The Truth about Racism and its Statistics in America

By · Sep 16, 2020 · 6 min read

To many, the civil rights messages of figures like Martin Luther King Jr. still ring true today as America continues to navigate racial tensions. With protesters taking to the streets and the election just around the corner, racism has resurfaced as a topic that both sides of the aisle have to weigh in on. In order to address what, if anything, should be done about racism, it is first necessary to have a comprehensive understanding of what racism means in the context of modern America and, by extension, interactions between black people and police.

Systemic Racism Analysis

With the explosion of peaceful and non-peaceful protests across the U.S. following the death of George Floyd, many people wonder about the motive of demonstrators. Justifications for breaking social distancing guidelines, defacing property, and other civil unrest range anywhere from defunding the police to destroying capitalist systems. However, the shared message between those leading demonstrations seems to be the fight against systemic racism. Systemic racism is not an easy term to define. It does not have to be explicitly codified in the laws or policies of an institution. To those committed to combating systemic racism, discrimination based on biological race or skin color is pervasive and normalized. They point to the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor as manifestations of this.

The variables surrounding the death of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor are circumstantial at best. In order to convict an individual of first or second degree murder, intent must be proven. Furthermore, in order to prove that an individual committed murder due to prejudice (a hate crime), intent for the killing must be proven to be driven by prejudice such as racism. Judging by the escalation of Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the name of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, many have judged the intentions of involved police officers to be prejudiced. However, evidence such as the gunshot wound to an officer in the Breonna Taylor case suggests that the fatal shooting of Taylor was incidental collateral damage in officers’ discharging of weapons in reaction to Taylor’s boyfriend shooting a police officer. But, the specific details of the case are to be evaluated by a grand jury. Thus, evidence in the Taylor case remains circumstantial and inconclusive about intention, let alone prejudiced intention, in the killing of a black individual. Similarly, the congruence between the fatal neglect of a police officer kneeling on George Floyd’s neck and prejudiced action against an individual based on their skin color remains debatable. That is not to say that Breonna Taylor or George Floyd deserved to die. However, the reason behind what led to their death may or may not include racist motives.

Taking into account the ambiguity of intentions and circumstances surrounding instances of police brutality, case examples of manifestations of systemic racism do not seem to put racism into perspective. In trying to better understand what racism in a huge and complex system such as the US, case examples do not provide a complete picture.

Racism Statistics in Education, Government and Occupation

In order to define racism, it is important to understand inequalities between people of different races. Inequality may exist in the context of structures and institutions such as education, government, and occupation. In addition, inequalities may exist in subtler areas of life such as culture and family. Almost all bodies of research indicate that schools with a predominantly minority student body disproportionately suffer more from larger class sizes, a lack of qualified teachers, and an overall inability to provide resources to students. For now, it is somewhat unclear whether the cause of under-funded and neglected portions of the education system are due to racial bias or are simply symptoms of economic equality. A study by David Mosenskis points to a causal relationship in Pennsylvania between the skin color of students within a school district and how much that district receives in funding. However, more research is needed to conclusively implicate racial bias as a primary factor in education in other states and districts. In addition to discrepancies in education, many Americans point to a lack of representation in government for racial minorities. However, Pew Research Center indicates that Congress continues to set records of minority representation every election cycle. Additionally, many Americans point to the fact that minorities are significantly over-represented in lower-paying jobs. Many see this as evidence that processes such as hiring and deciding employee promotions are biased. In respect to family structure, Brookings reports that from 1965 to 1990 (in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement) the percentage of black infants born into families without fathers increased from 24% to 64% compared to the percentage of white infants which increased from 3% to 18%. Taken together, factors such as education and family structure are considered to be strong influences on socioeconomic inequities.

Controversy emerges with disagreement about how these different factors mix together to cause inequalities between races such as the wealth and income inequality gap between white and black households. Those who view statistics through the lens of systemic racism are likely to attribute any discrepancy between races or differences in representation of races to prejudice. In this way, rather than defining racism as a explicit or intentional bias, any policy or institution that leads to a discrepancy between races may be considered racist. In contrast, an individual might view inequalities between races as consequences of factors such as culture or personal choice. Looking at partisan differences between perceptions of racial privilege in a study by Pew Research Center, Democrats are far more likely to view being white as a significant advantage. Consequently, it is no surprise that Democrats view race as a driving indicator of one’s likelihood to succeed, fail, or suffer as a victim of police brutality. Conversely, Republicans are less likely to attribute an individual’s socioeconomic position to their race and more likely to attribute it to their personal decisions and productive merit.

Racism Statistics in Police Brutality

In the current political climate, police brutality remains as one of the primary topics in discussing racial tension and inequality. According to Statista, black Americans experience higher rates of killings by police officers than any other race, while white Americans are the most killed race. This study shows that black Americans are about twice as likely to have a fatal encounter with a police officer. However, although it is more likely for black people to be killed, the Washington Post database on police shootings indicates that only 14 unarmed back people were fatally shot in 2019 which represents the continuation of a 63% reduction in fatal shootings of unarmed black men since the study began in 2015. While it is tragic that black people are statistically more likely to be fatally shot by police officers, the small and decreasing proportion of the African American population that experiences fatal instances of police brutality does not help to prove Joe Biden‘s that statement that “black Americans wake up knowing that they can lose their life over the course of just living their life.” Thus, many go farther in asserting that the criminal justice system as a whole is racist due to higher incarceration rates of black people. Others point to a significantly higher proportion of individuals that are black that commit violent crimes as compared to other races, as 37.8% of violent crimes are committed by black Americans despite black people representing only 13.4% of the general public. Interestingly, factors such as high poverty among black Americans may also help explain inequalities in fatal shooting statistics. This study demonstrates how the rate of poverty can explain the higher number of black Americans being killed by police officers. This study claims that there are increased odds of simply being black and poor in America at a ratio of 2.5, which closely resembles the 2.29 increased odds of which black Americans are killed by police officers. More importantly, the odds-ratio of poor black citizens being killed by police officers is 3.34 which is actually less than the odds for white citizens being killed by police officers at 3.64. These statistics do not correlate with the claim that police officers are collectively biased in their kills by race. Nevertheless, these statistics do not disprove isolated cases of racism.

Politics

At its core, racism remains a political issue. Given the history of government-induced racial inequity in the past as well as many people’s belief in government’s general responsibility to facilitate social well-being and equity, the question of how to address racism is often targeted toward politicians. More specifically, in recent months, the death of George Floyd has sparked interest in reforming laws surrounding policing. To many, reforming the police can involve eliminating qualified immunity, imposing more restrictive recruiting, and requiring better training. These reforms are primarily driven by the desire to create a more transparent and less-militarized police force composed of officers that can be held accountable. In simpler terms, many argue over the amount of money allocated to police. Some Democrats such as House Representatives Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have supported the movement to “defund the police.” The movement hopes to diminish the proportion of the budget assigned to the police and reinvest the funds into areas like education and public health. However, despite rallying cries for police reform, the direction towards progress remains elusive. In the face of concerns of over-policing specific neighborhoods with predominantly black populations, a Gallup poll indicates that 81% of black people in America would like to maintain or increase policing in their own communities.

Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden and President Donald Trump have varied approaches to racism and race-based inequality. Joe Biden has vowed to help the black community by tackling housing inequality, expanding funding to public education, and appointing the first black female Supreme Court Justice. In contrast, President Trump has touted low black unemployment numbers before the economic devastation during the COVID crisis. It is far from clear where the politics surrounding racism will and should go from here. Given the hazardous and often-polarizing nature of the topic, it is undeniably imperative that we are able to objectively assess both the problem of racism, and the policies to address it.

Comments

Most Popular

Trending Elections

Share via