understanding racism

Understanding Racism

Race and racism are complex phenomena. We can come to understand them over time through personal experiences, reading, relationships, etc. Here are some sections that are interesting reading have some good information. They are not the whole story, though. We hope you will continue to learn about race and racism in many ways.




Here are a few examples of racism in the United States. What other examples can you think of?



School Finance:    Millions of African American and Latino young people in the United States don’t get an education equal to that of most whites, partly because the urban schools they go to don’t have as much money as the schools in the white suburbs.  This is because the country has decided that much of the money for schools should come from local property taxes. So in communities where the houses and businesses are less expensive, the schools don’t get enough money to provide a high quality education.  This is unfair.  This is institutional racism.  If we financed schools differently every student, regardless of his or her "race", could go to a high quality school that was the equal of the schools other students attend.


Wealth Created During Slavery:    From the 1600’s to 1863 slave labor by African Americans created a tremendous amount of wealth in the United States.  This wealth was all taken by white people.  When slavery was ended, the wealth that the former slaves had created was not shared with them.  The effects of this continue today because whites have been able to pass wealth down from generation to generation through inheritance. In addition, discrimination in jobs has continued to limit access to wealth for many people of color. So white people as a whole are still wealthier today than people of color because of the wealth whites took from the labor of slaves.