What If White People Are Wrong?
People hold up signs during a rally against critical race theory (CRT) being taught in schools at the Loudoun County Government center in Leesburg, Virginia on June 12, 2021. Photo : Andrew Caballero-Reynolds ( Getty Images )  I believe America is a racist country, but I understand why some people dont. People have different definitions of what they believe racism to be. There are people who define racism differently than I do. They believe a person or system must have intent and malice to qualify as racist. Many believe Black people are less intelligent or not as hardworking. Advertisement  But there is a difference between believing something and knowing something is true. It is impossible to disprove what someone believes. It is, however, easy to know things. I know that the Black unemployment rate has consistently stood at twice the white unemployment rate since we started measuring unemployment. I know that Black schools are funded at lower rates than white schools. I know that the criminal justice system incarcerates and sentences Black defendants at different rates for the same exact crimes. I know Black people are more likely to die during police encounters. I know white people are paid better than non-white people who have the same education and experience. These objectively true facts are why I believe that America is racist. But maybe Im wrong. So, just for the time it takes you to read this article, lets forget everything we believe and stick to the things we objectively know. And, if we are going to talk about solving these disparities using things that we are 100 percent sure about, there is a wide swath of things that we can dismiss from here on out:  Everything white people ever did. There has never been a nanosecond in American history where the majority of Black people learned in an equal education system. Racial disparities in the criminal justice system have always existed. There has always been a racial wage gap and a wealth disparity. Black people have never had equal access to the polls. We have never had access to the same housing, financial stability, political representation or due process enjoyed by the white majority. To solve these problems, we have tried all the white things. Trickle-down economics did not eliminate the wealth, economic and employment gaps, nor did privatization of industries, fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget or any other plan. No one can claim with 100 percent assurance that reparations will eliminate the wealth gap. We cant be certain that universal healthcare will erase health disparities. No one knows the outcome of any financial policy. All we know is that everything we have ever tried in the history of this country has not closed the distance between being white in America and everyone else. In fact, there is only one economic strategy that we know can work. Advertisement  We know economic stimulus works. The New Deal proved that providing a race-targeted economic stimulus can be successful. The New Deal built the white middle class. It provided long-term financial stability and generational wealth for white America. Twenty years after the Great Depression, the white rate of homeownership had risen from less than 45 percent to more than 60 percent. According to the Census Bureau, three out of every four white Americans owned a home at the end of 2020, while fewer than 45 percent of African Americans did, meaningwhen it comes to the primary driver of wealthBlack people are economically worse off today than when white people were at their lowest point. Advertisement  The COVID-19 stimulus checks worked. PPP loans kept small businesses open. The Obama-Bush bailout of the auto industry worked. The Troubled Asset Relief Program saved the financial industry. Yet, when it comes to Black America, conservatives argue that universal healthcare and government handouts wont work. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) says he doesnt think reparations for something that happened 150 years ago for whom none of us currently living are responsible is a good idea.  Advertisement  For opponents of reparations, it is not about the cost or the difficulty of the policy, but about perceptions of the worthiness of the contemporary recipients of cash payments, explained University of Massachusetts Amherst Tatishe Nteta, noting that only 28 percent of whites support reparations. And, according to the Republican ethos, the key to success in America is hard work and education. A lot of Black people agree with this, so white people might be right on this one. But, remember, we are talking about what we know. We know Black students are disciplined more harshly than white students who commit the same offenses. We know that white teachers grade Black children more harshly. We know most Black children are five times more likely to attend a highly segregated school and twice as likely to attend a school where more than half the students are poor. We know majority-Black schools have fewer books in their libraries, fewer computers and offer fewer advanced science and math courses. Comparing their education and experience to their employment level and, whites are overrepresented in every professional field. Take this job, for instance. Whites earn 57 percent of journalism degrees but get 86 percent of the journalism jobs. Black Americans earn 12 percent of the degrees but only 5 percent of newsroom jobs. Statistically, most white people dont know much about this countrys history of slavery. Even though they prove their lack of knowledge of Black history every day, they are the most vocal about how it should be taught. Advertisement  Since we are not going to address the things we believe, here is what we know: In this nations 245-year existence there has never been a movement for Black liberation or equality that was supported by the majority of white people. Contrary to popular belief, most white abolitionists supported gradual abolition. Even the most fervently progressive whites didnt support full equality for Black citizens. The womens suffrage movement refused to advocate for the rights of Black women. The veterans rights movement stiff-armed Black war heroes. In 1963, 78 percent of white Americans said they would leave their neighborhood if Black people moved in. According to a 1964 Gallup poll, a year after the March on Washington, 74 percent said the event was detrimental to achieving equality. In 1965, a Cornell University Roper Center poll revealed that a plurality believed that that civil rights organization had been infiltrated by communists.    Advertisement  They were wrong about segregation. They were wrong about every piece of anti-lynching legislation from 1882 until 2020. They were wrong about the civil rights protests. And the Black Power Movement. And womens rights. And veterans rights. And voting rights. These are not things we can choose to believe. They are objective facts. Because of history, we knowwhen it comes to issues of race and equalitywhite people have proven themselves to be wrong 100 percent of the time. Because of the present, we know that the majority of white peoples opinions have not fixed the pervasive economic, social, financial or political disparities that still plague Black America. And because Merriam-Webster defines racism as a belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race. All we know is, the opinions of white people have been fundamental to the predominant social, economic, or political practices in America. And those practices have led to the oppression of a racial group to the social, economic, and political advantage of another. If only we could know the definition of systemic and the second definition of racism, no one would ever believe white people were wrong. Advertisement  Screenshot : Merriam-Webster  Just racist. Believe it or not.