Ohai babes! Fun fact: I’m white. I know, congrats Laci you’ve figured out your race
[GOLD STAR]! But this is pretty significant. For most of my life I was blissfully unaware
of the fact that I’m white. My race never affected me - a huge benefit I didn’t even
know I had.
Growing up, I knew racism was bad...but I didn’t fully understand what racism was.
I thought racism was: slurs, discrimination, hatred based on skin color. About 50 years
ago [GRAPHIC: CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT] direct, in-your-face, overt racism became illegal
and less socially acceptable. Which had 2 side effects on white America: first, it allowed
us to believe that racism was over. “YAY!!! MLK!!! EQUALITY FOR ALL!!” Second, it enabled
white folks to frame the ongoing struggles of the black community as a character flaw.
After Ferguson, a family member said to me: “Look, black people have a lot of problems
because they have a bad culture. Bad values. They’re violent, they’re lazy, broken
families. Look at them rioting like animals. That’s not racism, that’s just the facts.”
Woah - tell me how you really feel! People usually aren’t so blunt about it - but if
you look closely enough, you’ll see these sentiments about black america echoed...everywhere
[B-ROLL]. The message we get? Black people are inferior.
But that’s not the facts, that’s just racism. Racism isn’t just burning crosses
and white hoods. It’s a seeping system of invisible forces that keep people of color
in a permanent 2nd class status. It’s the foundational fabric of our society, woven
with values, attitudes, stereotypes, policies, economics, and laws. Jim Crow laws of the
past were replaced with shiny, new laws that were just as racist, but looked better on
the surface. This made it harder than ever for white america to see the truth: the odds
are ever in our favor...and they always have been. Let’s take a trip down memory lane.
STOP 1: Wealth Between 1934 and 1962, the government backed
$120 billion of home loans. But they refused to back home loans for black americans OR
even if black folks lived NEARBY. This went on for decades. This practice - called redlining
- essentially (1) forced black americans into poor urban centers - the beginning of “the
ghetto” (2) segregated America to this day, (3) made it impossible to invest in the future
of black neighborhoods, and (4) made it impossible for black americans to start inheriting property
and wealth the same way white americans did (x x).
STOP 2: Education Property taxes fund schools - which means
families with nice houses (maybe ones they got with the help of the government) get a
better education. With a better education they have more opportunities, connections,
resources, jobs and….money, money, money.
STOP 3: Jobs Poor housing and a lack of educational opportunities
meant many black folks were forced into low-wage manual labor. Today, when looking at the same
exact resume, employers are 50% more likely to call back a candidate with a white sounding
name. The barriers to equal pay, employment, representation
- have deep roots.
STOP 4: Mass incarceration Shortly after the civil rights movement, prisons
became privatized, for-profit businesses. Fill those cells, make that money! And they
did. The prison population shot up from 200,000 to 2.4 MILLION! MIILLLLLIONNNN! More than
any country in the world! And who filled those cells? People of color. [There are more people
of color now incarcerated than were ever enslaved]. Black men are imprisoned at 6x the rate of
white men. Did black men just become more 6x dangerous? Course not - sentencing changed.
Sweeping laws were written that specifically targeted black communities. For instance,
the sentence for possession of crack (more common amongst people of color because it’s
cheaper) was 100x harsher than possession of chemically similar cocaine (more common
amongst rich white people). (x)
STOP 5: Racial profiling It wasn’t just harsher sentencing. Communities
of color are also policed more harshly -
policies like show me your papers and stop & frisk target people of color under the law
So shocker, they’re more likely to be arrested for the stuff that white people are also doing,
and they’re twice as likely to get pulled over. Take the late Walter Scott - pulled
over for a broken tail light in South Carolina, only to be shot in the back 5 times by a cop.
STOP 6: Police brutality Police brutality is front and center of the
race conversation right now. Twice a week in the US, white officers kill black suspects
- most of whom are unarmed - and consequences for those crimes are minimal, if any. The
police themselves admit to the use of excessive force and rampant racial bias in departments.
So what does America do? Arm the police military supplies: tanks, protective gear, firepower
used in war - all while wagging a finger at protestors who dare to be outraged.
This is just the tip of the racism iceberg. We need to ask ourselves: what’s really
causing the problems that we’re observing in America? What advantages has white America
been given - often without realizing it? The first step in combatting racism (and often
the hardest) is acknowledging that the system is unfair. Racism is a powerful institution
built by 400 years of slavery, 100 years of overt discrimination, 50+ more years of covert
discrimination. That legacy doesn’t just disappear overnight.
America, we have a lot of work to do.