My first point was about how as a white person, I do not have the ability to fully speak to the African American experience. As I can not fully understand the problem, I probably won't be able to offer the best solutions. I'm not sure what part of that you disagree with.
Before going into this, I would like to point out that my goal is not equality of outcomes. I want to make that perfectly clear. It is equality of opportunity. Furthermore, I will fully agree with you that in terms of the intersectionality of oppression, classism will usually undergrid racism. However, it is important to point out that due to Jim Crow and slavery, African Americans are at an inherent disadvantage in terms of, you guessed it, generational wealth. If your argument is that poverty is a huge problem, I would completely agree. Many racial issues could be fixed by tackling economic ones. In terms of systemic racism, here's what I've got.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE:
Here's a really good article:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/opinions/wp/2018/09/18/theres-overwhelming-evidence-that-the-criminal-justice-system-is-racist-heres-the-proof/
I would suggest reading it all, because it contains a TON of credible studies concerning every aspect of the criminal justice system, but here are some good tidbits:
- In their book “Suspect Citizens,” Frank R. Baumgartner, Derek A. Epp and Kelsey Shoub reviewed 20 million traffic stops. In an interview with The Post, they shared what they found: “Blacks are almost twice as likely to be pulled over as whites — even though whites drive more on average,” “blacks are more likely to be searched following a stop,” and “just by getting in a car, a black driver has about twice the odds of being pulled over, and about four times the odds of being searched.” They found that blacks were more likely to be searched despite the fact they’re less likely to be found with contraband as a result of those searches.
- A 2015 statistical analysis of police shootings from 2011 to 2014 found that the racial disparity in police shootings of black people could not be explained by higher crime rates in majority-black communities.
- Another ACLU study, this time on the use of stop-and-frisk in Milwaukee between 2010 and 2017, found that in nearly half of the more than 700,000 such stops, the police failed to demonstrate reasonable suspicion as required by the Constitution. The study found that between pedestrian stops and traffic stops, black people were six times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people, and that less than 1 percent of those searches turned up any contraband. Here again, while black and Latino drivers were more likely to be searched, they were 20 percent less likely to be in possession of any contraband.
- A national study of misdemeanor arrests published this year in the Boston University Law Review found that the “black arrest rate is at least twice as high as the white arrest rate for disorderly conduct, drug possession, simple assault, theft, vagrancy, and vandalism. The black arrest rate for prostitution is almost five times higher than the white arrest rate, and the black arrest rate for gambling is almost ten times higher.”
- Missouri has been keeping data on traffic stops for 18 years, and for 18 years, the numbers consistently show that statewide, black people are more likely to be pulled over than white people. The data from 2017 showed the problem actually got worse, with blacks 85 percent more likely to be stopped.
- A 2016 study from a consortium of civil rights groups found wide racial disparities in the suspension of driver’s licenses of California residents. Some black and Latino communities had suspension rates five times the state average.
- As of May, data from New York City showed that black people are arrested for marijuana at eight times the rate of white people. In Manhattan, it’s 15 times as much. Black neighborhoods produce far more arrests than white neighborhoods, despite data showing a similar rate at which residents complain about marijuana use.
- When The Post in 2014 reviewed 400 recent instances of questionable asset forfeiture, a majority of the motorists who had property confiscated by the police were nonwhite.
- According to figures from the National Registry of Exonerations (NER) black people are about five times more likely to go to prison for drug possession than white people. According to exoneration data, black people are also 12 times more likely to be wrongly convicted of drug crimes.
- Not included in these wrongful conviction figures are cases in which police and narcotics task forces conducted mass arrests of entire black or Latino neighborhoods or towns. Hundreds of people were persuaded to plead guilty to drug charges. By the NER’s estimate, there have been more than 1,800 such “group exonerations” in 15 cities since 1989. Almost all those exonerated were black or Latino.
- Black people comprise about 12.5 percent of drug users but 29 percent of arrests for drug crimes and 33 percent of those incarcerated.
- A 2011 study from Michigan State University College of Law found that between 1990 and 2010, state prosecutors struck about 53 percent of black people eligible for juries in criminal cases, vs. about 26 percent of white people. The study’s authors concluded that the chance of this occurring in a race-neutral process was less than 1 in 10 trillion. Even after adjusting for excuses given by prosecutors that tend to correlate with race, the 2-to-1 discrepancy remained. The state legislature had previously passed a law stating that death penalty defendants who could demonstrate racial bias in jury selection could have their sentences changed to life without parole. The legislature later repealed that law.
- While white people make up less than half of the country’s murder victims, a 2003 study by Amnesty International found that about 80 percent of the people on death row in the United States killed a white person.
- Black people are also more likely to be wrongly convicted of murder when the victim was white. Only about 15 percent of people killed by black people were white, but 31 percent of black exonorees were wrongly convicted of killing white people. More generally, black people convicted of murder are 50 percent more likely to be innocent than white people convicted of murder.
- Innocent black people are also 3.5 times more likely than white people to be wrongly convicted of sexual assault and 12 times more likely to be wrongly convicted of drug crimes. (And remember, data on wrongful convictions is limited in that it can only consider the wrongful convictions we know about.)
- A 2014 study of Manhattan criminal cases found that black defendants were 19 percent more likely to be offered plea deals that included jail time.
- A survey of data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission last year found that when black men and white men commit the same crime, black men on average receive a sentence almost 20 percent longer. The research controlled for variables such as age and prior criminal history.
- A 2007 Harvard study found sentencing discrepancies among black people, depending on the darkness of their skin. The study looked at 67,000 first-time felons in Georgia from 1995 to 2002. The average sentence for white men was 2,689 days. The average for black men was 378 days longer. But light-skinned blacks received sentences of about three and a half months longer than whites. Medium-skinned blacks received a sentence of about a year longer. Dark-skinned blacks received sentences of a year and a half longer.
- A study of suspensions in Chicago schools from 2013 to 2014 found that black male students were more than five times more likely to be suspended than white and Asian male students. Black female students were seven times more likely than white and Asian female students. After adjusting for academic level and social disadvantages, black males were still five times more likely to be suspended, while the disparity for black females grew to 13 times more likely.
- According to a 2014 study by the Vera Institute of Justice, black and Latino defendants in New York City were more likely to be detained before trial for comparable crimes. They were also more likely to have charges dismissed. The study didn’t look at this, but that may have been because they were more likely to be wrongly arrested in the first place. The study found that race played a role at nearly every step in the process, from arrest to detention to setting bail to sentencing.
- A 2011 study of bail in five large U.S. counties found that blacks received $7,000 higher bail than whites for violent crimes, $13,000 higher for drug crimes and $10,000 higher for crimes related to public order. These disparities were calculated after adjusting for the seriousness of the crime, criminal history and other variables.
HOUSING:
Here's another really good article:
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/reports/2019/08/07/472617/systemic-inequality-displacement-exclusion-segregation/
It talks about the history of housing discrimination and how it still affects POC today.
Over time, single-family zoning emerged and replaced race-based zoning as one of the most popular local governing tools for segregating American communities. This policy prevented the construction of apartment buildings and multifamily units in certain neighborhoods, ensuring that only those who could afford single-family homes could live there.75 As white households typically had higher incomes and access to a range of federal home loan programs, single-family zoning produced racially segregated neighborhoods without explicit race-based ordinances. With a greater tax base and support from federal programs, these areas could afford public goods that others could not and, as a result, experienced greater real estate appreciation.76 At the same time, city planners zoned areas adjacent to neighborhoods with apartment buildings and multifamily units—which were predominantly low-income and Black—for industrial and commercial use.77 These zoning decisions concentrated poverty and exposed vulnerable people to dangerous environmental hazards. This all but ensured that property values in these communities would appreciate at much slower rates.78 Single-family zoning persists to this day and helps maintain existing patterns of racial segregation in communities across the country.79
The harmful effects of government-backed segregation also produced racial inequities in access to public spaces, public goods, and increased exposure to environmental hazards.80 Communities of color often have less access to grocery stores, child care facilities, and other important neighborhood resources.81 They are also more likely to have hazardous waste facilities in close proximity.82 These disparities—along with the chronic devaluation of Black-owned property—contribute to differences in home values and appreciation. While the median white homeowner’s property is worth $219,600, the median Black homeowner’s property is worth just $152,700.83 As noted in CAP’s recent report, white homeowners also have more than double the mean net housing wealth—home value minus debt—of Black homeowners: $215,800 compared with just $94,400.84 Overall, segregation fueled the wealth-building capacity of white communities while simultaneously undermining wealth accumulation and economic well-being in communities of color.
HEALTHCARE:
The public health crisis in America disproportionately affects POC.
https://tcf.org/content/report/racism-inequality-health-care-african-americans/?agreed=1
Even with improved access to medical care under the ACA, the disparities in health outcomes between African Americans and whites are stark. African-American women are three times more likely to die of pregnancy-related causes than white women (see Figure 1).25 The African-American infant mortality rate is twice the rate for white infants (see Figure 2).26 African Americans are more likely to die from cancer and heart disease than whites, and are at greater risk for the onset of diabetes.27 However, death rates for African Americans with cancer and heart disease did drop over a fifteen year period.28 Across many chronic illnesses, however, African Americans are still more likely to die compared to other racial and ethnic groups.
Across the board, POC have a higher mortality rate for illnesses and conditions. They are also far more likely to be obese, even adjusting for poverty and area within the US.
Here are some studies about the racism within the health care system:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(17)30569-X/fulltext
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK24693/
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11606-013-2583-1
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277953613005121?via%3Dihub
- The 37 studies included in this review were almost solely conducted in the U.S. and with physicians. Statistically significant evidence of racist beliefs, emotions or practices among healthcare providers in relation to minority groups was evident in 26 of these studies. Although a number of measurement approaches were utilized, a limited range of constructs was assessed.
- Blacks, Hispanics, and some Asian populations, when compared with whites, appear to have lower levels of health insurance coverage, with Hispanics facing greater barriers to health insurance than any other group
- Research reveals systematic racial differences in the kind and quality of medical care received by Medicare beneficiaries (Escarce et al., 1993; McBean and Gornick, 1994). In 1992, black Medicare beneficiaries were less likely than their white counterparts to receive any of the 16 most commonly performed hospital procedures (McBean and Gornick, 1994). The differences were largest for referral-sensitive procedures. The Medicare files showed only four nonelective procedures that black Medicare beneficiaries received more frequently than whites—all procedures (such as the amputation of a lower limb and the removal of both testes) that reflect delayed diagnosis or initial failure in the management of chronic disease. Since a greater percentage of black than white Medicare beneficiaries make out-of-pocket payments for deductibles and copayments (McBean and Gornick, 1994), this burden could contribute to less use of ambulatory medical care and to the postponement or avoidance of treatment.
- Some differences in medical care may be due to stereotypes of different groups held by health care providers. The authors of Unequal Treatment (Institute of Medicine, 2002) argue that unconscious or unthinking discrimination based on negative stereotypes, even in the absence of conscious prejudice, may contribute to systematic bias in care.
EDUCATION:
POC consistently have worse educations than white people. Personally, I believe that this disparity is probably tied more into class than race, but racism definitely still exists in the education sector.
https://www.equityinhighered.org/indicators/u-s-population-trends-and-educational-attainment/educational-attainment-by-race-and-ethnicity/
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/unequal-opportunity-race-and-education/
- Even within urban school districts, schools with high concentrations of low-income and minority students receive fewer instructional resources than others. And tracking systems exacerbate these inequalities by segregating many low-income and minority students within schools. In combination, these policies leave minority students with fewer and lower-quality books, curriculum materials, laboratories, and computers; significantly larger class sizes; less qualified and experienced teachers; and less access to high-quality curriculum. Many schools serving low-income and minority students do not even offer the math and science courses needed for college, and they provide lower-quality teaching in the classes they do offer. It all adds up.
- Since the 1966 Coleman report, Equality of Educational Opportunity, another debate has waged as to whether money makes a difference to educational outcomes. It is certainly possible to spend money ineffectively; however, studies that have developed more sophisticated measures of schooling show how money, properly spent, makes a difference. Over the past 30 years, a large body of research has shown that four factors consistently influence student achievement: all else equal, students perform better if they are educated in smaller schools where they are well known (300 to 500 students is optimal), have smaller class sizes (especially at the elementary level), receive a challenging curriculum, and have more highly qualified teachers. Minority students are much less likely than white children to have any of these resources. In predominantly minority schools, which most students of color attend, schools are large (on average, more than twice as large as predominantly white schools and reaching 3,000 students or more in most cities); on average, class sizes are 15 percent larger overall (80 percent larger for non-special education classes); curriculum offerings and materials are lower in quality; and teachers are much less qualified in terms of levels of education, certification, and training in the fields they teach. And in integrated schools, as UCLA professor Jeannie Oakes described in the 1980s and Harvard professor Gary Orfield’s research has recently confirmed, most minority students are segregated in lower-track classes with larger class sizes, less qualified teachers, and lower-quality curriculum.
- What happens when students of color do get access to more equal opportunities’ Studies find that curriculum quality and teacher skill make more difference to educational outcomes than the initial test scores or racial backgrounds of students. Analyses of national data from both the High School and Beyond Surveys and the National Educational Longitudinal Surveys have demonstrated that, while there are dramatic differences among students of various racial and ethnic groups in course-taking in such areas as math, science, and foreign language, for students with similar course-taking records, achievement test score differences by race or ethnicity narrow substantially.
I'm sure there's more, but these four areas cover a lot and are the best examples I could find.