Racism Against Blacks Is Real

The murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmuad Arbery, and Rayshard Brooks, and others have kicked the lid off an old, forever-simmering, American problem – the fact that the U.S.A. has never dealt with racism against its black population. If American had dealt with it, would we still be talking about race in 2020 – even after slavery ended in 1865, even after the Civil Rights Act/Enforcement Act of 1877, even after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, even after the decades of protests against racism? Descendants of Enslaved People, AKA American Blacks, have fought in every war, built the country with hundreds of years of free labor, and have been at the forefront of arts, literature, science, music. Vast numbers were terrorized, denied equal rights, and the full rewards of citizenship. There is a large percentage of blacks who live under the poverty line due to denials of full access. There are blacks who live near sewage, who have bad water to drink, who are not offered the same education as middle-class whites, and who are targets. The legacies of being denied “40 acres and a mule” along with Jim Crow and the black codes have left a lasting effect.

Four-hundred-years after the first slave was brought to the American shores to work the land and have boots on their bodies, many blacks have lived in a caste system of race-based treatment, politics, and laws. Pointing to a handful of successes while others live in fear does not equal true success. The Civil Rights Movement did help some blacks get into schools, allow some to move into white areas, or get good jobs in the past. However nowadays, most blacks realize that those inroads are lost as unemployment, underemployment, and the loss of capital have drastically harmed black businesses and individuals. Whites with high school diplomas tend to do better with employment than Blacks with college degrees.

Racism never ‘completely’ ended – not in politics, housing, education, the legal system, perception, and medical care. Coronavirus hit Blacks hard (and Hispanics) as many were essential workers and were required to work in public transportation, maintenance areas, hospitals, and grocery and dollar stores while others who were considered nonessential either got unemployment or worked from home. More than a third of blacks live in poverty and unhealthy environments (water, sewage, etc.). At least a third of black males are involved in the criminal justice system (in jail, prison, on parole) and this is not due to committing more crimes but to harsher sentencing or awaiting trial in jail. Just look at Ethan Couch, a young, white man who was given a 720-day sentence after killing four people or look at Brock Turner, a white Stanford student convicted of three felony assaults who was sentenced to six months in jail. Look at Kalief Browder, a black man, who was held at Rikers Island for three years though he was never charged. Just look at how any black person’s record and reputation is fully scrutinized when killed by law enforcement and/or a white person, as if one’s supposed poor background lends itself to a beat-down, investigation, or worse.

Lower-class/poor blacks live in food deserts and lack community services or suffer from Redlining. Some areas even have restrictive covenants where blacks were not allowed to own or lease a place because it was in a white area. Poor schools, which are largely in black and brown neighborhoods, sometimes suffer from a lack of quality teachers and poor equipment (good computers, STEM classes, old books). Poor education does not lend itself to quality English, Math, Science, or AP/Honors Classes – all needed to have a great G.P.A. and access to fine colleges for jobs that could lead to a middle-class lifestyle. According to U.S. data, Affirmative Action disproportionately benefits white women, but most people seem to think that blacks are getting opportunities left and right based upon race. The country I love dearly almost wiped out one group, while enslaving and castigating another. Ignoring a gaping wound does not lead to any type of healing process.

https://time.com/4884132/affirmative-action-civil-rights-white-women/

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