Myths/racism is over

Myth: Racism is no longer a problem in the United States.

Myth

The election of a black man (Barack Obama) to the highest office in the land proves that racism is no longer a problem, that we are now living in a "post-racial America".

Examples

• 2019-06-19 Mitch McConnell Says: 'We've Tried to Deal with Our Original Sin of Slavery... We’ve Elected an African American President.'
• 2015-06-24 Is the problem 'racism' – or demonic evil? by Pat Boone (WorldNetDaily, via FtB) "As the president who came to office, a black man promising to bring people together, a man ideally suited for that job since you were born both black and white, you had a God-given chance to actually proclaim and demonstrate that racial divides and prejudice had greatly diminished and that our society was truly becoming colorblind. [...] you have continued to bring up and confess America’s past record of racial prejudice and indicate we “still have issues to resolve” pertaining to race – as if your very presence as twice-elected president of the United States doesn’t proclaim loud and clear that we as a people have largely, though not completely, put to rest any image of America as an ongoing "racist" nation. We are not!" -- apparently talking about racism is equivalent to nurturing it (though at least he admits that we haven't completely overcome racism)
• 2015-01-31 Erik Rush's Intentional Ignorance: includes both the claim and some counterevidence

Reality

Racism has, if anything, gotten worse since Obama's election in 2008. Where racists apparently once felt compelled to keep their sentiments to themselves or among those of like mind, Obama's candidacy and eventual victory seems to have inspired them to share their idiocy much more openly.

Evidence

• 2019-06-28 'I could have shot you in front of your fucking kids': how cops dehumanize black people (h/t): "Why would anyone treat someone this way? Research gives a grim answer: some police literally think of blacks as subhuman"
• the many groups which pop up in support of the police any time a police officer wrongly kills a dark-skinned person
  • incidents include Ferguson, George Zimmerman vs. Trayvon Martin, many others
• the continued existence and activity of the KKK
• David Duke running for office with considerable support
• A significant and vocal portion of Donald Trump's supporters:
  • 2016-12-14 White Students Hold 'Trump' Sign, Turn Backs On Black Basketball Team (via)
  • 2016-10-21 The Price I've Paid for Opposing Donald Trump
• 2016-08-09 Justice Department to Release Blistering Report of Racial Bias by Baltimore Police (via)
• 2016-07-26 Symone Sanders on Life After Bernie (via) "There were places where I literally I couldn't get in. I would go to the door, the staff entrance, and people would say, "This is staff only." I'd have to explain to them that I was staff, and they would question me. I would have to say, "I'm the national press secretary. Did you watch me on the news the other day?" It was consistently happening. There was one week where it happened the entire week. [...] I pulled into a parking spot and a gentleman came running up to my car, banging on my window, yelling all kinds of profanity and expletives, telling me to get the F out of here, this is for staff, and that I didn't belong back here."
• 2015-10-06
  • Good Thing Obama Election Ended Racism in America Man posts picture on Facebook with 3-year-old black kid in background; racist comments ensue
  • White Supremacist Still Trying to Build White-Only Town
• 2015-09-15 Men shout the 'N word' at Mizzou student president, sparks awesome campus-wide challenge
• 2015-06-30 Ku Klux Klan literature found in Wake County neighborhood (h/t)
• 2015-04-17 Phoenix Williams: 'I just felt betrayed' by bus bullying (via) "The taunting began during a bus ride to a band festival. Williams, the only black student in his band class, said he sat toward the front when one of the accused students sat behind him and asked what he thought about the n-word."
• 2015-03-19 Gun Show Vendor Sells ‘Running Nigger’ Targets and sold 500 of them at a South Dakota gun show before being kicked out
• 2015-03-10 Minnesota teens share Snapchat message showing noose around black classmate’s neck: "Gotta hang 'em all"
• 2015-03-09 Racists Put Up Pro-KKK Billboard at Selma Bridge
• 2014-12-30 New video: Racism in America by the Numbers - video, with text sources underneath
• 2014-12-26 Racism and creationism go so well together: creationists use racist caricatures
• 2014-12-17 The Obamas: How We Deal with Our Own Racist Experiences (h/t): the examples cited are relatively mild, but are symptomatic of the filters through which white people predjudge black people they meet.
• 2014-12-05 I offer my thoughts as an explanation, and I’m afraid it’s a bit lengthy.: one man's personal experience of persistent racism
• 2014-12-04 Minorities Trapped in Tropes: The Conservative Right’s Cognitive Dissonance on POC Humanity includes screenshots of several racist comments
• 2014-11-27 Being black(ish) in America "Instead of blaming us for how we dress and saying we dress like “gangstas,” why not tune your police and your fucking mind to understand that’s just how we dress?"
• 2014-11-07 When whites are guilty of colorism (h/t) " research in economics has shown that the wage gap between lighter- and darker-skinned African Americans is nearly as large as the gap between African Americans and whites. In our analysis of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we found that the darkest-skinned African American girls were three times more likely to be suspended at school than their lighter-skinned counterparts — a disparity that is again roughly equal to the gap between blacks and whites."
• 2014-10-10 A Concise History Of Black-White Relations In The United States: includes a cartoon that quickly explains why reverse racism is also a myth
• 2014-08-30 When Whites Just Don't Get It
  • "The net worth of the average black household in the United States is $6,314, compared with $110,500 for the average white household, according to 2011 census data."
  • "The gap has worsened in the last decade, and the United States now has a greater wealth gap by race than South Africa did during apartheid. (Whites in America on average own almost 18 times as much as blacks; in South Africa in 1970, the ratio was about 15 times.)"
  • "The black-white income gap is roughly 40 percent greater today than it was in 1967."
  • "A black boy born today in the United States has a life expectancy five years shorter than that of a white boy."
  • Black students are three times as likely to be suspended and expelled from school as white students are.
• 2014-05-12 I Get Racist and Sexist Hate Mail: when called out on it, they just double down
• 2014-03-08 More hate from racists – Coalburner edition
• 2014-02-07 Racism and Homophobia Lose as Nearly 50% of Viewers Dump Duck Dynasty: it may be unpopular, but it still exists

Racism is alive and well in the UK, too:

• 2014-12-22 Subverting old tropes isn’t "PC" - Daily Mail readers react to speculation of a black actor playing James Bond

pages offline

• WHITE GOOGLE+ - observed 2015-06-28, posts go back to at least August 2014; page no longer exists on 2016-08-09
  • Here's a racist hate group alert!: attempting to get it shut down

Notes

For eventual pages about white privilege:

• "In Seattle, incomes grew dramatically for whites, Asians, blacks and multiracial people. But the gains were not across the board, as earnings for Hispanics stalled at around $49,000. [...] ... black households still lag behind the city’s other racial and ethnic groups, and earn less than half that of white households."
• 2017-02-08 The Big Reason Whites Are Richer Than Blacks in America (via): this is actually more about white privilege than racism

Footnotes

Side Note

Racism was of course a huge factor in drumming up opposition to Obama during the 2008 campaign, and appears to remain a major component of the unreasoning hatred many conservatroll followers seem to feel for him.

Discarded Evidence

• 2014-11-20 Top Nevada Republican Lawmaker Ira Hansen Called Blacks 'Simple-Minded Darkies': in context, the quote represents Hansen's opinion of how Democrats view Black people: "The relationship of Negroes and Democrats is truly a master-slave relationship, with the benevolent master knowing what’s best for his simple minded darkies." I was unable to find any overt racism in these quotes during a quick read-through; a more careful reading may find some.
  • Meet Nevada’s new Assembly Speaker

Links

Reference

• Issuepedia: US/racism
• Wikipedia: racism
  • Book: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness