Systemic Racism in America - Source Material
Systemic racism in America
Systemic racism in America
From Jamar Tisby
We examined Alexander Stephens’ famous “Cornerstone Speech” as a primary source.
Stephens was the vice president of the Confederate States of America, and his address on March 21, 1861, he plainly stated the ethos of the rebellious group.
[The equality of the races] was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."
Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.
Massacres
Racial violence in the US since 1660
https://www.blackpast.org/special-features/racial-violence-united-states-1660/
Rosewood
Tulsa
https://www.history.com/topics/roaring-twenties/tulsa-race-massacre
New Orleans
https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/new-orleans-massacre-1866/
Camilla
Opelousas
https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/opelousas-massacre-1868/
Colfax
https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/colfax-massacre-1873/
Carroll Cty Courthouse
https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/carroll-county-courthouse-massacre-1886/
THIBODAUX
https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/the-thibodaux-massacre-november-23-1887/
Charleston Church
https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/charleston-church-massacre-2015/
Everything else
School segregation surges 70 years after Brown v. Board ruling
The big picture: The resegregation of America's public schools coincides with the rise of charter schools and school choice options, and as civil rights groups have turned away from desegregation battles.
How tens of thousands of Black U.S. doctors simply vanished
Public Schools Were Not Inevitable
Adam Harris on what American education owes to 19th-century abolitionists and reformers
Alabama goes too far (again) — even for Trump-nominated judges (continuing systemic racism in voting districts)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/09/08/alabama-trump-judges-redistricting/
$1.4 billion |
The estimated loss in home value in Washington, DC, based on today's market, from the 1960 construction of Interstates 395 and 695, which cut through the city's majority Black neighborhoods. |
Appraisal gap $1.58 million |
The disparity between home appraisals in white and non-white neighborhoods in the LA metro area based solely on account of race, according to a new analysis from sociologist Junia Howell. |
A Black professor has long said what the IRS now admits: The tax system is biased
Dorothy Brown’s book “The Whiteness of Wealth” laid the groundwork for the IRS’ recent admission that Black people are disproportionately audited.
What the ‘Hollywood Jim Crow’ Looks Like Today
The supposedly color-blind language of economics has allowed the mainstream film industry to hide its racial biases
Fear of a Black Hobbit
The demand to keep politics out of art is too often a demand for art to conform to conservative politics.
INCARCERATION
INVENTING SOLITARY
In 1790, Philadelphia opened the first American penitentiary, with the nation’s first solitary cells. Black people were disproportionately punished from the start.
The Brutal Origins of Gun Rights
A new history argues that the Second Amendment was intended to perpetuate white settlers' violence toward Native Americans.
Why Did U.S. Cities Resegregate?
Georgetown Law professor Sheryll Cashin’s latest book is an unsparing accounting of the collapse of racial integration after the Civil Rights era — and a plea for change.
Poison in the Air
The EPA allows polluters to turn neighborhoods into “sacrifice zones” where residents breathe carcinogens. ProPublica reveals where these places are in a first-of-its-kind map and data analysis.
Slavery and the Origins of the American Police State
https://medium.com/s/story/slavery-and-the-origins-of-the-american-police-state-ec318f5ff05b
Modern-day redlining: How banks block people of color from homeownership
https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-modern-day-redlining-20180215-story.html
Housing market racism persists despite ‘fair housing’ laws
For Black Americans, the Housing Crisis Isn't Over
Homeownership rates have slumped to levels not seen since the 1960s.
How Real Estate Segregated America
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/how-real-estate-segregated-america-fair-housing-act-race
How Racism Shaped the Housing Crisis & What We Can Do About It
https://www.spur.org/events/2019-11-06/how-racism-shaped-housing-crisis-what-we-can-do-about-it
The Inventors of America’s Most Dangerous Idea
Freedom was once a rallying cry for justice, but the country’s Realtors had a better use for it.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/freedom-residential-segregation/620709/
A Black couple ‘erased themselves’ from their home to see if the appraised value would go up. It did — by nearly $500,000
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Black-Marin-City-couple-sues-appraiser-for-16672840.php
The Brutal Origins of Gun Rights
https://newrepublic.com/article/146190/brutal-origins-gun-rights
The Second Amendment is racist at its root
https://www.christiancentury.org/review/books/second-amendment-racist-its-root
'Dying of whiteness': why racism is at the heart of America's gun inaction
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/08/racism-gun-control-dying-of-whiteness
https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/30/us/second-amendment-guns-anti-black-anderson-blake/index.html
Race and the Drug War
http://www.drugpolicy.org/issues/race-and-drug-war
The racist origins of marijuana prohibition
https://www.businessinsider.com/racist-origins-marijuana-prohibition-legalization-2018-2
How a racist hate-monger masterminded America’s War on Drugs
https://timeline.com/harry-anslinger-racist-war-on-drugs-prison-industrial-complex-fb5cbc281189
There’s overwhelming evidence that the criminal-justice system is racist. Here’s the proof.
The Bail-Reform Tool That Activists Want Abolished
They worry that algorithms used to determine a person’s flight risk will only perpetuate racial discrimination.
Money Bail Might Be the Most Racist, Immoral Part of America’s Criminal Injustice System
Land, money, and power: A history of government-sanctioned discrimination against black farmers
RELEASE: Systematic Racism at the USDA Has Virtually Eliminated Black Farmers
How Black Farmers Are Trying To End Centuries Of Racism In America’s Food System
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/reparations-black-farmers-land-loss_n_5cd418b2e4b09f321bdc9750
How USDA distorted data to conceal decades of discrimination against black farmers
https://newfoodeconomy.org/usda-black-farmers-discrimination-tom-vilsack-reparations-civil-rights/
How the Government Helped White Americans Steal Black Farmland
https://newrepublic.com/article/166276/black-farm-land-lost-20th-century-billions?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tnr_daily
How the GI Bill's Promise Was Denied to a Million Black WWII Veterans
https://www.history.com/news/gi-bill-black-wwii-veterans-benefits
The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, came into being in 1845 as the church of Southern slaveholders.
What’s Lost When Black Children Are Socialized Into a White World
What black parents tell their sons
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2012-03-24-ct-met-black-sons-20120324-story.html
Black parents describe “The Talk” they give to their children about police
https://www.vox.com/2016/8/8/12401792/police-black-parents-the-talk
How Mothers Talk to Their Sons About Race Four perspectives on stereotypes, diversity, police, fear, and expectations.
https://www.thecut.com/2018/03/how-mothers-talk-to-their-sons-about-race.html
This Is What Racism Sounds Like in the Banking Industry
A JPMorgan employee and a customer secretly recorded their conversations with bank employees.
The Blackest City in the U.S. Is Facing an Environmental Justice Nightmare. Detroit’s most vulnerable residents face inequalities like toxic air, lead poisoning, and water shutoffs
Black, Homeless and Burdened by L.A.’s Legacy of Racism
'The Slaves Dread New Year's Day the Worst': The Grim History of January 1
Low-income black fathers want to be good dads. The system won't let them
The Racist Roots of Welfare Reform
American welfare policy historically targeted poor black families.
https://newrepublic.com/article/136200/racist-roots-welfare-reform
Birth Is More Dangerous For Black Moms Than White Moms — Even In The Same Hospital
Black in the time of climate change.
https://onezero.medium.com/black-in-the-time-of-climate-change/home
15 Years After Katrina, a Fight Against ‘the Jim Crow of Climate Change’ Rages on in the Gulf Coast
While making up just 13 percent of the general population, African Americans represent a full 40 percent of those experiencing homelessness.
What Atlanta Can Teach Tech About Cultivating Black Talent
Congress Is About to Bail Out Everyone — Except Black Business Owners
America’s long history of racism in medical treatment
How America Has Racialized Medicine During Epidemics
Disparities in housing contribute to disparities in one of the most common chronic diseases afflicting children.
Childhood Asthma: A Lingering Effect of Redlining
Systemic Racism Is Killing Black People During the Pandemic
Coronavirus exacerbated already existing racial health disparities. Here’s what needs to be done.
Yes, there is institutional racism in the US — and there’s a ton of science that proves it
https://www.zmescience.com/other/feature-post/institutional-racism-us/
Why The U.S. Needs To Do Reparations Now
How racist policing took over American cities, explained by a historian
https://www.vox.com/2020/6/6/21280643/police-brutality-violence-protests-racism-khalil-muhammad
The devaluing of black property has led to the devaluing of black lives
There’s overwhelming evidence that the criminal-justice system is racist. Here’s the proof.
The Massacre of Wall Street - Tulsa
Breeding farms
The Many Ways Institutional Racism Kills Black People
The COVID-19 Pandemic Shows Why We Must—And How We Can—End Racial Injustice in Health
The Racist History of Voter Registration
The Racist History of Portland, the Whitest City in America
How Racism Kills Black Americans
What is owed: If true justice and equality are ever to be achieved in the United States, the country must finally take seriously what it owes black Americans.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/24/magazine/reparations-slavery.html
The 1898 Wilmington Massacre Is an Essential Lesson in How State Violence Has Targeted Black Americans
https://time.com/5861644/1898-wilmington-massacre-essential-lesson-state-violence/
The Lingering Legacy of America’s First Cookie-Cutter Suburb
Inequality was built-in.
What Coronavirus Job Losses Reveal About Racism in America
The catastrophic loss of millions of U.S. jobs is another part of the coronavirus pandemic that is falling disproportionately onto the shoulders of Black Americans.
Black Workers Are More Likely to Be Unemployed but Less Likely to Get Unemployment Benefits
Black Homeowners Face Discrimination in Appraisals: Companies that value homes for sale or refinancing are bound by law not to discriminate. Black homeowners say it happens anyway.
‘Are We Not American Soldiers?’ When the U.S. Military Treated German POWs Better Than Black Troops
https://time.com/5872361/wwii-german-pows-civil-rights/
The Black Radical Success Story Your History Class Ignored
The Reconstruction era as it’s taught minimizes a grand, transformative project that remade not just Black life, but life as we know it
https://level.medium.com/the-black-radical-success-story-your-history-class-ignored-a9f35fd09804
The Electoral College’s Racist Origins
More than two centuries after it was designed to empower southern white voters, the system continues to do just that.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/electoral-college-racist-origins/601918/
Race in America- Holy Post
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGUwcs9qJXY
Predominantly Black nursing homes suffered higher death rates during the pandemic, Post analysis finds
Despite the passage of fair housing laws in the U.S. during the 1960s and ’70s, homes in predominantly Black neighborhoods have generally been appraised at lower values than those in majority-white communities.
A Neighborhood’s Race Affects Home Values More Now Than in 1980
To achieve racial justice, America’s broken democracy must be fixed
https://www.vox.com/21446880/just-democracy-reform-gun-violence-police-brutality-climate-change
HItler and American Jim Crow laws
The Right’s Farcical Denial of Systemic Racism
Conservatives simply ignore a vast amount of evidence documenting its existence.
Just as Tech Looked Serious About Diversity, Trump Intervenes
The Labor Department last week questioned Microsoft’s stated goal to double the number of Black leaders in the company.
Why racial inequities in America's schools are rooted in housing policies of the past
American public schools are divided along economic and racial lines, the aftermath of a system that denied capital to families of color for decades.
The Heavy Toll of the Black Belts Wastewater Crisis
The Black American Amputation Epidemic
https://features.propublica.org/diabetes-amputations/black-american-amputation-epidemic/
How COVID-19 Hollowed Out a Generation of Young Black Men
The Virus Is Showing Black People What They Knew All Along
This is the America that Black people know (Capital invasion Jan 2021)
How Unfair Property Taxes Keep Black Families From Gaining Wealth
The racism hidden in the US tax code.
Maps of historic housing discrimination show how neighborhoods that suffered redlining in the 1930s face a far higher risk of flooding today.
How the Supreme Court Helped Create 'Driving While Black'
The Uber Wealthy Think Elite Private Schools Are Too "Woke"
13th Amendment
In 1866, one year after the 13 Amendment was ratified (the amendment that ended slavery), Alabama, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Florida, Tennessee, and South Carolina began to lease out convicts for labor (peonage). This made the business of arresting Blacks very lucrative, which is why hundreds of White men were hired by these states as police officers. Their primary responsibility was to search out and arrest Blacks who were in violation of Black Codes. Once arrested, these men, women and children would be leased to plantations where they would harvest cotton, tobacco, sugar cane. Or they would be leased to work at coal mines, or railroad companies. The owners of these businesses would pay the state for every prisoner who worked for them; prison labor.
It is believed that after the passing of the 13th Amendment, more than 800,000 Blacks were part of the system of peonage, or re-enslavement through the prison system. Peonage didn’t end until after World War II began, around 1940.
This is how it happened.
The 13th Amendment declared that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." (Ratified in 1865)
Did you catch that? It says, “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude could occur except as a punishment for a crime". Lawmakers used this phrase to make petty offenses crimes. When Blacks were found guilty of committing these crimes, they were imprisoned and then leased out to the same businesses that lost slaves after the passing of the 13th Amendment. This system of convict labor is called peonage.
The majority of White Southern farmers and business owners hated the 13th Amendment because it took away slave labor. As a way to appease them, the federal government turned a blind eye when southern states used this clause in the 13th Amendment to establish laws called Black Codes. Here are some examples of Black Codes:
In Louisiana, it was illegal for a Black man to preach to Black congregations without special permission in writing from the president of the police. If caught, he could be arrested and fined. If he could not pay the fines, which were unbelievably high, he would be forced to work for an individual, or go to jail or prison where he would work until his debt was paid off.
If a Black person did not have a job, he or she could be arrested and imprisoned on the charge of vagrancy or loitering.
This next Black Code will make you cringe. In South Carolina, if the parent of a Black child was considered vagrant, the judicial system allowed the police and/or other government agencies to “apprentice” the child to an "employer". Males could be held until the age of 21, and females could be held until they were 18. Their owner had the legal right to inflict punishment on the child for disobedience, and to recapture them if they ran away.
This (peonage) is an example of systemic racism - Racism established and perpetuated by government systems. Slavery was made legal by the U.S. Government. Segregation, Black Codes, Jim Crow and peonage were all made legal by the government, and upheld by the judicial system. These acts of racism were built into the system, which is where the term “Systemic Racism” is derived.
This is the part of "Black History" that most of us were never told about. - Chuck Allen
INSIDE THE WINNING FIGHT FOR REPARATIONS IN ATHENS, GEORGIA
Fifty Black families were forcibly displaced from their homes in the 1960s. Now the descendants are seeking redress and a chance to testify before Congress.
https://theintercept.com/2021/04/09/reparations-georgia-athens-uga-linnentown/
How White fears of ‘Negro domination’ kept D.C. disenfranchised for decades
The Forgotten History of the Purging of Chinese from America
Texas GOP Passes Bill To Stop Teachers From Talking About Racism
“It’s going to have a chilling effect on social studies and civics teachers across the state,” said Democratic state Rep. James Talarico.
As Warming Fuels Disasters, Relief Often Favors White People
The federal government often gives less help to Black disaster survivors than their white neighbors
Was the New Deal racist?
https://livingnewdeal.org/was-the-new-deal-racist-2/
https://newrepublic.com/article/155704/new-deal-wasnt-intrinsically-racist
‘The real damage’
Why FEMA is denying disaster aid to Black families that have lived for generations in the Deep South.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/07/11/fema-black-owned-property/
Alabama Begins Removing Racist Language From Its Constitution (Sept 2021)
Many outdated provisions have long since been invalidated, but the language that was specifically intended to enshrine white supremacy has remained.
The last time Alabama politicians rewrote their state Constitution, back in 1901, their aspirations were explicitly racist: “to establish white supremacy in this state.”
“The new Constitution eliminates the ignorant Negro vote and places the control of our government where God Almighty intended it should be — with the Anglo-Saxon race,” John Knox, the president of the constitutional convention, said in a speech encouraging voters to ratify the document that year.
Crime Prediction Keeps Society Stuck in the Past
So long as algorithms are trained on racist historical data and outdated values, there will be no opportunities for change.
SCIENTISTS CONFIRM 6 LINKS BETWEEN RACE AND AIR POLLUTION
For Helping Voters Who Can’t Read, She’s Been Criminally Charged — Twice. That Hasn’t Stopped Her.
Black WWII soldiers asked a White woman for doughnuts. They were shot.
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