Systemic Racism is a popular phrase in today’s vocabulary. Before you close this tab or open another app, take a second the really think about the leading word. Systemic, does anyone really know what it means? It is defined by Miriam-Webster as relating to a system or concerned with classification. Systemic comes from institutions and systems put into place through societal norms and government action. It is not directly related to personal feelings of discrimination or lack of.
Now when you add the word racism at the end, then people feel reactions toward the phrase. Recently Ben and Jerry’s released a fact based article titled 7 Ways We Know Systemic Racism is Real. Reading though the hundreds of Facebook comments one would come across sayings things like “blue bunny has my business now” and “stick to making ice-cream” when it’s literally an article stating facts. Technically Ben and Jerry’s never stated a specific type of people were routinely more racist. They didn’t come though computer screens and take anything you are privileged and entitled to have. They brought facts that are backed by the systems that have been in place in American society for many many years.
An example could be; even with a college degree African American and Hispanic college graduates are 2 times more likely to be unemployed. And this is through unemployment data collected by census in the last 50 years, which means this has been a problem for a long time, maybe even a –systemic problem. Keep in mind the definition of systemic when looking at these next statistics.
African Americans make up 13% of the population and over 40% of the prison population. Yes, committing a crime deserves consequences. Race should not play a part in that, however compared to the 60% Caucasian population African Americans are more likely to be arrested and convicted. More likely to be arrested because dense, urban areas are policed heavier than rural ones (not completely due to racial biases, but because more people in one place equals more police in general) and more likely to be convicted because they cannot afford an expensive attorney.
So why chose to live in a denser, urban area when you can live wherever you please? Most of the time it isn’t a choice. Redlining was a government and bank trend in the 1930’s that ranked and organized neighborhoods by which are worthy of mortgage lending. The ‘red’ or undesirable neighborhoods were typically the ones with a large portion of minorities. Banks know where these neighborhoods are and can deny loans for a new house in a different neighborhood based on where the homeowner lived. This practice was outlawed in 1968, barely 50 years ago but it’s effect can still be seen today.
Why do we expect systemic racial problems to have healed with time when we still listen to music, buy from companies and watch movies from 50 years ago? This type of racism is not in your face discrimination like name calling but it is real. It is a person’s right in this country to make the American dream for themselves, to get out there and provide for their families. The common ground in these facts is that it has been historically harder for minorities because of the systems we have put in place. These facts don’t fuel racism; it sheds light on the problems we can’t easily fix by not using racial slurs or flying a certain type of flag or even eating a certain type of ice cream.
