10 Charts That Really Put the Severity of Racism in America Into Perspective

Ghost Believers “More whites believe in ghosts than believe in racism,” NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, a former center for the Los Angeles Lakers, said to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. "That’s why we have shows like Ghostbusters and don’t have shows like Racistbuster. You know, it’s something that’s still part of our culture and people hold on to some of these ideas and practices just out of habit and saying that, well, that’s the way it always was. But things have to change.” Housing Discrimination An analysis of census data conducted by researchers at Brown University found that income is less of a reason for the lack of fair housing practices. "With only one exception (the most affluent Asians), minorities at every income level live in poorer neighborhoods than do whites with comparable incomes," the researchers found. "We cannot escape the conclusion that more is at work here than simple market processes that place people according to their means." Along with residential segregation, the study notes, comes access to fewer resources for those in minority neighborhoods. Widened Wealth Gap After Civil Rights Era Between 1984 and 2009, a Brandeis study showed that disparity in wealth tripled. School Segregation Persists Seventy-four percent of Black students attend segregated schools, and 38 percent attend intensely segregated schools — ones with only up to 10 percent of white students. Great Recession Between 2007 and 2010, the height of the nation’s financial crisis, Black families' wealth fell by 31 percent, compared to 11 percent for white families. Home Loan Disparities The mortgages denial rates from government-sponsored services analysis, according to Urban Institute data, were higher for Black applicants with bad credit than for white applicants with bad credit. Preschool Punishment Imbalance A Department of Education report said: "Black children represent 18 percent of preschool enrollment, but 42 percent of the preschool children suspended once, and 48 percent of the preschool children suspended more than once." Misperception About Drug Users Black people are arrested three times more than whites, although whites use drugs more than Black people. And so, 1 in 3 Black males are projected to go to prison in their lifetime. Unfair Prison Sentences Black men receive prison sentences 19.5 percent longer than those of white men who committed similar crimes, a 2013 report by the U.S. Sentencing Commission found. Children Feel It, Too A study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that participants estimate Black boys to be older and less innocent than white boys of the same age. When participants were told that the boys, both Black and white, were suspected of crimes, the disparity in perceptions of age and innocence became starker. Separate research by Stanford psychologists suggests that these kinds of biased perceptions of innocence contribute to non-white juvenile offenders receiving harsher sentences than their white peers.

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