Historic racism died election night 2008. New racism promoting American Apartheid spawning now by Leftist bigotry deliberately dividing for corporate interests.

Very slanted article blaming all except the minorities themselves for many of the current problems. Black on black crime being one of the the big ones. Granted we all have to change some more than others but I didn't create the current problems and white privilege is alive but dying in my view. I know quite a few minorities that have done well in life by doing what it takes to succeed and are model citizens not cry babies blaming all others for their failures.

What racist words or phrases have you possibly used in casual conversation
without even knowing about the painful history? Take a look at the
web-page below and let us know in the comments if you knew they were
racist or not.
https://liverpoolenglishcen...

Racism is not an intellectual argument. It is not the result of educational failure. You cannot read your way to wokeness. Ivy League valedictorians can still be rapists.

The horrors of racism must be felt and empathized with. Anti-racism starts below the neck.

So for those who are privileged of all races, what privileges will you give up?

For the female privileged, will you be OK with a black, in particular a black male (the most victimized gender), going to the head of the line for education and employment opportunities? Its only right, but for years feminism has been assigned the highest (perhaps only) priority.

For the privileged of all races:

Will you demand that the quality public or private schools your kids attend enroll inner city children who need help, and that your school district perhaps contribute a part of the school budget to helping out underfunded inner city schools?

Will you demand that your local zoning laws be changed so that public low income housing can be built where today, only McMansions are legal?

If you are a Hollywood success story, will you tell your kids they are on their own and you will not use your contacts and influence to get them into the best schools and the best jobs and careers?

Think of what you can add to this list.

Excellent.

Please read "Stamped from the Beginning" by Ibram Kendi.

Rather difficult to accept an article presented with the 'Smithsonian' name that incorporates so much inaccuracies . . . especially the some of the dates referencing when the United States of America did not even exist. . . .And, American taxpayers pay so much taxes to support public education.

I am a 57 year old white man living in the Southwest region of the US, I have seen "casual racism" as the norm. I find many of the responses to this article ugly, fear based, and unsurprising. Unfortunately, we are dealing with "beliefs" about racism and what it means to be "White". I have been a police officer, a soldier, and now an addiction therapist. I have worked in the correctional setting (Prison) and in low income non-profit mental health agencies. In my travels, I have seen the above to be true, but sharing that truth has been an ongoing struggle. There is an old saying; If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and sounds like a duck, then it is a duck. The article, yes written by a single individual, does not invalidate the information presented in the article. Racism is taught, it is not genetic, it is not "THE GRAND SCHEME OF THINGS" or "GOD'S PLAN", it is a systematic instruction of how/why people of color are inferior to "The White Man". As racism is taught and learned, then if people of courage will open their minds to see and hear facts, not opinions, then racism can disappear. My dream is the same dream that Martin L. King and Gene Roddenberry shared. If we can see humanity in all of it's glorious splendor, meet the needs (food, shelter, education, respect, opportunity, and dignity) then we as a Human Race can achieve greatness and explore the Stars. That is my hope. This will not happen unless we have people of courage to bring to light the shadows of darkness and expose the greed, resentment, bias, and fear leading to racism. It will not be pleasant, not enjoyable, but necessary if we are to evolve into a United Human Race.

Difficult to know what's even accurate history anymore as we can look at modern news media and see it's biased click bait articles heavily skewed to create desired sociopolitical narratives. Usually depending on who owns the news media. CNN is owned by a liberal while Fox News is owned by a conservative so you get biased news either way with different narratives.

Perhaps this type of biased news media has always existed in America. America's version of history often fails to match up with the rest of the world's history as well. US has its own preferred narratives.

In 2017, black unemployment was higher than in 1968, as was the rate of incarcerated individuals who were black. The wealth gap had also increased substantially, with the median white family having ten times more wealth than the median black family.

Well - let's keep doing the same things that LBJ and the Great Society projects advocated, let's ignore Daniel Patrick Moynihan's report when he was the Assistant Sec of Labor under LBJ and instead fall for the propaganda in the lerner report and the new propaganda about systemic racism, white fragility, privilege, etc. That'll make things better, yep.

I am not a racist although you might suggest from these articles that I am. Nor did I grow up with a lot of the advantages that you suggest all white people have enjoyed. I am an American (first last and always) of European ethnic background. I grew up in tenement apartments, and then a housing project on the "mean streets" of the lower east side of Manhattan. (And they were mean in ways that I don't think the 'privilidged' Liberals who write these articles can begin to understand.) I was assaulted several times, once because I was Jewish and once because I was white. My father's family was on welfare for a time. A advantage I did have, that I understand a lot of Black Americans did and do not have, was a strong supportive family I(n spite of their economic disadvantages.) It is not my fault that I had this advantage but I certainly benefitted from it. I was the first person in my family to go to college. In order to do so I had to win scholarships and admission to schools with tuition covered. This process was very competitive. Members of, so called, minority groups an advantage over me due to what was known as 'affirmative action'.
It has been suggested that the disintegration of Black families is a legacy of the history of slavery. I myself believed this for a long time. But, taking a close look at recent history has convinced me it is primarily due to liberal political programs that actually encouraged broken families.
You want to lecture us on racism. My advice is "physician heal thyself"!
A productive discussion of this subject would take a commitment of the part of all parties to the discussion to listen in good faith. What I see is politicians seeking to take advantage of the current strife to increase their political power. I believer that if we actually ended racism in America, these politicians would be out of business.

I find the ads on this page very distracting and in bad taste. For such an important, serious resource could you just gives us a break from the obnoxious advertising? It makes a difference as to whether I want to recommend this article to others.

Wait...This is NOT the history of racism in the United States. Racism affected more than African Americans.

There were times when African Americans actually had MORE rights than other groups in certain states.

Tell us how that turned out in the long run? How many of those states have had three black governors? Obviously more rights would manifest into something right?

We would do well to keep in mind that the most discriminated group in out country were the orientals not blasks and the state with the most Jim Crow laws was California. Our nation cannot thrive without the support of ALL citizens. Having a permanent underclass is not only offensive but economically harmful to us all. I grew up in a poverty stricken area and was taught by my parents and grandparents that your ticket to success was education (and that includes everything you learned whether it came from a school or elsewhere). As an employeer, I wanted to hire the best people that I could and the color of you skin was of no concern. I was not interested in your ancesters (mine were native american). I was told when I was quite young that if you want to be sucessful in Rome then you have to become a Roman. Whatever the society is where you are you have to become one of them to be truly accepted and I am not refering to skin color. In this country the language is proper english, there are standards of dress expected, you are expected to bring certain skills with you, and most of all the company does not exist for your benefit or to conform to you or your beliefs. A company only exists to make money for its owners and for no other reason. This system has given us and I mean all of us, from the top to the bottom, the highest standard of living ever known to exist on the planet and our diversity is our strength.

My fathers fathers family came to ths country with nothing, his wife was lucky because she came during the potato famine. My mothers fathers family were Choctaw indians and her mothers family were english. My great grandmother came to Oklahome in the last indian removal. My parents worked very hard and taught me that getting a good education and learning hard skills, going where work was, then outworking everyone else was the key for success. Dropping out of school, never getting hard skills, and not being where there was work grnerally equals poverty. It is a personal choice. Sorry-no sympathy.

Every time people of color, blacks, Hispanics, and Indians,went out and got an education, worked hard, got hard skills, and built a successful community, it was always destroyed by angry white people. Your Irish forebears experienced racial hatred, but the things they built were not taken away from them as they were people of color.

You ignore the facts that doctors, professors, upper class professionals and President Obama himself have had to endure police harassment for living while black. Your assumption that all blacks have not finished school or gotten hard skills or been willing to move shows the institutional racism you are repeating.

Not being black, I hesitate to make any comments here. But I feel that I must. I note a certain "trendyness" to the article - embracing "intersectionality" which I perceive as a hierarchy of oppression bearing little relationship to the real world. I note that Michael Brown is named as an example of police brutality, and yet Eric Holder's DOJ found nothing wrong with the police action with regard to Mr. Brown - it was a "righteous shoot". You do your argument no favors when you mix in Mr. Brown's experience with a more obvious example of police brutality like George Floyd's or Eric Garner's. You point out that Dr. King was not celebrated by white America at the time of his death, but he has become a major patriot since. Does that not tell you that America has changed since almost all the examples of "systemic racism" you present, almost all of which are close to 100 years old. Nobody can deny that the US's history has the stain of a racist past. It's not just blacks, either. "Chinese Exclusion Laws", "Irish need not apply", the really awful treatment of southern and eastern Europeans - promoted by abolitionists! - and Jews. It is, at the same time, undeniable to me that 1. the past 55 years have shown a massive improvement in both the institutional arrangements (Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act) AND the softening of the average white Americans' heart, largely thanks to Dr. King's message. Today, there is police brutality but it's in extremely small numbers (only 10 cases of police shooting unarmed blacks in 2019, of which only two brought charges to the police). That does not merit "hands up don't shoot" (THAT is a lie); it hardly justifies language about "genocide" or "white privilege". You -American blacks - have our hearts (most of us) to be treated equally with others. You lose me when you kneel for the anthem or express skepticism that America is TRYING to be a just place. There is also a complaint that major black voices who do not advocate "fundamental change" - Dr. Walter Williams, Dr. Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas, Shelby Steele, Larry Elder, Senator Tim Scott, are largely treated badly by the mainstream "black movement", ignored or not treated seriously. If you think the USA is a terrible place, one that does not deserve respect, then we have a significant difference of opinion, one where it is difficult to find a middle ground.

I was reading this and in so many ways their statistics or summaries are very misleading if not entirely false. I have no idea why its only allowing me to use the name discriminated against either? wtf? It was the prefilled username

Yes, great assessment. I found a lot of what was written in this article informative, but I grew weary of this article as it started injecting the more "trendy" stuff today especially as it started driving towards "intersectionality." This article made no attempt to highlight the great breadth and diversity of significant people of power and influence among Black Americans that don't follow the monolithic narrative that this author presents.

You did not hesitate long enough.

The only thing systematic about this article is the systematic use of racial incidents from the distant past to fabricate the existence of widespread racism today. In order to make some kind of link to the present and build up this race baiting article the author references the fairly recent Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown cases.

In Martin's case a wanna be tough guy teenager, who had been smoking grass, was confronted lurking near an apartment building in Florida. An officious wannabe cop/civilian on a voluntary neighborhood watch patrol saw him and confronted him asking him what he was doing there. Any words between them was never clear but Martin immediately Sunday punched Zimmerman knocking him to the ground and then jumping on top of him to overcome him in what is often called a "mad dog" response. Martin began bashing Zimmerman's head on the ground and Zimmerman reached for a gun he was legally carrying under Florida law and shot Martin killing him in self defense.

Black activists. politicians and media pressured the local prosecutors offices injecting a racial component because Martin was a young black, unarmed and only seventeen. They circulated innocent looking pictures of Martin in his Little League uniform when he was twelve and even President Obama jumped in saying Martin looked like he could be his son. After forcing an indictment to be filed and holding a jury trial the jury (which included black jurors) acquitted Zimmerman of any crime because it was obviously a case of self defense an probably should not have even been filed. Never the less a substantial monetary amount was obtained by Martin's parents from the apartment complex apparently wanting to avoid a long and ugly civil case after all the race baiting that had already occurred.

Michael Brown was a physically large young black man. He and another young black man entered a small convenience store and Brown stole some cigars. Before he could get out of the door he was accosted by the clerk, a man one half his size, over the theft of the cigars. Brown shoved him violently into a display rack, as seen on the security camera, turning the theft in progress into a strong arm robbery. As he was fleeing the robbery a short time later Brown was seen walking down the middle of the street by a Furgeson police officer who stopped his patrol car to speak with Brown. Brown then reached into the police car and tried to get the officer's pistol and punched the officer in the face. In the struggle over the gun it went off and the bullet nicked Brown's hand and lodged in the inside of the door.

Brown then took his hand back from inside the police car and began to flee. The officer got out, ordered Brown to stop. Brown stopped and turned to the officer who had his gun out to arrest him and Brown said mockingly "what you gonna shoot me"? Within an instant Brown began to advanced on the officer who shot several times, one bullet hit him in the head killing him. Black activists and politicians forced the matter to be presented to a grand jury claiming it was another racial incident where a racist police officer killed a young unarmed black man who they described as "just a gentle giant". During the provoked rioting, arson, vandalism, assaults and thefts that ensued during the investigation, two young blacks claimed to be witnesses and lied saying Brown had his hands up, was surrendering and said don't shoot. This was later found to be completely false, yet it became a rallying cry for the "Black Liver Matter" group and others who then went around holding their hands up and repeating "don't shoot"! The grand jury, which included black citizens, found the shooting was completely justified.

The fact remains that there are black citizens, groups, politicians and media who ignore and falsify facts to create a "racial" incident where none exists and to further this agenda that racism is rampant in this country despite all the progress that has been made since all of the many historic incidents discussed in this disingenuous article, apparently included to further the authors effort to whip up continued claims of widespread racism or "institutional racism" and to color many police incidents which are most often not police brutality or racism at all, serving to keep it alive as a useful social and political tool and ignore the tremendous progress there has been in race relations in this country until these recent efforts at revival!

Your article neglected to mention one EXTREMELY important fact: It was black tribes in Africa who were selling rival black tribe members to white slave traders. #truth

Do you really think - if true - this diminishes the fault of the white traders?????!!!!!
Shame on you!

There was a revolt on the slave ship Amistad by its captive Africans in 1839. The ship was taken into United States custody off the south coast of Long Island, New York. A court case ensued involving international dynamics with Spain, England, and the United States as they related to the 19th-century slave trade. The case eventually would be debated all the way to the Supreme Court, where former President John Quincy Adams, would argue on behalf of the Africans.

The court found in favor of the Africans and they were eventually set free. The irony of the story is that the African leader of the revolt went back to Africa and became a major player in the slave trade. In Steven Spielberg's epic film Amistad, there was no mention of this, and revisionist historians claim it never happened.

So if you hire a hit man to kill someone, then you are not guilty of murder? Those black tribal members were being paid by rich white slave traders from England, France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal and America so I think they were guilty of enslaving by proxy.

What you say is true, but does this sort of essay and its broadcasting of events carry enough weight in itself to make a real difference? Or can we expect 'business as usual' as public interest wanes as it always has in the past? I regret to say that there are a great many hypocrites among those who stand today in protest, beat their breasts and rally in the media but who (as in the past) will fade away and fail to practice what they preach. This is the reality we face: talk is cheap. And yet another rehash of the past may even do more harm than good. You cannot legislate morality or otherwise seek to force a solution; we must reach a concensus, for any other approach will fail, as it has in the past, and only make matters worse.

Articles like this won't carry enough weight on their own to make any significant difference, but then there's not any single thing that will - on it's own. Any solution must be mutifaceted. Articles such as this, however, serve to awaken us or heighten our awareness to issues so we can do the necessary work to affect positive change. These articles remind us that we've gone to sleep on our watch and let the momentum fade on issues of importance in our country. And they also share a part of America's history that's often glossed over, and there's no way to resolve any problem that we refuse to fully face. If we rehash the past without taking appropriate action to address the core of the issues, then we're accomplishing little. I hope that we're rehashing so we can make better decisions this time around that will allow our country to heal. To some degree, I agree that we cannot legislate morality, but on the other hand, I partly disagree. When citizens and political leaders voted with their morals on legislation that supported human trafficking/slavery and segregation, in a way, they legislated or imputed their morality. For the decades that followed, everytime someone obeyed racist laws, morality was imposed on the entire country whether they all agreed the totally agreed or not. Yes, people hold morals, but people use their morals to make decisions and about many things, including the laws of the land and the lives of other people. And the morals of the majority and/or those in positions of power were prevalent in legislation. Consider that human trafficking/slave trade used to be acceptable and supported by the force of law as was segregation and had a substantial infrastructure in place to support them - all of which were indicators of the morality of the people. So, while we can't legislate personal morality per se, we certainly can influence it with our decisions, choices and the issues we support.

I question whether there remain enough of us with a moral compass to begin with these days. Yes, by all means a moral basis for decisons - assuming the compass points true north.

Yes, we "legislated" that slavery had to end and look - it failed and things got worse!

Worse? For whom?

why was there no exhibit on Clarence Thomas when the National Museum of African-American History opened?

Because Clarence Thomas refuses to be a victim or a house slave for the leftist elites. Therefore, the civil rights establishment and the race hustlers deny Clarence Thomas his blackness, his entire life experience. For them he's a non-entity; he doesn't exist. That's exactly the attitude the majority of white society had toward the black community in the 1950's, when I was growing up. It's unbelievably cruel, and the fact it's done by blacks makes it all the worse.

No. He prefers to be a house slave for the elitists on the right.

Maybe, because he is still alive: aka, not "history", he can still make more contributions to the communities of America.

Do not send me any more Leftist propaganda masquerading as stories. There is no systemic racism in America-- only endless leftist propaganda that divides the races in order to destroy American society and conquer them.

If you close your eyes, you close your mind.

That is just verifiable false. There is overwhelming evidence of systemic racism. The denial of such is willful ignorance.

How extraordinarily ignorant you are! Said from a place of extreme white privilege.

How's the weather over in your home universe?

Your statements all prove that A) you’ve been brainwashed by Faux News et al and don’t even realize it and/or B) you’re a blithering idiot. The divide in this country is demented by the right wing.

Sir, I hear you, and those "down-votes"... There are none so blind as those that will not see.

History did happen, but, like with my Red heritage, I see standing up proudly and acheiving for myself and my family, as striking a blow for my ancestors.

Some people just choose to, selfishly, make themselves out as the victim, others conquer the past injustices and make today better for "Tomorrow's Child" (https://www.youtube.com/wat....