Anti-Black Racism �Is Alive and Well in the U.S.:��here is the statistical evidence
Introduction – p1
Dr. King, the Civil Rights Movement, & the 1964 Civil Rights Act did not “END” Racism… They Simply Pushed It Under the Surface Where It Became More Insidious & Easier to Deny.
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Racial disparities persisted after the 1964 Civil Rights law was passed because discriminatory policies persisted under a patina of colorblindness.
The 1964 act ended up principally outlawing “intention to discriminate” in the present. Intent — not outcome — became the preferred proof of discrimination. Evidence of intent to create the racial disparity — like the “white only” sign — became the principal marker of discrimination, not the racial disparity itself, nor the absence of people of color. Americans quietly responded to the 1964 act by backing “race neutral” policies that were aimed at excluding black bodies. Racial disparity, meanwhile, was reinforced and reproduced in new forms.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was not the beginning of the end of American racism. It was the beginning of our poisonous belief that America was ending racism.
Racism did not end — it progressed. Racism progressed when legislators did not repair the advantage that whites enjoyed from accumulated gains of past discrimination. Racism progressed when Americans refused to identify discrimination by outcome. Racism progressed when presumed discrimination had been eliminated, assumed equal opportunity had taken over, and figured that since blacks were still losing the race, the racial disparities must be their own fault. Racism progressed when Americans chose the law and order of inequality over the civil right of equality.
EXCERPTED FROM Kendi, Ibraham, “The Civil Rights Act was a victory against racism. But racists also won. The bill unleashed a poisonous idea: that America had defeated racism,” The Washington Post, July 2, 2017.
Introduction – p2 �REI’s Groundwater Metaphor for Structural Racism:
The Groundwater metaphor is based on 3 research observations: �1) Racial inequity looks the same across systems; �2) Socio-economic difference does not explain racial inequity; �3) Inequities are caused by systems, regardless of people's culture or behavior.
Hayes-Greene, Deena, and Love, Bayard P., The Groundwater Approach: Building a Practical Understanding of Structural Racism, The Racial Equity Institute.
The data in this document provide evidence for these 3 observations.
Racial inequity looks the same across institutions
© 2020 Uprooting Inequity LLC
Hayes-Greene, Deena, and Love, Bayard P., The Groundwater Approach: Building a Practical Understanding of Structural Racism, The Racial Equity Institute.
Part 1:� �Racial Disparities & Discrimination �in �Income and Wealth
MYTH #2: Racial economic disparities have improved significantly since the 1960s civil rights acts.
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Source: Van Dam, Andrew, “The black-white economic divide is as wide as it was in 1968,” The Washington Post, June 4, 2020.
Reality:
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Van Dam, Andrew, “The black-white economic divide is as wide as it was in 1968,” The Washington Post, June 4, 2020.
The Black-White wealth gap is as wide
as in the 1960s.
Van Dam, Andrew, “The black-white economic divide is as wide as it was in 1968,” The Washington Post, June 4, 2020.
White wealth surges; black wealth stagnates.
The Black-White wealth gap is as wide as in the 1990s.
There is a persistent racial income gap and an even bigger racial wealth gap. Federal research shows in 2016, the income of the typical white family was roughly 1.7 times (almost twice) that of a typical black family, and the wealth of a typical white family was roughly 10 times that of a typical black family.
Van Dam, Andrew, “The black-white economic divide is as wide as it was in 1968,” The Washington Post, June 4, 2020.
MYTH #4: Racial disparities are due to educational and socioeconomic differences.
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Huelsman, Mark. “Social Exclusion: The State of State U for Black Students.” Demos. December 12, 2018.
Reality:
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The effects of poverty on a child are multiplied when the child lives in an area of concentrated poverty. Poor African-American children are significantly more likely than poor white children to live areas of concentrated poverty.
“Income Mobility” is a reflection of how much equal opportunity a society has—the ability of a child to rise to a higher socio-economic class than the one in which he/she was born (the American Dream). The higher bar in the graph below, the LESS mobility (equal opportunity) that country has; a son’s earnings are highly correlated not with their individual talents & efforts, but rather with what their father earned.
Income Mobility in the U.S. is significantly lower than in the majority of wealthy/developed nations.
We are no longer the land of the “American Dream”;
Increasingly, most Americans’ wealth is more a reflection of how wealthy their father was, rather than of their own talents and efforts.
Chetty, Raj, Nathaniel Hendren, Patrick kline and Emmanuel Saez, “Where is the Land of Opportunity? The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 129(4): 1553-1623, June 2014.
The chances of achieving the “American Dream” of Upward Mobility are now lower in the U.S. than in any other economically developed nation,
and are twice as high in Canada than in the U.S.
A 2014 study by Harvard economists led by Raj Chetty found that the chances of moving from the poorest fifth of the population to the wealthiest fifth were lower in the U.S. than in other economically developed nations.
© 2021 Uprooting Inequity LLC
Chetty, R., Hendren, N., Jones, M.R., and Porter, S.R. (2018) "Race and Economic Opportunity in the United States: An Intergenerational Perspective"
Rates of
Upward Mobility:
Blacks vs. Whites
Rate of Kids with Parents in the lowest income quintile (Q1) who make it to the highest income quintile (Q5) as adults
Black children born into middle-income families are twice as likely to be downwardly mobile as middle-income whites
The children of Black middle-class families are significantly more likely than whites to fall DOWN the income ladder and have LOWER incomes than their parents.
“A key part of the "American Dream" is leaving your children in a better economic position than you were in, but that dream is less attainable for Black Americans”.
“In most large US cities, it's harder for black children from poorer families to move up the economic ladder than for white children from similarly low-income families”.
A 2014 study by economist Raj Chetty and Harvard University’s Opportunity Insights found that “the children of white households in the bottom quarter of the income distribution were much more likely than children from Black households at the bottom to move up into a higher income bracket over their lives”.
Shayanne Gal/Business Insider, with data from Chetty, Raj, Nathaniel Hendren, Patrick Kline, and Emmanuel Saez. 2014. “Where is the Land of Opportunity: The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 129 (4): 1553-1623.
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Well-
Connected Personal Contacts
No Need to Financially Support Parents & Relatives
Inter-
Generational Wealth Transmission
Home
Equity
Wealthier, More Educated Parents
Safety Net
to Take Professional Risks
The Racial Wealth Gap Wealth begets wealth
Adelman, Larry, Exec prod. Race-The Power of an Illusion. (film) “Episode 3 The House We Live In.” California Newsreel, 2003.
Historical
Racial Exploitation & Discrimination
MYTH #8: Historical racial discrimination does not have significantly impact the present.
Reality:
Part 2:� �Racial Disparities & Discrimination �in �Employment
Source: EPI based on monthly Current Population Survey data. The 12-month averages include data for December 2014 through November 2015 and is calculated for people age 25 or older.
Black unemployment is significantly higher than white unemployment even when taking educational attainment into account (2015). (The “unemployed” only include those actively seeking a job)
Van Dam, Andrew, “The black-white economic divide is as wide as it was in 1968,” The Washington Post, June 4, 2020.
African-Americans are being disproportionately affected by the economic effects of the pandemic.
Van Dam, Andrew, “The black-white economic divide is as wide as it was in 1968,” The Washington Post, June 4, 2020.
Black small businesses are being disproportionately affected by the economic effects of the pandemic: they have been hit twice as hard.
Van Dam, Andrew, “The black-white economic divide is as wide as it was in 1968,” The Washington Post, June 4, 2020.
African-Americans are being disproportionately affected by the economic effects of the pandemic.
Van Dam, Andrew, “The black-white economic divide is as wide as it was in 1968,” The Washington Post, June 4, 2020.
African-Americans were disproportionately affected by the 2000s recession, and have still not been able to fully recover from it.
The Wage Gap Between Black and White Workers has increased �over time
In addition to having higher rates of unemployment than whites with the same level of education, black workers are also paid less than white workers on average, even after controlling for level of education.
This growth of the black-white wage gap since 1979 is due partly to 1) limited wage growth among middle- and low-wage workers (where African Americans are overrepresented) and 2) above average growth among the highest wage workers (where African Americans are underrepresented), BUT ALSO: 3) growing racial inequality in hiring, pay, and opportunities for promotion.
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Note: The term unemployed includes only those actively seeking a job.
Notes: White refers to non-Hispanic whites, black refers to blacks alone. Educational categories are mutually exclusive and represent the highest education level attained for all individuals ages 16 and older.
Source: Economic Policy Institute, State of Working America Data Library, [Unemployment by race and education], 2019.
Minorities Who ‘Whiten’ Job Resumes Get More Interviews. In this 2-year study (Kang, DeCelles, Tilcsik & Jun, Administrative Science Quarterly Journal, Sep 2016), researchers sent out matched résumé pairs in response to real job postings and found that 25% of black candidates received callbacks from their “whitened” resumes, while only 10% got calls when they left in details that revealed their race. This also occurred when the job posting included a pro-diversity statement.
“Examples of “resume whitening” included changing the name on their application materials to make them sound “more white,” omitting references to membership in organizations that could reveal their race or ethnicity, and “emphasizing experiences that signaled whiteness or assimilation into ‘white culture’,” according to the study.
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Minorities Who ‘Whiten’ Job Resumes Get More Interviews
25% of ‘whitened’ Black resumes received callbacks,
vs. 10% of the non-whitened versions of the same resumes.
MYTH #5: Racial disparities are due to cultural and behavioral differences.
Kang, DeCelles, Tilcsik & Jun, Administrative Science Quarterly Journal, Sep 2016
Reality:
Researchers sent out matched résumé pairs in response to real job ads.
Racial Discrimination in Employment/
Hiring
These were the exact same fake resumes—the researchers just changed the names from white names to black names.
(Note: this is a 2004 study)
Racial Bias in Philanthropic Funding: Nonprofits Led by People of Color Win Less Grant Money, and With More Strings Attached
A May 2020 joint study by the The Bridgespan Group and Echoing Green concluded that if philanthropists wish to improve their impact on the social change issues they care about, it is essential that they need to grant more of their funds to nonprofit leaders of color, as “these leaders often bring strategies that intimately understand the racialized experiences of communities of color and the issues these communities face”.
However, the study found that “compared to white-led nonprofits, the black-led organizations this study analyzed had revenues 24 percent smaller. And when it comes to unrestricted funding – i.e. funding and grants that come with no strings attached – black-led organizations’ funding streams are 76 percent smaller”.
Part 3:� �Racial Disparities & Discrimination �in �Housing
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The Anti-Discrimination Center. Interactive map.
Residential Segregation, 2016
Milwaukee, WI
Baltimore, MD
Minneapolis, MN
Washington DC
Brooklyn, NY
Atlanta, GA
MYTH #3: The Civil Rights Acts ended residential segregation.
Reality:
Racial Segregation is alive & well and feeds the racial wealth gap & racism
Birmingham-Hoover, Alabama
Key to the “racial dot maps”: Blue=White; Green=Black; Yellow=Hispanic; Red=Asian; Brown other. 2010 Census data.
Chicago metro area
St. Louis, Missouri-Illinois
Cleveland metro, Ohio
Detroit metro area
Milwaukee metro area
Source: Weldon Cooper Center For Public Service/Screenshot By Harrison Jacobs. Using 2010 Census data.
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The Lasting Impact of Historic ’Redlining’ on Neighborhood Health:
(NCRC, Sep 2020)
Social Vulnerability in Relation to Redlined Areas
Life Expectancy in Relation to Redlined Areas
Milwaukee example
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Good
Quality Schools
Access to Mainstream Credit
Access to Health Care
Public Safety & Exposure to Aggressive
Policing
Adequate Transportation
& Employment Opportunities
Exposure to Environmental Pollution
Concentrated
poverty/wealth
In neighborhood
Access to Groceries,
Retail &
Services
powell, john a. “Race, Place and Opportunity. Where We Live Influences Our Life Chances.” The American Prospect, September 2008.
Koziol, Brian. “Where You Live Makes All the Difference: An Opportunity Map of the Richmond Region.” H.O.M.E., 2013.
Present-Day
Racial Segregation
The Geography of Opportunity
Historical
Racial Exploitation & Discrimination
MYTH #8: Historical racial discrimination does not have significantly impact the present.
Reality:
MYTH #8: Historical racial discrimination does not have significantly impact the present.
The Geography of Opportunity in Washington DC: Racial Segregation—the Legacy of Historic Housing Discrimination—Affects Access to Opportunity Today
© 2020 Uprooting Inequity LLC
Access To Opportunity INDEX
Access to Health
Percent disabled
Percent uninsured
Percent low birth weight
Access to Employment
Mean Earnings
Unemployment rates
Mean travel time to work
Access to Housing
Median Housing Value
Percent owner-occupied housing
Percent subprime loans
Access to Public Safety
Violent crime rate
Property crime rate
Access to Education
%o 25+ w high school diploma
% adults with bachelor degree
School Proficiency Index (SPI)
Size of Black Population in Census Tract
Access to Opportunity INDEX
Created by Maret School’s “Mapping Inequity in DC” Class, 2017
© 2020 Uprooting Inequity LLC
© 2020 Uprooting Inequity LLC
Metro Areas
with Highest Black-White Segregation
(Brookings Institute)
100 = Complete Segregation
Source: William H Frey analysis of 2000 Census, and 2013-17 multiyear American Community Survey (released December 6, 2018), “Black-White Segregation Edges Downward Since 2000, Census Shows”, December 17, 2018.
Van Dam, Andrew, “The black-white economic divide is as wide as it was in 1968,” The Washington Post, June 4, 2020.
© 2020 Uprooting Inequity LLC
Fifty-two (52) years after the passing of the 1968 Fair Housing Act, the Black-White Homeownership Gap remains about the same—in fact it is a little higher.
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Discrepancies in homeownership rates by race persist, even when education is held constant
Black Americans have the lowest homeownership rates at all education levels, but the divide is starkest for the least-educated groups.
College degrees are increasingly necessary for home-ownership… and African-Americans have significantly lower college rates than whites.
There is now a 15 percentage point gap between the homeownership rates for those with college degrees and those with a high school diploma.
This increased disparity in homeownership by education can be attributed to a changing economy, in which more well-paid jobs require a college education. There are fewer jobs available for those who did not attend college, and the jobs that do exist are now more concentrated in low-wage service industries.
According to the IASSP, the principal component of the Black-White wealth gap is homeownership (home equity). A significant share of white home ownership traces back, through inter-generational inheritances & financial assistance, to government subsidized mortgage loans in the post-WWII period which were only available to Whites.
The findings are the product of a 3-year paired-testing strategy. Regularly endorsed by federal and state courts, paired testing is recognized as the sole viable method for detecting violations of fair housing laws by agents. Two undercover testers – for example, one black and one white – separately solicit an agent’s assistance in buying houses.
Black testers experienced disparate treatment compared to paired white testers 49 percent of the time – compared with 39 percent for Hispanic and 19 percent for Asian testers, despite presenting similar financial profiles and request identical terms for houses in the same areas.
In seven of Newsday’s tests – 8% of the total – agents accommodated white counterpart testers while imposing more stringent conditions on minorities.
Most commonly in the 7 cases, agents refused to provide house listings or home tours to minority testers unless they met financial qualifications that weren’t imposed on white counterparts.
Nov, 2019. 50 years after the Fair Housing Act, Newsday found evidence of widespread separate and unequal treatment of minority potential homebuyers and minority communities on Long Island.
In their 2018 study “Kept Out”, The Center for Investigative Reporting examined Home Mortgage Disclosure Act records and found that 50 years after the Fair Housing Act banned racial discrimination in lending, “African Americans and Latinos continue to be routinely denied conventional mortgage loans at rates far higher than their white counterparts” in 61 metro areas. “A pattern of questionable loan denials for people of color.”
“The disproportionate denials and limited anti-discrimination enforcement help explain why the homeownership gap between whites and African Americans, which had been shrinking since the 1970s, has exploded since the housing bust. It is now wider than it was during the Jim Crow era”.
The study “controlled for 9 economic and social factors, including an applicant’s income, the amount of the loan, the ratio of the size of the loan to the applicant’s income and the type of lender, as well as the racial makeup and median income of the neighborhood where the person wanted to buy property”. While it could not control for credit scores as those are not publicly available, other studies (e.g. Rice & Swesnk, National Fair Housing Alliance, 2017) have found proprietary credit score algorithms to have a discriminatory impact on borrowers of color.
Glantz, Aaron, and Emmanuel Martinez. “For People of Color, Banks Are Shutting the Door to Homeownership.” Reveal news, February 15, 2018. "Kept out" series.
Glantz, Aaron, and Emmanuel Martinez, “Modern-day redlining: How banks block people of color from homeownership.” Chicago Tribune, 17 February 2018,
Part 4:� �Racial Disparities & Discrimination �in �K-12 Education
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60 years after Brown v. Board of Ed (1954),
School Segregation is Increasing rather than decreasing.
Racial School Segregation is worsening rather than improving.
“We tend to assume that school zones are neutrally drawn, immutable geographical borders. But if look at the demographics of who lives in each attendance zone, it becomes clearer why these lines are drawn the way they are. Groups with political clout — mainly wealthier, whiter communities — have pushed policies that help white families live in heavily white areas and attend heavily white schools”.
Source: Alvin Chang, The data proves that school segregation is getting worse. Vox, March 5, 2018
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Interactive map in Chang, Alvin. “We Can Draw School Zones to Make Classrooms Less Segregated. This Is How Well Your District Does It” Vox, Aug 27, 2018.
Public School Segregation, 2013
Milwaukee, NE
Baltimore, MD
Minneapolis, MN
Brooklyn, NY
Atlanta, GA
Washington, DC
MYTH #3: Brown v Board of Education ended segregated (and unequal) schools.
Reality:
60 years after Brown v. Board of Ed (1954), School Segregation is alive & well. ��The average white American public school student in 2011-12 attended a school that was 73% White… not including those in private schools, which are usually much more exclusively white.
A significant portion of public school funding in the U.S. comes from local property tax, and thus correlates with the wealth of the neighborhood. Schools in poor neighborhoods have far fewer resources, and so tend to be of poor quality and produce graduates with lower skills, and vice-versa for schools in wealthy neighborhoods.
The February 2019 EdBuild study “$23 Billion” found that nonwhite school districts get $23 billion less than white districts, despite serving the same number of students. For every student enrolled, the average nonwhite school district receives $2,226 less than a white school district.
More than half of students in the U.S. go to segregated or "racially concentrated" schools in which more than three-quarters of students are either white or nonwhite.
A significant portion of public school funding comes from local property tax, and thus correlates with the wealth of the neighborhood.
The segregation of white and non-white students into neighborhoods with significantly different housing values is not an accident, but rather the result of deliberate segregationist and discriminatory policies and practices during the post-WWII period: redlining, restricting FHA mortgages to whites, housing covenants, racial steering, etc.
In the decades since then, many white/wealthy communities have worked hard to maintain or even exacerbate the exclusion of nonwhite students from their school zones.
EdBuild. (2019) $23 billion. https://edbuild.org/content/23-billion/full-report.pdf.
Many African-American teens experience racism
on a daily basis
A 2019 study by Rutgers University professor Devin English which measured racial discrimination on a daily basis among 101 black teens from 4 schools in the District of Columbia found that these black teens experienced racial discrimination on average 5 times per day.
Types of racism reported included seeing racist images/messages on social media, racial teasing, microaggressions, racial profiling, and witnessing racism.
Examples of incidents reported included being asked by a white friend, “Why don’t you like chocolate cake? Is it because it is the same color as you?” being expected by white students to be good at basketball, and having a teacher tell a class of predominantly black class “get educated or go to the penitentiary.’’
Patrick K, Socol A, Morgan I, Education Trust. Inequities in Advanced Coursework: What’s Driving Them and What Leaders Can Do. Education Trust; 2020. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=ED603195&site=eds-live. Accessed June 4, 2020.
A January 2020 report by The Education Trust found that Black and Latino students have unequal access to advanced coursework, including gifted and talented programs in elementary school, eighth grade algebra, Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB), and dual enrollment programs.
The data suggests that this disparity is driven by a combination of:
A 2016 study found that black students are 54% less likely than white students to be referred by their teacher for gifted-education services, even when they have similar standardized test scores, demographic factors, and school and teacher characteristics.
They also found that “having a black teacher dramatically increases the likelihood that a black student will be placed in a gifted program, relative to having a white teacher."
African-American children are 3 times as likely to be placed in gifted-education programs if they have a black teacher rather than a white teacher.
Sean Nicholson-Crotty, Jason A. Grissom, Jill Nicholson-Crotty, Christopher Redding. Disentangling the Causal Mechanisms of Representative Bureaucracy: Evidence From Assignment of Students to Gifted Programs. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 2016; muw024 DOI: 10.1093/jopart/muw024
A 2016 Yale Child Study Program study found that Implicit bias among preschool teachers may help explain high preschool expulsion rates for black children—particularly black boys.
Researchers used sophisticated eye-tracking technology and found that preschool teachers “show a tendency to more closely observe black students, and especially boys, when challenging behaviors are expected,” the authors found.
Black preschoolers are 3.6x as likely to receive one or more suspensions relative to whites.
Studies have shown that while Black boys make up just 18% of the preschool population, they account for 48% of all preschool suspensions. In fact, Black and Latino boys combined account for 66% of all pre-school suspensions.
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A 2016 Yale Child Study Program study found that
implicit bias among preschool teachers
may help explain high preschool expulsion rates for Black boys
Gilliam, W., Ph., D., Maupin, A.N., Reyes, C.R., Accavitti, M.R., S., B., & Shic, F. (2016). Do Early Educators’ Implicit Biases Regarding Sex and Race Relate to Behavior Expectations and Recommendations of Preschool Expulsions and Suspensions?
MYTH #5: Racial disparities are due to cultural and behavioral differences.
Reality:
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Universal Screening for Gifted Education, David Card, Laura Giuliano. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Nov. 2016, 113 (48) 13678-13683; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1605043113
MYTH #5: Racial disparities are due to cultural and behavioral differences.
Reality:
Identification of Black & Latino Children as Gifted (IQ=130+)
Increases After Switch
from Teacher Referrals to Universal Screening
2004-2005: Students identified by teachers & parents are referred to district psychologist IQ testing.
2006-2007: Students scoring above 130 on classroom IQ test are referred to district psychologist IQ testing.
Black children are disproportionately disciplined in school: a 2015 Stanford study found that black students are more than 3 times as likely as their white peers to be suspended or expelled. These large racial disparities in school discipline contribute to school failure and sometimes lay a path toward incarceration.
In this study, psychologists presented teachers with written vignettes of student misbehavior. The vignettes were identical except that half had “black-sounding” names and half had “white-sounding” names. Teachers of all races said that (fictitious) students with black-sounding names were more disruptive, more likely to be repeat offenders, and more appropriately labelled as “troublemakers.” Teachers were more likely to see second infractions as “part of a pattern” when they were committed by black rather than white students.
Okonofua, J. A., & Eberhardt, J. L. (2015). Two Strikes: Race and the Disciplining of Young Students. Psychological Science, 26(5), 617-624.https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615570365
Black children—especially black boys—have much higher
school suspension rates than white children.
These large racial disparities in school discipline contribute to school failure and sometimes lay a path toward incarceration.
Education appears to lead more to Income Immobility, rather than to Mobility
Children in the school districts with the highest concentrations of poverty score an average of more than four grade levels below children in the richest districts.
The Racial Gap in Education, which is tied to geography, reinforces the racial income gap
While the Black-White high school completion rate is narrowing, the gap remains.
Part 5:� �Racial Disparities & Discrimination �in �Higher Education
© 2021 Uprooting Inequity LLC
Nichols, Andrew Howard, “Debunking 5 Myths about Affirmative Action,” The Education Trust, Oct 12, 2017.
MYTH #6: The U.S. is still the land of meritocracy, equal opportunity and ‘The American Dream.’
Van Dam, Andrew, “The black-white economic divide is as wide as it was in 1968,” The Washington Post, June 4, 2020.
A college degree is increasingly essential for economic progress, yet it is also increasingly out of financial reach for students from low-income families.
Wealthy and white students are significantly more likely to get extra time (50-150%) on school tests and standardized exam--including the ACT and SAT--through the 504 federal designation for milder disabilities.
Goldstein, Dana and Jugal K. Patel, “Need Extra Time on Tests? It Helps to Have Cash,” New York Times, July 30, 2019
A July 2019 New York Times analysis of federal data found a glaring wealth gap in 504 designations. Some wealthy districts had 504 rates of up to 18 percent. In some (wealthy) communities, more than 1 in 10 students have one — up to 7 times the rate nationwide.
The report also found that a larger percentage of white students held a 504 plan.
Interviews with staff found that in some areas, private school students are even more likely than affluent public school students to qualify for extended testing time.
“The sharp disparity in accommodations raises the question of whether families in moneyed communities are taking advantage of the system, OR whether they simply have the means to address a problem that less affluent families cannot.”
The majority of admissions officers (83%) still count SAT or ACT scores as an important part of evaluating candidates for colleges.
Yet SAT scores are highly correlated with income levels.
Access to expensive SAT/ACT test preparation or tutoring may play a factor.
Giancola, Jennifer and Kahlenberg, Richard D., True Merit: Ensuring Our Brightest Students Have Access to Our Best Colleges and Universities, Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, Jan. 2016
A 2016 analysis of the Education Longitudinal Study data by the Jack Ken Cooke Foundation confirmed that high-achieving students from the wealthiest families are twice as likely to have taken SAT preparatory courses or tutoring as those from the poorest families.
Racial Disparities in College Completion Rates are increasing over time
There is a significant Black-White Gap among adults without a Bachelor’s degree
In many large U.S. cities.
Low income students—who are disproportionately minorities--are increasingly encouraged to go to college. But if they were not adequately prepared by low-quality high schools, they face multiple college remedial courses (which lengthen the number of semesters they have to pay for but grant no credits), challenging coursework, and financial challenges. This leads to a higher drop-out rate. One generally needs a completed college degree, rather than several years of college work on one’s resume to access higher-wage jobs, so college dropouts usually face years of paying back college debts on income from low-wage jobs.
A 2017 study by Harvard economist Raj Chetty concluded that elite colleges such as the Ivy League typically have few students from low-income families, limiting their scope to serve as ladders for upward mobility. Roughly 1 in 4 of the richest students attend an elite university, while less than one half of 1% of children from the bottom fifth of American families attend an elite college; less than half attend any college at all.
Raj Chetty, John N Friedman, Emmanuel Saez, Nicholas Turner, Danny Yagan, Income Segregation and Intergenerational Mobility Across Colleges in the United States, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 2020.
As David Hawkins, an executive director at the National Association for College Admission Counseling, explained, “A cascading set of obstacles all seem to contribute to a diminished representation of minority students in highly selective colleges.”
Elementary and secondary schools with large numbers of black and Hispanic students are less likely to have experienced teachers, advanced courses, high-quality instructional materials and adequate facilities, according to the United States Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights.
A 2017 New York Times analysis found that “even after decades of affirmative action, black and Hispanic students are more underrepresented at the nation’s top colleges and universities than they were 35 years ago.” The share of black freshmen at elite colleges—6%--is virtually unchanged since 1980.
Ashkenas, Jeremy, Haeyoun Park and Adam Pearce, “Even With Affirmative Action, Blacks and Hispanics Are More Underrepresented at Top Colleges Than 35 Years Ago,” New York Times, Aug. 24, 2017
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Ashkenas, Jeremy, Haeyoun Park and Adam Pearce, “Even With Affirmative Action, Blacks and Hispanics Are More Underrepresented at Top Colleges Than 35 Years Ago,” New York Times, Aug. 24, 2017
MYTH #7: Affirmative Action gives Black Students an ‘unfair advantage’ in college admissions.
Reality:
As New America’s Ben Barrett points out in a 2017 report, students whose families are in the top 1% (earning at least $631,000 a year) are 77 times more likely to attend an Ivy League school than a student whose family is from the bottom 20%.
And this income disparity is not improving over time. In that same report, Burd analyzed Chetty’s data and found that the 381 selective public universities are now enrolling fewer students from the bottom 40% than they were about 20 years ago. Meanwhile, most of them are enrolling more students from the top 20%.
Stephen Burd, ed., Moving on Up? What a Groundbreaking Study Tells Us About Access, Success, and Mobility in Higher Education (Washingto n, DC: New America, October 2017).
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Preferential Admissions
(74% White):
16% of Total Admits
43% of White Admits
MYTH #7: Affirmative Action gives Black Students an ‘unfair advantage’ in college admissions.
Ayo Magwood of Uprooting Inequity, using data from Arcidiacono, Peter and Kinsler, Josh and Ransom, Tyler, Legacy and Athlete Preferences at Harvard (September 2019). NBER Working Paper No. w26316, Exhibit A in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (2019)
Reality:
Part 6:� �Racial Disparities & Discrimination �in �Health
Even with the Affordable Care Act (ACA), people of color have disproportionately less access to Health Insurance.
African American Infant Mortality rates are significantly higher than those of whites.
…even after controlling for educational levels.
Black Pregnancy-Related Death Rates (PMDR) are significantly (2 to 3 times) higher than those of whites, even when controlling for educational level.
“The PRMR for black women with at least a college degree was 5 times as high as white women with a similar education”. Furthermore, these racial disparities are not improving over time.
Source: Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC).
2015-16 CDC data
In its landmark 2002 study, “Unequal Treatment,” the Institute of Medicine (IOM) found that “research indicates that minorities are less likely than whites to receive needed health services, including clinically necessary procedures, even after correcting for access-related factors, such as insurance status”, and that “health care providers’ diagnostic and treatment decisions, as well as their feelings about patients, are influenced by patients’ race or ethnicity and stereotypes associated with them.”
Directly quoted from Hayes-Greene, Deena, and Bayard P. Love. “The Groundwater Approach: Building a Practical Understanding of Structural Racism”. The Racial Equity Institute. 2018.
The IOM report references a number of peer-reviewed studies that control for patient history, symptomology, and demeanor to show that race alone—and not culture or behavior--has an impact on treatment. Research since 2002 has corroborated IOM’s findings.
© 2020 Uprooting Inequity LLC
Racial Disparities in Health
�
�
Taylor, Jamila. “Racism, Inequality, and Health Care for African Americans.” The Century Foundation. December 19, 2019.
Source: Colorado Patient Navigator Training Program, 2011, using data from The Burden of Chronic Diseases and Their Risk Factors (CDC).
Infant Mortality Rate
Maternal
Mortality Rate
© 2020 Uprooting Inequity LLC
From Belluz J. Black moms die in childbirth 3 times as often as white moms. Vox, July 3, 2017.
Coronavirus has a disproportonately high impact on Blacks. An early CDC analysis of COVID-19 hospitalizations across 99 counties in 14 states showed that Black Americans made up a third of Covid-19 hospitalizations despite making up only 18% of the population in those counties.
Andy Kiersz/Business Insider
“Black Americans have higher rates of underlying health conditions like diabetes and hypertension that could put them at a higher risk for developing complications from the novel coronavirus”.
“They also disproportionately hold jobs deemed essential during the pandemic. While Black Americans make up 12% of the overall workforce, they account for 17% of frontline employees, according to a study from the Center for Economic and Policy Research”.
© 2020 Uprooting Inequity LLC
Covid-19 Death Rates are Higher for Black and Indigenous People
APM Research Lab, The Color of Coronavirus: COVID-19 Deaths by Race and Ethnicity in the U.S., Nov 10, 2020.
Racial Health Disparities in Washington DC
© 2020 Uprooting Inequity LLC
How Structural Racism Affects HIV
© 2020 Uprooting Inequity LLC
HIV
Structural
Poverty
Fewer Men; Power Imbalance in Gender Relations
Stress Caused by Racial Bias
Racial Disparate Treatment by Health Providers
Mass incarce-ration of Black Men
Dense Sexual Networks; High Community HIV Rates
Distrust of Public Health & prevention campaigns
Implicit Bias
(Individual Racism)
Present-Day
Systemic Racism
Legacy of Historic Systemic Racism
Racial residential segregation;
Mass incarceration of Black men
© 2020 Uprooting Inequity LLC
Low Sex Ratios in many Black neighborhoods (due largely to drug policy and mass incarceration) lead to dense sexual networks (concurrent partners) and gender power imbalances (lower condom use rates).
Mike Maciag, “Where Have All the Black Men Gone?,” Governing, February 2019.
Atlanta
Washington
DC
© 2020 Uprooting Inequity LLC
HIV Cases Diagnosed in the District and Alive as of December 2012 by Ward: Rates per 100,000 persons District of Columbia, 2012.
Source: DC Annual Epidemiology & Surveillance Report
Racial residential segregation—the legacy of historic housing segregation—leads to dense sexual networks, which in turn lead to partner pools with high community viral loads.
Any given risk behavior is significantly more likely to lead to HIV infection in partner pools with higher community viral loads.
For example, in Washington DC, engaging in unprotected sex in Ward 8 carries a vastly greater risk than engaging in unprotected sex in Ward 3.
Washington DC
Part 7:� �Racial Disparities & Discrimination�in the �Criminal Justice System
Marijuana usage rates are similar between white and Black Americans, yet Black Americans are 3.64 times more likely to get arrested on marijuana possession charges.
Shayanne Gal/Business Insider
“According to the federal government's Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, marijuana usage between Black and white Americans is similar. Just 18% of Black people over the age of 12 in 2018 reported using marijuana within the past year, while 17% of white people over the age of 12 reported the same”.
“That same year, Black Americans were arrested 3.6 times more often than white Americans for marijuana possession, according to an American Civil Liberties Union analysis of FBI and US Census data”.
MYTH #5: Disproportionate police harassment and incarceration of Black men is due to higher Black rates of criminality and drug use.
© 2021 Uprooting Inequity LLC
95
Shayanne Gal/Business Insider
3.64 x higher
Reality:
"Racial Profiling" refers to the discriminatory practice by law enforcement officials of targeting individuals for suspicion of crime based on the individual's race, ethnicity, religion or national origin.
Racial Discrimination in Drug Arrests: Black people are much more likely to be arrested for drugs, even though they're not more likely to use or sell them.
Chart credit: Joe Posner/Vox, with data from FBI Uniform Crime Reports and the US Census Bureau
ACLU Research Report, A Tale of Two Countries: Racially Targeted Arrests in the Era of Marijuana Reform, April 17, 2020.
ACLU 1999 Report “Driving While Black”
"Today, blacks constitute:
13 percent of the country's drug users;
37 percent of those arrested on drug charges;
55 percent of those convicted; and
74 percent of all drug offenders sentenced to prison."
1. Black residents were more likely to be stopped by police than white or Hispanic residents, both in traffic stops and street stops.
2. Black and Hispanic residents were also more likely to have multiple contacts with police than white residents, especially in the contexts of traffic and street stops. More than 1 in 6 Black residents who were pulled over in a traffic stop or stopped on the street had similar interactions with police multiple times over the course of the year.
3. When police initiated an interaction, they were twice as likely to threaten or use force against Black and Hispanic residents than white residents.
Black residents are stopped more often, are more likely to have multiple contacts with cops, and experience more threats and excessive force from them.
Jones, Alexi, “Police stops are still marred by racial discrimination, new data shows”, Prison Policy Initiative, October 12, 2018.
Data Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, "Contacts Between Police and the Public, 2015", Table 18. (Graph: Wendy Sawyer, 2018)
© 2020 Uprooting Inequity LLC
| With Blacks | Than with Whites in similar situations | |
Use hands | 2,165 For every 10,000 stops in NYC | 1,845 For every 10,000 stops in NYC | 17% more likely |
Push into wall | 623 | 529 | 18% |
Use handcuffs* | 310 | 266 | 16% |
Draw weapons | 155 | 129 | 19% |
Push to ground | 136 | 114 | 18% |
Point weapon | 54 | 43 | 24% |
Use pepper spray or baton | 5 | 4 | 25% |
Source: New York Times.
* Handcuffs exclude arrests. Counts represent at least that level of force, based on stop-and-frisk data from 2003 to 2013. Similar situations account for gender, age, police precinct, the reason for the stop, whether the stop was indoors or outdoors, the time of day, whether the stop took place in a high-crime area or during a high-crime time, whether the officer was in uniform, the type of identification provided, and whether others were stopped at the same time.
Police officers are more likely to use excessive force
with Blacks than with Whites in similar situations.
| With blacks | Than with whites in similar situations | |
Use hands | 2,165 For every 10,000 stops in NYC | 1,845 For every 10,000 stops in NYC | 17% more likely |
Push into wall | 623 | 529 | 18% |
Use handcuffs* | 310 | 266 | 16% |
Draw weapons | 155 | 129 | 19% |
Push to ground | 136 | 114 | 18% |
Point weapon | 54 | 43 | 24% |
Use pepper spray or baton | 5 | 4 | 25% |
Source: New York Times.
* Handcuffs exclude arrests. Counts represent at least that level of force, based on stop-and-frisk data from 2003 to 2013. Similar situations account for gender, age, police precinct, the reason for the stop, whether the stop was indoors or outdoors, the time of day, whether the stop took place in a high-crime area or during a high-crime time, whether the officer was in uniform, the type of identification provided, and whether others were stopped at the same time.
Police officers are more likely to use excessive force
with blacks than with whites in similar situations.
Proportionally, black people are much more likely to be shot and killed by the police than are whites.
Between Jan 1, 2015-May 28, 2020, Black people were fatally shot by the police at a rate of 30 people per million, vs. 13 people per million: more than twice as high.
The police may shoot and kill twice as many white people as black, but there about 6 times as many white people as black people in the U.S.
Note: This database “tracks only fatal police shootings, not fatal police encounters in general. So the deaths of Black men like George Floyd, which occurred after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly 9 minutes, have not been included in the dataset, nor have the deaths of Eric Garner in Staten Island, who died from a police chokehold, or Freddie Gray in Baltimore, who died of spinal injuries he suffered in a police van”.
Note: There is no comprehensive U.S. government database tracking police shootings. The Washington Post’s Pulitzer Prize-winning database on fatal police shootings (“Fatal Force”) is one of perhaps four well-regarded and widely sourced datasets available on this subject. The others include 'The Counted' by the Guardian, “Fatal Encounters” by D. Brian Burghart of the U. of Nevada at Reno, & “Mapping Police Violence”, a research collaborative.
Note: There is no comprehensive U.S. government database tracking police shootings. The Washington Post’s Pulitzer Prize-winning database on fatal police shootings (“Fatal Force”) is one of perhaps four well-regarded and widely sourced datasets available on this subject. The others include 'The Counted' by the Guardian, “Fatal Encounters” by D. Brian Burghart of the U. of Nevada at Reno, & “Mapping Police Violence”, a research collaborative.
Black Americans are much more likely to be fatally shot and killed by police than White Americans. The racial disparity in rates is even higher for unarmed victims of fatal shootings by police.
Fox, Joe, Adrian Blanco, Jennifer Jenkins, Julie Tate and Wesley Lowery, “What we’ve learned about police shootings 5 years after Ferguson,” Washington Post, August 9, 2019.
In the U.S., African Americans are 2.5 times more likely to be killed by police than white people. “Roughly 1-in-1,000 black boys and men will be killed by police in their lifetime. For white boys and men, the rate is 39 out of 100,000”.
“The researchers used verified data on police killings from 2013 to 2018 compiled by the website Fatal Encounters, created by Nevada-based journalist D. Brian Burghart”.
Edwards, Frank; Lee, Hedwig; Esposito, Michael. “Risk of being killed by police use of force in the United States by age, race-ethnicity, and sex,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, August 2019, doi:10.1073/pnas.1821204116.
Note: There is no comprehensive U.S. government database tracking police shootings. Mapping Police Violence’s database on fatal police shootings is one of perhaps four well-regarded and widely sourced datasets available on this subject. The others include “Fatal Force” by The Washington Post, 'The Counted' by the Guardian, and “Fatal Encounters” by D. Brian Burghart of the U. of Nevada at Reno.
Jones, Alexi and Wendy Sawyer, “Not just “a few bad apples”: U.S. police kill civilians at much higher rates than other countries”, Prison Policy Initiative, June 5, 2020.
“The chart above compares the annual rates of police killings in each country, accounting for differences in population size”.
After 2011
Before 2011
Note: The situation improved somewhat under the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 reduced the disparity between the amount of crack cocaine (used mostly by blacks) and powder cocaine (used mostly by whites)needed to federal criminal penalties from a 100:1 weight ratio to an 18:1 weight ratio and eliminated the five-year mandatory minimum sentence for simple possession of crack cocaine, among other provisions.
Source: Carpe Diem Blog. Dr. Mark J. Perry is a professor of economics and finance in the School of Management at the Flint campus of the University of Michigan.
Racially Disparate Sentencing for Black vs. White Use of Cocaine.
Source: Duke University, 2012
All-white juries do not appear to be “color-blind”: they are much more likely to to convict blacks than whites.
By contrast, racially mixed juries convict blacks & whites at approximately equal rates.
Killings of Blacks by Whites Are Far More Likely to Be Ruled ‘Justifiable’
Lathrop, Daniel and Anna Flagg, Killings of Blacks by Whites Are Far More Likely to Be Ruled ‘Justifiable’, New York Times, Snapshot, Policing in Black and White, Aug. 14, 2017
Incarceration rates have increased dramatically—but mostly for Black and Hispanic men.
There is nearly a 70 percent chance that an African American man without a high school diploma will be imprisoned by his mid-thirties.�
2.2 million African Americans, or 7.7% of black adults, are disenfranchised, compared to 1.8% of the non-African American population.
In three states – Florida (23%), Kentucky (22%), and Virginia (20%) – more than one in five African Americans is disenfranchised.
Given current rates of incarceration, 3 in 10 of the next generation of black men can expect to be disenfranchised at some point in their lifetime. In states that disenfranchise ex-offenders, as many as 40% of black men may permanently lose their right to vote.
Source: The Sentencing Project Fact Sheet: Felony Disenfranchisement, updated April 2014
Felony Disenfranchisement in the United States
Since African Americans have disproportionately high imprisonment rates, they also have disproportionately high voting disenfranchisement rates.
Racial Profiling while Voting
Part 8:
Income Inequality
and Immobility
© 2021 Uprooting Inequity LLC
117
Michael I. Norton, Harvard Business School; Dan Ariely, Duke University.
Reality:
Top 20%
Top 20%
Respondents: Top 20% controls 58% of U.S. wealth
Actual: 85%.
Respondents: Bottom 60% controls 22% of U.S. wealth.
Actual: 4%.
Americans think wealth in this country is
far more equitably distributed
than it actually is
How Americans think U.S. wealth is distributed:
How U.S. wealth is actually distributed:
MYTH #6: The U.S. is still the land of meritocracy, equal opportunity and ‘The American Dream.’
© 2021 Uprooting Inequity LLC
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MYTH #6: The U.S. is still the land of meritocracy, equal opportunity and ‘The American Dream.’
Reality:
The U.S. has one of the lowest levels of Income Mobility
in the OECD
(The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development or OECD is composed of the world’s ‘economically developed’ nations).
© 2021 Uprooting Inequity LLC
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“Some Colleges Have More Students From the Top 1 Percent Than the Bottom 60. Find Yours”. New York Times, TheUpshot, January 18, 2017
MYTH #6: The U.S. is still the land of meritocracy, equal opportunity and ‘The American Dream.’
Reality:
Note: The article has a searchable feature allowing you to look up colleges of interest.
© 2021 Uprooting Inequity LLC
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Poorest Quartile
Richest Quartile
Figure 4.7 (p. 160) in Putnam, R. D. (2015). Our kids: The American Dream in crisis. The author used data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88/2000), Fourth Follow-up.
Wealthy Students with Low Test Scores
are Slightly More Likely to Graduate From College
Than Poor Students with High Test Scores
Reality:
MYTH #6: The U.S. is still the land of meritocracy, equal opportunity and ‘The American Dream.’
Test scores are 8th grade scores on standardized assessments of math.
© 2020 Uprooting Inequity LLC
© 2020 Uprooting Inequity LLC
Soaring Income Inequality since the 1970s. America’s economy has almost doubled in size over the last four decades, but broad measures of the nation’s economic health conceal the unequal distribution of gains. A small portion of the population has pocketed most of the new wealth
Leonhardt, David and Yaryna Serkez, “America Will Struggle After Coronavirus. These Charts Show Why.” New York Times, April 10, 2020.
© 2020 Uprooting Inequity LLC
Wealth inequality in the US has followed a U-shaped evolution over the last century – there was a substantial democratisation of wealth from the Great Depression to the late 1970s, followed by a sharp rise in wealth inequality.
© 2020 Uprooting Inequity LLC
Sommers, Jeffrey & Hegland, Rachel & Delices, Patrick. (2018). American Public Policy and Full Employment: The Imperative of Martin Luther King’s Political Economy in the 21st Century. SAGE Open. 8. 215824401880267. 10.1177/2158244018802674.
Soaring Income Inequality
© 2020 Uprooting Inequity LLC
OECD, Organisation. (2011). Divided We Stand: Why Inequality Keeps Rising. 10.1787/9789264119536-en.
The United States has one of the lowest levels of Income Inequality in the OECD.
© 2020 Uprooting Inequity LLC
Falling Income Mobility (the American Dream). Only half of children today grow up to earn more than their parents.
Chetty, Raj, David Grusky, Nathaniel Hendren, Maximilian Hell, Robert Manduca, and Jimmy Narang. 2017. “The Fading American Dream: Trends in Absolute Income Mobility Since 1940.” Science.
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Falling Income Mobility (The American Dream)
Only half of children today grow up to earn more than their parents
Chetty, Raj, David Grusky, Nathaniel Hendren, Maximilian Hell, Robert Manduca, and Jimmy Narang. 2017. “The Fading American Dream: Trends in Absolute Income Mobility Since 1940.” Science.
MYTH #6: The U.S. is still the land of meritocracy, equal opportunity and ‘The American Dream.’
Reality:
© 2020 Uprooting Inequity LLC
OECD, Organisation. (2011). Divided We Stand: Why Inequality Keeps Rising. 10.1787/9789264119536-en.
The United States has one of the lowest levels of income mobility in the OECD.
© 2020 Uprooting Inequity LLC
Soaring CEO-to-Pay Ratios
© 2020 Uprooting Inequity LLC
The United States has one of the highest levels of CEO-to-Worker Pay Ratios in the OECD.
Ferdman, Roberto A. “The Pay Gap Between CEOs and Workers Is Much Worse Than You Think.” Washington Post, September 25, 2014.
© 2020 Uprooting Inequity LLC
Western, B., & Rosenfeld, J. (2011). Unions, Norms, and the Rise in U.S. Wage Inequality. American Sociological Review, 76(4), 513–537.
A Contributing Factor to Rising Income Inequality: The Decline of Unions.
A study published in 2011 by the American Sociological Review found that the decline in union density since 1973 explained a third of the increase in wage inequality among men, and a fifth of the increased inequality among women.
© 2020 Uprooting Inequity LLC
A Contributing Factor to Rising Income Inequality: Deindustrialization has led to Job Polarization: a Significant Decline in the Share of Middle-Skill/Income Jobs Since 1980.
© 2020 Uprooting Inequity LLC
Increasing Concentrated Poverty
since 2000
© 2020 Uprooting Inequity LLC
Increasing Concentrated Poverty.�Increase in Tracts with 40% Or Greater Poverty in Milwaukee
© 2020 Uprooting Inequity LLC
Increasing Income Segregation and A Disappearing Middle Class. Percentage of Families Living in High-, Middle-, and Low-Income Neighborhoods. Metropolitan Areas with Population >500,000, 1970-2007.
National
NYC-Wayne-White Plains
Philadelphia, PA
L.A.-Long Beach-Glendale
Houston-Baytown-Sugarland
Dallas-Plano-Irving
Source: Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality. Data. Income Segregation Maps.
Part 9:
Supplementary
(Non-Data)
Resources
Great Analyses of the Floyd/BLM movement--p.1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb9_qGOa9Go&t=13s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8jUA7JBkF4&t=395s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4amCfVbA_c&t=77s
https://www.vox.com/2020/6/1/21275746/trump-protests-police-floyd-george-riots
Great Analyses of the Floyd/BLM movement--p.2
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/06/riots-are-american-way-george-floyd-protests/612466/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf4cea5oObY
Understanding the Historical & Root Causes--p1
https://www.vox.com/2014/8/28/6051971/police-implicit-bias-michael-brown-ferguson-missouri
https://www.instagram.com/p/CARWtvCpbi0/
https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/two-thumbs-up/
https://www.npr.org/2020/06/03/869046127/american-police
Understanding the Historical & Root Causes--p2
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/04/eric-garner-twitter
https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-we-built-the-ghettos
https://www.vox.com/2015/4/30/8518681/protests-riots-work
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/4/28/why-riots-happen-in-places-like-baltimore.html
https://www.vox.com/2016/8/18/12515434/police-shooting-milwaukee-riots-segregation-history
Understanding the History & Root Causes--p3
This excellent 18 min video covers the HISTORY OF SYSTEMIC RACISM in the United States; it is a quick primer on "How We Got Here." You can think of it as the "13th" documentary in 18 mins!
The video covers vagrancy statutes, convict leasing, Jim Crow, housing discrimination (redlining, FHA loans, GI bill, housing covenants), how implicit bias effects how white teachers view black students, household wealth & intergenerational inheritance, the Drug war, the militarization of the police, and mass incarceration of blacks.
Videos on America’s History of Discriminatory Housing Policies
Understanding the History & Root Causes--p4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e68CoE70Mk8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWQfDbbQv9E
Understanding the History & Root Causes--p5
VIDEO: Is America Dreaming?:
Understanding Social Mobility
(3:40 mins)
by Richard Reeves (Brookings Institute), author of Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle Class Is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That Is a Problem, and What to Do About It, 2017.
Harlem, Langston Hughes (1951)
What Happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore-
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over-
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
--Pres. John F. Kennedy, JFK's "Address on the First Anniversary of the Alliance for Progress (1952)
"The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth" - African proverb
The Other America, Dr. Martin Luther King (1967)
"It is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention.
And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.”
On Rioting & Violent Protesting
“If you want peaceful protesting, then respond to, instead of condemning, our peaceful protests” – social media refrain
“The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion.”
--Frederick Douglass
“It would be great if folks were as zealous about evoking my father to eradicate racism as they are about evoking him to criticize how people respond to racism”
-- Bernice King, daughter of Dr. M.L. King, May 29, 2020 tweet.
Why White America “Cannot See”, Denies, and Perpetuates Racism & Inequality #1: After it was outlawed, Racism Took On New, ostensiably legal & colorblind forms (“Racism without Racists”).
Racial disparities persisted after the 1964 Civil Rights law was passed because discriminatory policies persisted under a patina of colorblindness.
The 1964 act ended up principally outlawing “intention to discriminate” in the present. Intent — not outcome — became the preferred proof of discrimination. Evidence of intent to create the racial disparity — like the “white only” sign — became the principal marker of discrimination, not the racial disparity itself, nor the absence of people of color. Americans quietly responded to the 1964 act by backing “race neutral” policies that were aimed at excluding black bodies. Racial disparity, meanwhile, was reinforced and reproduced in new forms.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was not the beginning of the end of American racism. It was the beginning of our poisonous belief that America was ending racism.
Racism did not end — it progressed. Racism progressed when legislators did not repair the advantage that whites enjoyed from accumulated gains of past discrimination. Racism progressed when Americans refused to identify discrimination by outcome. Racism progressed when presumed discrimination had been eliminated, assumed equal opportunity had taken over, and figured that since blacks were still losing the race, the racial disparities must be their own fault. Racism progressed when Americans chose the law and order of inequality over the civil right of equality.
EXCERPTED FROM Kendi, Ibraham, “The Civil Rights Act was a victory against racism. But racists also won. The bill unleashed a poisonous idea: that America had defeated racism,” The Washington Post, July 2, 2017.
“I am often asked if I think the younger generation is less racist. No, I don't. In some ways, racism's adaptations over time are more sinister than concrete rules such as Jim Crow.”
― Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
Why White America “Cannot See”, Denies, and Perpetuates Racism & Inequality #2: The American Paradox
"It was not just a coincidence that some people in 19th century America had liberty while others did not; rather, some people's liberty depended upon the denial of liberty to others".... "The liberty that offered prosperity to southern white men required expansive oppression--the violent appropriation of millions of acres of "frontier" land from the Native American people who possessed them, and the violent enslavement of millions of African Americans whose labor would transform these lands into profitable plantations. ..liberty for some was made possible by oppression for others"
---Seth Rockman’s “Liberty is Land and Slaves: The Great Contradiction” OAH Magazine of History, May 2005
The 1964 act ended up principally outlawing “intention to discriminate” in the present. Intent — not outcome — became the preferred proof of discrimination. Evidence of intent to create the racial disparity — like the “white only” sign — became the principal marker of discrimination, not the racial disparity itself, nor the absence of people of color. Americans quietly responded to the 1964 act by backing “race neutral” policies that were aimed at excluding black bodies. Racial disparity, meanwhile, was reinforced and reproduced in new forms.
--Ibraham Kendi, The Civil Rights Act was a victory against racism. But racists also won.,” Wash Post, July 2, 2017
“The specific dissonance of Trumpism—advocacy for discriminatory, even cruel, policies combined with vehement denials that such policies are racially motivated—provides the emotional core of its appeal. It is the most recent manifestation of a contradiction as old as the United States, a society founded by slaveholders on the principle that all men are created equal".
--Adam Serwer, "The Nationalist’s Delusion" The Atlantic, Nov 20 2017
"The beauty of this new (“Colorblind”) ideology is that it aids in the maintenance of white supremacy without fanfare, without naming those who it subjects and those who it rewards...thus whites enunciate positions that safegaurd their racial interests without sounding "racist." -- Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States, 2003
.”.a peculiarly white American cognitive dissonance—that most worry far more about being seen as racist than about the consequences of racism for their fellow citizens” --Adam Serwer, "The Nationalist’s Delusion" The Atlantic, Nov 20 2017
Greene, Cynthia. “How history textbooks reflect America’s refusal to reckon with slavery
Textbooks have been slow to incorporate black humanity in their slavery narratives. And they still have a long way to go”. Vox, Aug 26, 2019
https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/8/26/20829771/slavery-textbooks-history
Southern Poverty Law Center, “Teaching Hard History: American Slavery”, 2018
https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/tt_hard_history_american_slavery.pdf
“It is more likely that students developed their sacred view of history from out-of-school experiences. National remembrances such as the Fourth of July, Veterans Day, and Memorial Day may influence student when these holidays focus on leaders and individuals whose sacrifice and courage built and defended democracy. Also, television and motion pictures reinforce a positive view of America’s past by casting the Founding Fathers and others as courageous, self-sacrificing individuals with few human frailties. Finally, parents may promote a glorified version of history through family discussions and trips to historic sites. None of these sources are pernicious or necessarily misleading. The nation deserves to celebrate its freedom and accomplishments, but these factors may contribute to a skewed perspective about unpleasant topics such as slavery and how the nation avoided or failed to address the unseemly side of its past. These influences may account for the shock students experience when they get to college and confront a more realistic and harsher view of American history”.
Henry, Michael. “Sacred and Profane American History: Does It Exist in Textbooks?” The History Teacher Volume 44 Number 3 May 2011.
Why White America “Cannot See”, Denies, and Perpetuates Racism & Inequality #3: The “Sacred” View of U.S. History
Why White America “Cannot See”, Denies, and Perpetuates Racism & Inequality #4: Confirmation Bias
Why White America “Cannot See”, Denies, and Perpetuates Racism & Inequality #5: The Generalization of Personal Experience
“Racism is a complex and interconnected system that adapts to challenges over time. Colorblind ideology was a very effective adaptation to the challenges of the Civil Rights Era. Colorblind ideology allows society to deny the reality of racism in the face of its persistence, while making it more difficult to challenge than when it was openly espoused.”
― Robin DiAngelo, What Does It Mean to Be White?: Developing White Racial Literacy
“Today we have a cultural norm that insists we hide our racism from people of color and deny it among ourselves, but not that we actually challenge it. In fact, we are socially penalized for challenging racism.”
― Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
“I was co-leading a workshop with an African American man. A white participant said to him, "I don't see race; I don't see you as black." My co-trainer's response was, "Then how will you see racism?" He then explained to her that he was black, he was confident that she could see this, and that his race meant that he had a very different experience in life than she did. If she were ever going to understand or challenge racism, she would need to acknowledge this difference. Pretending that she did not noticed that he was black was not helpful to him in any way, as it denied his reality - indeed, it refused his reality - and kept hers insular and unchallenged. This pretense that she did not notice his race assumed that he was "just like her," and in so doing, she projected her reality onto him. For example, I feel welcome at work so you must too; I have never felt that my race mattered, so you must feel that yours doesn't either. But of course, we do see the race of other people, and race holds deep social meaning for us.”
― Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
Despite all those narratives—“I was taught to treat everyone the same”; “I see everyone the same”; “I don’t see color”--our outcomes haven’t improved, by virtually every measure, there is racial inequality in this country, and by many measures, its increasing, not decreasing. -- Robin DiAngelo
"The beauty of this new (“Colorblind”) ideology is that it aids in the maintenance of white supremacy without fanfare, without naming those who it subjects and those who it rewards...thus whites enunciate positions that safegaurd their racial interests without sounding "racist." -- Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States, 2003
”.a peculiarly white American cognitive dissonance—that most worry far more about being seen as racist than about the consequences of racism for their fellow citizens” --Adam Serwer, "The Nationalist’s Delusion" The Atlantic, Nov 20 2017
Why White America “Cannot See”, Denies, and Perpetuates Racism & Inequality #6: “Colorblindness” Ideology
VIDEO: “Dream Hoarders: How the Top 20% Uses their Power to Rig Systems/Markets in Order to �Hoard Advantages & Reinforces Inequality”
Interview by PBS NewsHour (7:09 mins) with economist Richard Reeves of the Brookings Institute, author of Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle Class Is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That Is a Problem, and What to Do About It, May 2017
Richard V. Reeves argues that in our determination to see our children succeed, we resort to unfair tactics and end up depriving other people’s children of the chance to attain the American dream. He distinguishes between fair methods and unfair methods of promoting your children’s success. Moving into a neighborhood with good schools is fair; using exclusionary zoning to keep poorer families out of the area is not. Helping your son study for the SAT and apply to college is fair; legacy preferences in college admissions are not. Covering your daughter’s living expenses during her unpaid summer internship is fair; securing that internship for her by calling up your friend is not.
Why White America “Cannot See”, Denies, and Perpetuates Racism & Inequality #7: “Dream Hoarding”
Katherine Hagerman’s “Conundrum of Privilege”
As progressive parents, is their primary responsibility to advance societal values — fairness, equal opportunity and social justice — OR to give their children all the advantages in life that their resources can provide? …More often than not, values lost out.
People who identified as more politically liberal were much more willing to acknowledge the existence of racism, and to talk to their children about it. Many of these parents identified as specifically anti-racist, and were determined to teach their kids to work against bigotry and inequality. Parents encouraged their kids to do charitable work, for example, both in their own communities and on (expensive) overseas trips.
Yet, as Hagerman told me, "all of these families in their own ways were participating in the reproduction of racial inequality." Children were sent to private school, or when they went to public school benefited from private tutors or enrichment classes. Even community service can reproduce racist ideas. It's hard to see people as equals when you always have power over them, or when your primary experience with them involves giving them charity.
The spectacle of well-intentioned people working, half unconsciously, to solidify and perpetuate their own power is not an encouraging one. "I feel like my findings are pretty dismal," Hagerman admits. "When you have people who have a lot of wealth alongside this racial privilege, they're ultimately making decision that benefit their own kids, and I don't know how you really interrupt that."
Why White America “Cannot See”, Denies, and Perpetuates Racism & Inequality #8: Parenting Taken to Extreme & Unethical Lengths
Visual created by Ayo Heinegg Magwood
Why White America “Cannot See”, Denies, and Perpetuates Racism & Inequality #9: The Generalization of Personal Experience
Inside the AC360 doll study: CNN's Anderson Cooper highlights a project that reveals how children view racial beliefs, attitudes and preferences.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYCz1ppTjiM&t=4s
Study shows how children view race bias
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQACkg5i4AY
A Look at Race Relations Through a Child's Eyes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPVNJgfDwpw&t=43s
Subconscious racial bias in children
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFbvBJULVnc
'I'm upset of how my child views race’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm_CfET1Ff
Researcher aims to tackle "implicit bias”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1LCFjwO98Y
What Would You Do? TV Program: Racial Stereotypes & Possible Bike Thief, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6rMcYzpsAA
Why we have racial bias
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOppO0RTHTI&feature=youtu.be
Why White America “Cannot See”, Denies, and Perpetuates Racism & Inequality #10: Implicit Bias
How to Reduce Your (naturally occurring) Racism & Implicit Bias
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_to_stop_the_racist_in_you
https://splinternews.com/it-s-possible-to-train-your-brain-to-be-less-racist-he-1793857438
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/empathy_reduces_racism
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/What_Happens_When_You_Tell_Your_Story_and_Tell_Mine
Ta-Nehisi Coates, "The Case for Reparations”, The Atlantic, Jun 2014
I Leave You With a Call to Action: