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  • Ohai babes! Fun fact: I’m white. I know, congrats Laci youve figured out your race

  • [GOLD STAR]! But this is pretty significant. For most of my life I was blissfully unaware

  • of the fact that I’m white. My race never affected me - a huge benefit I didn’t even

  • know I had.

  • Growing up, I knew racism was bad...but I didn’t fully understand what racism was.

  • I thought racism was: slurs, discrimination, hatred based on skin color. About 50 years

  • ago [GRAPHIC: CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT] direct, in-your-face, overt racism became illegal

  • and less socially acceptable. Which had 2 side effects on white America: first, it allowed

  • us to believe that racism was over. “YAY!!! MLK!!! EQUALITY FOR ALL!!” Second, it enabled

  • white folks to frame the ongoing struggles of the black community as a character flaw.

  • After Ferguson, a family member said to me: “Look, black people have a lot of problems

  • because they have a bad culture. Bad values. Theyre violent, theyre lazy, broken

  • families. Look at them rioting like animals. That’s not racism, that’s just the facts.”

  • Woah - tell me how you really feel! People usually aren’t so blunt about it - but if

  • you look closely enough, youll see these sentiments about black america echoed...everywhere

  • So I taught school for 20 years. Lots of people of color who didn't want to work as hard. They wanted to give it to them.

  • They don't like make a living for themselves. They just drop out high school and like,

  • "Oh, I'm gonna have kids and I'm gonna get a wealthy check""I'm gonna get my GED"

  • "I'll get my GED, I'll go work at McDonald, and..."

  • Young black men often reject education and gravitate towards street culture, drugs, hustling, games

  • Nobody forces them to do that, again. It's a personal decision.

  • [B-ROLL]. The message to be black? It's to be inferior.

  • But that’s not the facts, that’s just racism. Racism isn’t just burning crosses

  • and white hoods. Racism a seeping system of invisible forces that keep people of color

  • in a permanent 2nd class status. It’s the foundational fabric of our society, woven

  • with values, attitudes, stereotypes, policies, economics, and laws. Jim Crow laws of the

  • past were replaced with shiny, new laws that were just as racist, but looked better on

  • the surface. This made it harder than ever for white america to see the truth: the odds

  • are ever in our favor...and they always have been. Let’s take a trip down memory lane.

  • STOP 1: Wealth Between 1934 and 1962, the government backed

  • $120 billion of home loans. But they refused to give home loans for black folks OR

  • even if black folks lived NEARBY. This went on for decades. This practice - called redlining

  • - essentially (1) forced black americans into poor urban centers - the beginning ofthe

  • ghetto” (2) segregated America to this day, (3) made it impossible to invest in the future

  • of black neighborhoods, and (4) made it impossible for black americans to start inheriting property

  • and wealth the same way that white americans worked.

  • STOP 2: Education. Property taxes fund schools - which means

  • families lives in nice houses (maybe ones they got with the help of the government) get a

  • better education. With a better education they have more opportunities,

  • more resources, more connections, more jobs more….money, money, money.

  • STOP 3: Jobs. A lack of educational opportunities

  • meant many black folks were relegeted to low-wage manual labor. Today, when looking at the same

  • exact resume, employers are 50% more likely to call back a resume labour with a white sounding name.

  • STOP 4: Mass incarceration. Shortly after the civil rights movement, prisons

  • became privatized, for-profit businesses. Fill those cells, make that money! And they

  • did. The prison population shot up from 200,000 to 2.4 MILLION! MIILLLLLIONNNN!

  • More than any country in the world! And who filled those cells? People of color.

  • More African american adults are under correctional control today than were in slaves in 1850, a decade before the civil war began.

  • Black men are now in prison 6 times the rate of

  • white men. Did black men just become 6 times more dangerous? Course not - sentencing changed.

  • Sweeping laws were written that specifically targeted the black communities. For instance,

  • the sentence for possession of crack (more common among people of color because it’s

  • cheaper) was 100 times harsher than the sentence for cocaine

  • STOP 5: Racial profiling. It wasn’t just harsher sentencing. Communities

  • of color are also policed more harshly

  • The few memory that I have with my dad as kid is seeing him be yelled and questioned by police on the streets.

  • When they didn't like the answers, he was giving them to the questions, they proceeded the rest of the questions......me.

  • policies like show me your papers and stop & frisk target people of color under the law

  • So shocker, theyre more likely to be arrested for the stuff that white people are also doing,

  • and theyre twice as likely to get pulled over. Take the late Walter Scott - pulled

  • over for a broken tail light in South Carolina, only to be shot in the back 5 times by a cop.

  • STOP 6: Police brutality. Police brutality is front and center of the

  • race conversation right now. Twice a week in the US, white officers kill black suspects

  • - most of whom are unarmed - and consequences for those crimes are minimal, if any. The

  • police themselves admit to the use of excessive force and rampant racial bias in departments.

  • So what does America do? Arm the police military supplies: tanks, protective gear, firepower

  • used in war - all while wagging a finger at protestors who dare to be outraged by it.

  • This is just the tip of the racism iceberg. We need to ask ourselves: what’s really

  • causing the problems that were observing in America? What advantages has white America

  • been given - often without realizing it? The first step in combatting racism (and often

  • the hardest) is acknowledging that the system is unfair. Racism is a powerful institution

  • built by 400 years of slavery, 100 years of overt discrimination, 50 plus more years of covert

  • discrimination. That legacy doesn’t just disappear overnight.

  • America, we have a lot of work to do.

Ohai babes! Fun fact: I’m white. I know, congrats Laci youve figured out your race

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