Racism is Alive and Well
Many Black people feel that admitting or accepting the prevalence of racism is a cop-out or a poor excuse for why many of us remain at the bottom rungs of society. However, the stats don’t lie. Blacks still face enormous economic, health and educational disparities in addition to the educational war against Black children and the criminal justice war against the whole Black community, particularly Black men. Here are just a few examples that clearly show just how pervasive racism is in the United States:
- African-Americans make up about 13 percent of the U.S. population, but they own just 3 percent of the assets.
- Black households earn about 59 percent of what white households earn, a small increase from 55 percent in 1967.
- The Black unemployment rate also has consistently been about double that of whites since the 1950s.
- Forty percent of children expelled from U.S. schools each year are Black.
- Seventy percent of children arrested or referred to law enforcement are Black or Latino.
- African-Americans comprise 14 percent of regular drug users but are 37 percent of those arrested for drug offenses.
- According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, one in three Black men can expect to go to prison in their lifetime.
- The U.S. Sentencing Commission stated that in the federal system, Black offenders receive sentences that are 10 percent longer than white offenders for the same crimes.
- The infant mortality rate for Blacks is more than twice that for whites, regardless of the mother’s socioeconomic status.
Statistics from Pewsocialtrends.org and the Center for American Progress
