Resource Links Tagged with "Systemic Racism"

Ibram Kendi, One of the Nation’s Leading Scholars of Racism, Says Education and Love Are Not the Answer

by Lonnae O’Neal | September 2017
Professor Ibram Kendi, founder of the new Anti-Racism Center at American University and author of Stamped from the Beginning, The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, talks about the “ideas that grow out of discriminatory policies.” and breaks down the “layers of racist ideas that account for why we think like we do. Just so you know, black people are not inherently better athletes than white people, Kendi says. We only think so because “black people have not only been rendered inferior to white people, they’ve been rendered like animals,” and thus physically superior creatures. It’s an old racist idea that helped justify African-Americans’ suitability for backbreaking labor and medical experiments and the theft of their children.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2010’s] [Implicit Racism] [Systemic Racism] [White Culture] [Assumptions] [Collective Action] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts]

When White Friends Don’t Believe What Blacks Go through, They’re Not Friends

by Mary C. Curtis | September 2014
*Yet whites are, frequently, disappointingly, incredulous. Very often a “friend’s” reaction that goes something like this: “I don’t think a police officer would stop anyone for no reason at all.” Or: “You must have done something suspicious.” Or my favorite: “If you haven’t done anything wrong, you don’t have anything to worry about.” I am not some child coming home with some tall tale, and I am certainly not a delusional liar.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2010’s] [Policing] [Systemic Racism] [White Culture] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts]

Fighting Hitler and Jim Crow: The forgotten Black soldiers of D-Day

by Rebecca Santana | June 2019
Roughly 2,000 African-American troops are believed to have hit the shores of Normandy in various capacities on June 6, 1944. Serving in a U.S. military still segregated by race, they encountered discrimination both in the service and when they came home. But on Normandy, they faced the same danger as everyone else.
During World War II, it was unheard of for African-American officers to lead white soldiers, and they faced discrimination even while in the service. Black troops were often put in support units responsible for transporting supplies. But during the Normandy invasion, that didn’t mean they were immune from danger….
After fighting fascism in Europe, many African-American troops were met with discrimination yet again at home. Jones remembers coming back the U.S. after the war’s end and having to move to the back of a bus as it crossed the Mason-Dixon line separating North from South. He recalls being harassed by police officers after returning to Louisiana.
“I couldn’t sit with the soldiers I had been on the battlefield with. I had to go to the back of the bus,” said Jones, who went on to become a lawyer and civil rights activist in Baton Rouge. “Those are the things that come back and haunt you.”
tags: [Racial Terrorism] [History] [Systemic Racism] [2010’s]

Violent Arrest of Teacher Caught on Video; Officers Face Investigation

by Tony Plohetski | September 2018
Officials are investigating an Austin police officer’s violent arrest of an African-American elementary school teacher who was twice thrown to the ground during a traffic stop for speeding and comments by a second officer who told her police are sometimes wary of blacks because of their “violent tendencies.” Video from the previously unreported June 2015 incident was obtained by the American-Statesman and KVUE-TV this week. The video shows the traffic stop escalating rapidly in the seven seconds from when officer Bryan Richter, who is white, first gives a command to 26-year-old Breaion King to close her car door to when he forcibly removes her from the driver’s seat, pulls her across a vacant parking space and hurls her to the asphalt.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2010’s] [Policing] [White Supremacy] [-ing While Black] [Systemic Racism] [White Privilege]

Why Reverse Racism is a Myth

by Noshin Jannat | September 2019
In today’s society, the term ‘racism’ has been for the most part, incorrectly used. The term is not interchangeable or synonymous with ‘prejudice’. Prejudice describes having irrational and unreasonable feelings or attitudes towards a group of people. Racism occurs when people act on their prejudice — it is action, not just internal feelings. To go further, racism is a system that disadvantages groups based on race. Therefore, people of colour simply cannot be racist as they cannot benefit from it.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [2010’s] [Myths] [“Reverse Racism”] [Systemic Racism] [White Privilege]

11 Things White People Need to Realize about Race

by Emma Gray and Jessica Samakow | July 2015
Article by two white women contains embedded links and short videos further explaining the points made in the article. Points in the article include; “Everyday racism is subtle and insidious.” “Don’t think you know it all — or even most of it. Listen, listen, listen.”
TAGS: [Individual Change] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Systemic Racism] [Colorblindness] [White Privilege] [White Culture] [Implicit Racism] [Black Lives Matter] [“Reverse Racism”] [2010’s]

Anti-Racism Work is Messy: Observations from the Road

by Shay | May 2019
Too often, we conflate anti-racism, racial equity and racial justice work as being one and the same. In reality, while they are very much related, I don’t believe them to be the same. One can engage in racial equity, implicit bias or racial justice work while still dancing around the core issue of dismantling white supremacy. In fact, as we discussed at a recent board-staff retreat at my organization, equity is rapidly becoming the newest buzzword, much like “diversity” in the early 1990s. Increasingly when I hear people using it, I ask them to explain what they mean. People theoretically want equity, but without the larger framework, they are not committed to the type of systemic change that will require white people to actually give up something. And the fact is that active reallocation of resources is essential to equity.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2010’s] [White Supremacy] [Systemic Racism] [White Fragility/Tears] [Anti-Racism]

Conversations on Racism with White People Getting Stuck or Looping? Thirteen Questions to Get it Moving Again

by Tad Hargrave | August 2017
In this blog post the author, a white man, suggests 13 questions that white people might consider including in their conversations with other white people about racism, as well as possible follow-up strategies depending upon the answers given. A sample question: “If you woke up as a person of colour or indigenous person tomorrow in North America do you think it would change anything in your life? If so, what?”
TAGS: [Individual Change] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Definitions] [White Culture] [White Fragility/Tears] [White Privilege] [History] [Systemic Racism] [2010’s]

Cops Complain about White People Wasting Police Time Calling 911 With Irrational Fears of Black People

by Hzfi Ziyad | May 2017
We know the way that Blackness is inherently seen as a threat makes even living while Black a dangerous activity, but what does the irrational and deadly fear of Black people actually sound like when communicated in words? “So I’m working last week and get dispatched to a call of ‘Suspicious Activity.’ Ya’ll wanna know what the suspicious activity was? Someone walking around in the dark with a flashlight and crow bar? Nope. Someone walking into a bank with a full face mask on? Nope. It was two black males who were jump starting a car at 930 in the morning. That was it. Nothing else. Someone called it in. People. People. People. If you’re going to be a racist, stereotypical jerk… keep it to yourself.”
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2010’s] [Systemic Racism] [White Privilege]

11 Ways White America Avoids Taking Responsibility for Its Racism

by Dr. Robin DiAngelo | June 2015
“White people are all too quick to cite their good intentions. Unconsciously, they aim to preserve white supremacy…. Racism as a default system that institutionalizes an unequal distribution of resources and power between white people and people of color….[and] works to the benefit of whites.”
TAGS: [Individual Change] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Implicit Bias] [White Culture] [White Supremacy] [Systemic Racism] [2010’s]

10 Things Every White Teacher Should Know When Talking about Race

by Angela Watson | September 2017
Most of this white teacher’s wide-ranging detailed guidance for other white teachers also contains many links, guidance and reminders that appear useful to other white Americans. “Begin the lifelong habit of rooting out your own biases…. We ALL have internalized anti- blackness (even people of color!) because our ways have thinking have been influenced by living in a white supremacist society…. Understanding and working through your own limitations and prejudices is the MOST important thing you can do, and will better equip you to begin doing the actual work of fighting for racial justice.”
TAGS: [Individual Change] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Teachers] [Implicit Bias] [Anti-Racism] [White Culture] [White Supremacy] [White Blindness] [White Privilege] [White Fragility/Tears] [Colorblindness] [“Reverse Racism”] [Systemic Racism] [Accountability] [2010’s]

#AltonSterling: 37-Year-Old Man Killed By Baton Rouge PD

by Kirsten West Savali | July 2016
Another black body on hot asphalt, heartbeat colliding with bullets in his chest, breathing becoming labored as an executioner in a uniform steals his life from him. This time, his name was Alton Sterling. This time, he was 37 years old.This time, he was a father of five. This time, he was selling CDs in front of a store. This time, the Baton Rouge, La., Police Department is responsible for his death.There are no new words. There are no new thoughts. There are no songs to sing nor chants to scream that will make this soul-crushing feeling of inevitability go away.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2010’s] [Police Shootings] [Policing] [Black Lives Matter] [-ing While Black] [History] [Systemic Racism] [White Supremacy] [White Privilege]

Believe in Something and Get Uncomfortable: The Truth about Fighting Racism

by Shay | September 2018
…Change is a process, and rarely is it easy. True change often means sitting with the uncomfortable and facing ourselves. Our realself. The one that we might hide from the world but that we know is there.
As I start to turn my attention back to anti-racism work, I am struck by how the work of white people dismantling racism is a process much life working on yourself. Actually, as a white person, you are working on yourself if you are doing such work. Racism isn’t simply about ignorance and individual hate. Rather, it is a system of power that was crafted by and for white people and undergirds every system we have. Even when society “allows” an individual Black person or other people of color (POC) into a position of power, the system itself is controlled by white people.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2010’s] [White Supremacy] [Systemic Racism] [Collective Action]

Black People Can’t Be Racist

by Sobantu Mzwakali | October 2015
A man cannot hate the whip with which he is being flogged but then be expected to love the person doing the flogging. When such a black man, lying helpless bleeding on the ground expresses hate for the white person wielding the whip, it is only reasonable.
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2010’s [White Blindness] [Accountability] [Systemic Racism] [White Privilege]

Tackling Racism in Hartford

by Steve Nelson | November 2017
Are you saying that all white people are racist?” After a short pause … “Yes.” This exchange was between a white New York teenager and a workshop leader on racism. It is among scores of powerful moments in a film called I’m Not Racist . . . Am I?I’m proud that the Calhoun School, which I headed until last June, produced the film in partnership with Point Made Films, a leading documentary film company.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2010’s] [Systemic Racism] [White Culture]

Lifesaving Advice From a Black Woman Held at Gunpoint by Police

by Tonya Jameson | July 2017
As I stared at the officer nervously pointing his gun at me, I realized immediately what he saw: a black person who had no business being in his neighbor’s driveway. Former Charlotte Observer writer Tonya Jameson shows how she was screwing her new license plate into her new Isuzu SUV … before having a gun pulled on her by a Knoxville Police Department Officer.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [-ing While Black] [2010’s] [Policing] [Tips Dos/Don’ts] [Systemic Racism]

Attacks like Portland’s Will Keep Happening Unless We All Fight White Supremacy

by Arjun Singh Sethi | May 2017
Two men were stabbed to death in Portland, Ore., on Friday when they tried to stop their attacker from harassing two women because they appeared to be Muslim. Communities of color experience hate in every aspect of our lives. It braids through our daily existence, just like friendship, work and family. We encounter it in schools, workplaces and public life. And what we fear most is hate violence, the kind that was on full display in Portland this weekend.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2010’s] [Systemic Racism] [White Supremacy] [Collective Action]

Ohio Cop Who Fatally Shot Walmart Shopper John Crawford III Won’t be Charged

by Sebastian Murdock | July 2017
The Justice Department said it can’t prove the officer violated the slain man’s civil rights. Crawford, 22 picked up a pellet gun while shopping in the Walmart toy section, prompting a 911 call from a customer who wrongly reported he was loading a rifle and pointing it at children.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [White Privilege] [-ing While Black] [Police Shootings] [2010’s] [Systemic Racism]

When Black Conductors Aren’t Comfortable at Concerts, Classical Music Has a Real Problem: There’s a Reason So Few Black People Go to the Symphony

by Brandon Keith Brown (a black conductor) | February 2020
“Stepping out into society as a Black person is going to a party where you know you’re not wanted. Whether at work, school, orchestra concerts or the opera, we’re unwelcome, my darkness breaches its whiteness.” TAGS: [Assumptions] [White Privilege] [White Supremacy] [Systemic Racism] [2020’s] [White Culture]

A Lynching on the University of Maryland Campus

by Dave Zirin | May 2017
Richard Collins III was about to graduate from Bowie State University Tuesday. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the US Army, airborne certified. He was a son, a friend, and active in his church. Richard Collins III was killed Saturday night because of the color of his skin. Make no mistake about it- this was a lynching; a lynching committed by a UMD student.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [White Supremacy] [2010’s] [Systemic Racism] [-ing While Black]

Revealed: FBI Investigated Civil Rights Group as ‘Terrorism’ Threat and Viewed KKK as Victims

by Sam T. Levin | February 2019
The FBI opened a “domestic terrorism” investigation into a civil rights group in California, labeling the activists “extremists” after they protested against neo-Nazis in 2016, new documents reveal.
Federal authorities ran a surveillance operation on By Any Means Necessary (Bamn), spying on the leftist group’s movements in an inquiry that came after one of Bamn’s members was stabbed at the white supremacist rally, according to documents obtained by the Guardian. “The FBI considered the KKK as victims and the leftist protesters as potential terror threats…”
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2010’s] [History] [Systemic Racism] [Policing]

Should I Give Up on White People?

by George Yancy | April 2018
Local morgue? Slammed shut permanently? These threatening words are taken from a letter sent to me by an anonymous white person. It was handwritten in black ink, covering both sides of a yellow sheet of paper torn from a legal pad. It is one of hundreds of letters, emails, postcards and voice messages I received — to say nothing of menacing discussions of me on white supremacist websites — after I wrote and published the essay “Dear White America” in December 2015 here at The Stone. What I had offered as a letter of love had unleashed the very opposite — a wave of white hatred and dehumanization.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [White Supremacy] [2010’s] [Systemic Racism] [Silencing POC]

A Century Later, a Little-Known Mass Hanging of Black Soldiers Still Haunts Us

by James Jeffrey | December 2017
Sixty-three black soldiers were represented by one lawyer in the largest court martial in U.S. history, the first of three that followed the Houston riot of 1917. In total, 110 men out of 118 were found guilty, and nineteen were sentenced to death by hanging. Those sentenced to death were not given the right to appeal.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [History] [2010’s] [Policing] [White Supremacy] [Systemic Racism]

This Is What Racism Sounds Like in the Banking Industry: A JPMorgan employee and a Customer Secretly Recorded Their Conversations with Bank Employees

by Emily Flitter | December 2019
“Jimmy Kennedy earned $13 million during his nine-year career as a player in the National Football League. He was the kind of person most banks would be happy to have as a client…. But when Mr. Kennedy tried to become a “private client” at JPMorgan Chase, an elite designation that would earn him travel discounts, exclusive event invitations and better deals on loans, he kept getting the runaround.” TAGS: [Systemic Racism] [2010’s] [White Culture] [Assumptions]

How the GI Bill’s Promise Was Denied to a Million Black WWII Veterans  the Sweeping Bill Promised Prosperity to Veterans. So Why Didn’t Black Americans Benefit?

by Erin Blakemore | June 2019, updated September 2019
But when he spoke with a salesman about buying the house using a GI Bill-guaranteed mortgage, the door to suburban life in Levittown slammed firmly in his face. The suburb wasn’t open to black residents.
TAGS: [Assumptions] [Systemic Racism] [History] [2010’s] [White Culture]

Racial Disparities Opportunity Atlas

Racial disparities in income and other outcomes are among the most visible and persistent features of American society. This map allows you to search by a wide variety of demographics: Household Income, Incarceration Rate, Individual Income, Employment Rate, High School/College Graduation Rate, Hours Worked Per Week, Hourly Wage …

Minority NYPD Officers Admit Their Fellow Cops Go ‘Hunting’ For Vulnerable Citizens Of Color

by Rachall Davies | July 2016
The inhumane killings of Black men, women and children across America at the hands of police officers has many people wondering why the officers NOT involved in these shootings don’t speak out, and now a few brave cops are breaking their silence. The NYPD is one of many U.S. police forces who face constant criticism and are often at odds with the Black community over poor handling of incidents involving their officers and Black men, but a few minority NYPD officers say it’s no accident that people of color seem to be the targets. “You might not see anything, but you go hunting, like, bounty hunting for an arrest,” NYPD officer Derick Waller told NBC New York back in April of this year.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2010’s] [Police Shootings] [Policing] [Systemic Racism] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege]

Confronting White Supremacy in the Work Place

by Caroline Taiwo | Date 2010’s
Two years ago, I started work as a recruitment and retention specialist for a small Minnesota nonprofit. The organization’s mission was to serve youth in crisis and their matriculation rate was 90 percent poor Black kids. I was hired on to replace a woman they fired a month prior, a Black woman, for reasons unresolved. She had been telling people that she was pushed out for challenging racist policy. Our department had tripled the number of volunteers coming in for weekly shift rotations but incredibly, the entire pool was white. When I brought it up, and offered to lead an effort to all in more volunteers of color, the more outspoken of the bosses interjected with, “Well we could look for more Black volunteers but I don’t think they would pass our background check.”
TAGS: [Strategies] [2010’s] [White Supremacy] [Systemic Racism] [Silencing POC] [Accountability] [Employment] [Denial] [White Culture] [White Blindness] [Economics] [White Privilege] [White Defensiveness] [White Culture] [Assumptions] [Myths]

White People, It’s Time To Prioritize Justice Over Civility

by Tauriq Moosa | May 2017
In striving to be ‘civil,’ white moderates provide cover for deadly white supremacy. .. Welcome to our current reality, in which white supremacists are treated like B-grade celebs on a reality TV show.
White supremacists are, after all, routinely landing profiles in leading media sites — because it’s apparently surprising Nazis can brush their hair and tuck in their shirt — and often getting invited onto popular shows, as if their ideas deserve more attention and platforms. …The way things are doesn’t equate to how things should be.
TAGS: [Strategies] [2010’s] [Systemic Racism] [Politics] [White Supremacy] [White Blindness] [White Culture] [Prison System] [White Privilege] [White Fragility/Tears]

Transforming White Fragility Into Courageous Imperfection

by Courtney E. Martin | June 2015
“I’m grateful for a framing that helps me understand my own fragility. Experimenting with how I use the power that comes from my privilege is a messy process. Sometimes I feel like I manage to do something really useful in the world, whether its recommending a brilliant person of color to speak at a conference and working with them to hone their transformative message for a broad audience or saying I won’t speak on a panel that I’ve been invited to because there isn’t a person of color on it. Interestingly, white fragility often shows up as talking a lot, a kind of flood of effortful explaining, or the equivalent of a peacock’s display of anti-racist sentiment — posting on social media with great fanfare or calling out other white people with a sort of zeal.”
TAGS: [Individual Change] [2010’s] [White Fragility/Tears] [White Privilege] [White Culture] [Accountability] [Systemic Racism] [Collective Action] [Definitions]