15 Facts About Racism

July 7, 2015

From the Inkwell of: Bartholomew J. Worthington III

With the recent controversy regarding the Confederate flag, it would be easy to miss the fact that the real racism that affects the every day lives of almost every single Black person is of the systematic nature. While overt racism is far easier to get outraged about, it is covert racism that has the greatest impact on our daily existence.

With that in mind, we present 15 facts about systematic racism which are largely ignored by the Mainstream Media.

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Redlining is the practice of denying key services (like home loans and insurance) or increasing their costs for residents in a defined geographical area. In theory, this could be used against anyone. In reality, it was almost exclusively a tool to force blacks (and other minorities) into particular geographic areas. The practice began with the Federal Housing Administration, as well as the Federal Home Loan Bank Board. It was this agency which created “residential security maps” for several cities to determine the safety of real estate investments in selected areas. Source 1

Redlining was almost exclusively a tool to force blacks into particular geographic areas

Unlike their white counterparts, who in the 1940s and 50s, could take advantage of the G.I. Bill, Blacks couldn’t obtain conventional financing or subsidized loans. Source 1

America doesn't have what is commonly termed “de facto” segregation--primarily resulting from private prejudice, income differences, preferences to live separately, or demographic trends. Rather segregation is “de jure,” resulting mostly from racially explicit public policies designed to create residential patterns we too easily accept as natural or accidental. These policies were blatant violations of constitutional guarantees that have never been remedied. Source 6

America's segregation is “de jure,” resulting mostly from racially explicit public policies

St. Louis planning boardchanged zoning designations when necessary to enforce racial boundaries

In neighborhoods where deeds prohibited sales to African Americans, the St. Louis planning board prohibited anything but single family homes. Where neighborhoods had black families, the board permitted multifamily structures, saloons, and factories. It changed zoning designations when necessary to enforce racial boundaries. Source 6

Housing equity is Americans’ most important source of wealth. Average black family income is now about 60 percent of white family income, but black household wealth is only about 5 percent of white household wealth. This disparity is almost entirely attributable to federal policy that prohibited black families from accumulating equity during the suburban boom and thus from bequeathing that wealth to children, as whites have done. Source 6

Black household wealth is only about 5 percent of white household wealth

White families are much wealthier than Black families at every education level

White families are much wealthier than Black and Hispanic families at every education level. More than that, all white families, even those at the lowest education level, have a higher median wealth than all Black and Hispanic families, even those at the highest education level. The median white family with an education level below high school has a net worth of $51.3k, while the median Black and Hispanic family with a college degree has a net worth of $25.9k and $41k respectively. Source 8

There are more African American Adults under correctional control today, in prisoner jail, on probation or parole than were enslaved in 1850.

There are more African American Adults under correctional control today than were enslaved in 1850

Black drivers are more than twice as likely to be subject to police searches

Black drivers are 31 percent more likely to be pulled over than whites; they are more than twice as likely to be subject to police searches as white drivers; and they are nearly twice as likely to not be given any reason for the traffic stop, period. Source 4

New York City lost a federal civil rights challenge to their police stop and frisk practices by the Center for Constitutional Rights during which police stopped over 500,000 people annually without any indication that the people stopped had been involved in any crime at all. About 80 percent of those stops were of Black and Latinos who compromise 25 and 28 percent of N.Y.C.'s total population. Source 3

About 80 percent Stop and Frisk stops were of Black and Latinos

African Americans 14% of monthly drug users but 37% of those arrested for drug offenses

African Americans comprise 13% of the US population & 14% of monthly drug users, but they are 37% of the people arrested for drug offenses.

1.4 million African American men, or 13% of black men, are disenfranchised; a rate seven times the national average. 11 states disenfranchise more than 10% of their African American population. Source 5

Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola is a former slave plantation that actually operates as a slave plantation

Louisiana is home to Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, the former slave plantation that actually operates as a slave plantation, with mostly black prisoners who engage in hard labor in the fields and white guards traditionally known as “freemen.” Meanwhile, 1 in 14 black men in New Orleans is incarcerated, and 1 in 7 is under some sort of governmental supervision, whether in prison or on parole or probation. Source 7

While blacks are 27% of the population of Alabama, they are 63% of the prison population. Though 65% of crimes in the state involve black murder victims, 80% of people sentenced to death were convicted of killing a white victim. And none of the appellate judges and only one of the elected prosecutors is black. Source 7

For every 100 Black women 25-54 not in jail, there are 83 Black men

Black women who are 25 to 54 and not in jail outnumber Black men in that category by 1.5 million, according to an Upshot analysis. For every 100 Black women in this age group living outside of jail, there are only 83 Black men. Incarceration and early deaths are the overwhelming drivers of the gap. Source 9

After four weeks of testimony and over 70 witnesses in a civil trial in Memphis, Tennessee, twelve jurors reached a unanimous verdict on December 8, 1999 after about an hour of deliberations that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy of the Mafia, local, state and federal government agencies. The jury ruled that all of the aforementioned parties were deeply involved in the assassination of Civil Rights icon. Source 10