Segregation, one of the largest stains on the moral fabric of the United States, ended 52 years ago, and some would argue that racial injustice ended with it. There is resistance among people to believe that anything such as white privilege, white-washing in entertainment, and race-based police brutality exists anymore. The "Black Lives Matter" movement, which began in response to supposed racially-charged police incidents, has been met with a counter-movement born of ignorance and misunderstanding: the All Lives Matter movement. While proponents of the All Lives Matter movement often ignore some of the staggering statistics suggesting that racial injustice still exists, this movement does manage to ask some fitting questions. In a country where legal racism has been condemned, and Jim Crow segregation has been ridden from our law books, how does institutional and customary racism prevail? How does racism still exist?
The fact is, institutional racism never ceased to exist. While the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did end legal segregation, this law did nothing to address the issues that racism and segregation caused in the first place. In the years following 1964, 41.8 percent of blacks were in poverty, compared to only 11.3 percent of whites. While black poverty has decreased since 1964, more recent measures of national poverty show a national poverty rate of 25.8 percent of blacks and African Americans below the poverty line, while 43 states have a white poverty rate below 14 percent (the national rate of white poverty is 11.6 percent). Even with this decrease in black poverty since the Civil Rights Act, there is a disproportionate allocation of wealth between the races that is still evident today.
According to the PEW Center on the States, 1 in 15 black men will become incarcerated, compared to only 1 in 106 white men, despite only 30 percent of the population of the United States being black. This pattern also exists in women, with 1 in 100 black women being incarcerated, while only 1 in 355 white women is also incarcerated. Despite there being a larger proportion of black individuals in jail as opposed to white individuals, 60.3 percent of violent crimes are committed by whites , as opposed to only 36.8 percent of blacks, according to the FBI. A larger proportion of black men and women are arrested for lesser crimes, even today. These statistics only further beg the question: What accounts for this disparity?
The lives of different races during segregation, although they were supposed to be "separate yet equal," were very unequal. Black men and women lived lives with a lower quality of education, housing, and health care than the white population of America. Although we have effectively combated the legal precedents that caused this racial divide, American society has not managed to implement an effective solution to the results of this divide.
It is a matter of political opinion as to whether issues regarding race should be resolved within the social or the political arena, but the key to fixing this issue is to acknowledge that there is indeed a problem. The presence of institutional racism still influences the country, and it can be seen from poverty levels to the lack of representation of minorities in entertainment (only 16.7 percent of lead actors in mainstream theatrical films are minorities as of 2013). So how does racism still exist? It exists because it is ignored. It is believed not to exist. If the All Lives Matter movement teaches us anything, it is that there are those in America who don't believe that racial injustice exists simply because it is not legally present. For 52 years, America has ignored the effects of segregation and legal injustice on blacks and other minorities. The only way that racism can truly cease to exist is if we acknowledge this disparity, and improve upon it.
