to education for a second. Black children are put to a disadvantage as early as preschool, where they make up half of all suspensions per the Department of Education. Across the nation, minority children make up disproportionate percentages of schools that underachieve, largely due to poor funding. According to a paper from the Civil Rights Project, schools with high proportions of minority enrollment are often characterized by "less experienced and less qualified teachers, high levels of teacher turnover, less successful peer groups and inadequate facilities and learning materials." And their problems don’t end in high school. According to the Hechinger Report, 42% of college age white Americans are actually enrolled in college, while only 34% of black and Hispanic Americans the same age are. These students are less likely to go to selective institutions and are less likely to graduate.

Black people make up around 40% of the prison population despite making up 13% of the total population of the country. This is due entirely to institutional racism, sentencing disparities, and racial profiling. Black drivers are 30% more likely to be pulled over by the police and black convicts are 20% more likely to be sentenced to jail time for the same crime (oh, and by the way, their sentences are 20% longer as well.)

Only 42% of black Americans own homes, as compared to 72% of white Americans.

When an implicit bias survey was conducted in 2012, 56% of Americans expressed anti-black attitudes. 57% of Americans expressed anti-Hispanic attitudes.

76% of black and Asian Americans, alongside 58% of Hispanics, said that they had experienced discrimination or unfair treatment at some point in their lives, something that can affect one’s psyche for years.

Let’s not forget about the President of the United States denigrating members of Congress, telling them to go back to their countries and implying their citizenship wasn’t equal to a native-born white American’s. Do you think that promotes a good image of American values in the mind’s eye of children of color?

I could go on for pages and pages, but since I assume you gave up reading a while back, I’ll wrap up with an anecdote. The other day, I attended a roundtable talk put on by some friends of mine. It was intended to discuss race, culture, and disparities here in my home county. Not that someone like you would see the value in this, but I found the perspectives of those who had differences than my own illuminating. Racial disparities exist everywhere, and if you’re not aware of that, you need to look harder. A Latino guy made the salient point that something as simple as trash collection was done with much more care in the whiter portion of my county where he used to live than the less white portion of the county where he lives now. Several Muslim students brought up the difficulties they had experienced attempting to practice their faith in school.

I find it quite telling that you don’t find racism to be a big problem in the US, Grasr00ts. It goes to show that you’re lucky. You’re living in a fantasy land where you haven’t been the victim of these vicious behaviors and, since you’re the kind of person who’s seemingly incapable of understanding other people’s perspectives, you assume that all of this bigotry has vanished. It hasn’t and it’s stunningly naive for you to assume that is has. I encourage you to try and learn from people who don’t think like you and don’t have the same background as you in the future. Like I said, I was once like you. I hadn’t experienced all of this crap so I assumed there was no way it could exist. I was wrong then, and you’re wrong now. Grow up, open your eyes, and listen to others. It might just serve you well.