Nonetheless, African Americans in the Washington area are notably more upbeat

about local job prospects when compared with blacks elsewhere. About-four-inten (39%) say local job opportunities are plentiful, more than double the
percentage of blacks nationally (18%). Even so, whites in the Washington D.C
area are much more positive 72% say there are plenty of jobs locally.

Yet the good feelings among blacks after Barack Obamas election co-exist with a
persistent belief that discrimination and unfairness remain a part of life for
African Americans in this country. To take a recent example, in May fully 88% said
there was a lot or some discrimination against blacks, with 46% seeing a lot of
discrimination. A majority of whites (57%) also saw at least some discrimination
against blacks, but just 16% said there was a lot of discrimination.

African-Americans are no longer the principal targets of discrimination. Notice I

said "discrimination," not prejudice. In the universe of laws to enforce equal
opportunity, discrimination is easy to allege but difficult to prove. And prejudice
doesn't exactly matter.

Anthropologists, scientists who study humans and their origins, generally accept
that the human species can be categorized into races based on physical and
genetic makeup. For example, many, but certainly not all African-Americans have
physical differences from Caucasians beyond their dark skin, such as wiry hair.
Virtually all scientists accept the fact that there is no credible scientific evidence
that one race is culturally or psychologically different from any other, or that one
race is superior to another. Past studies which reached conclusions other than
that have been found to be seriously flawed in their methodology or inherently
biased.
Yet despite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary, there are people
who maintain that their own race is superior to all others. These people, known
collectively as "racists," are the most likely to engage in discrimination,
persecution, and violence against those they deem to be members of "inferior"
races.
In 19th century Europe, Jews were classified as an "inferior" race with specific
physical and personality characteristics. Some thinkers believed these traits
would disappear if Jews received political and social emancipation and could
assimilate into the broader society. Others felt that these traits were genetically
passed on and could not be changed. Racial theory, distorted into a pseudoscience, sanctioned negative stereotypes existing from classical and Christian
anti-Semitism (see Chapter 4). An increasing emphasis on nationalism also
highlighted the Jews as a "foreign element," which could contaminate the native
stock and culture and potentially dominate the native population economically
and politically (see Chapter 5). This long-standing history provided a seed-bed for
the Nazi ideology and program of genocide.
In North America, African-Americans were brought from Africa as slaves, and
their descendants have endured centuries of oppression. During the Civil War,

slaves were freed and granted citizenship. Discrimination continued. "Jim Crow"
laws in the South required separate bathrooms, buses, and nursing homes for
African-Americans. Poll taxes and literacy tests were required solely for the
purpose of disenfranchising minorities. Before the landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme
Court decision of Brown vs. Board of Education (Topeka, Kansas), segregation of
school systems was legal. Decades later, many school systems remain
segregated.
Racism against African-Americans is still prevalent in the United States. Despite
laws and other protections against discrimination, African-Americans still face
discrimination in housing, employment, and education. African-Americans are
still victimized by insurance red-lining, and the racism of whites and others is
exploited by block-busting, a practice which is illegal in Pennsylvania and many
other states. Although racist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan have small
memberships, they have been actively recruiting and holding rallies in
Pennsylvania and other states and spreading their messages of hate against
African-Americans, Jews, Catholics, and other minorities.
Civil rights laws have been passed at the local, state, and federal levels to
combat racism and the persecution and discrimination which racism promotes.
While the First Amendment to the Constitution protects the rights of everyone to
assemble peaceably and speak freely, racist messages universally bring a
response of condemnation from responsible members of the communities that
racists visit. The international community universally has condemned the
apartheid policies of the government of South Africa, and the debate on
sanctions against this government is a continuing public policy issue before the
U.S. Congress.

1. African-Americans comprise only 13% of the U.S. population and 14% of

the monthly drug users, but are 37% of the people arrested for drugrelated offenses in America.
2. Studies show that police are more likely to pull over and frisk blacks or
Latinos than whites. In New York City, 80% of the stops made were blacks
and Latinos, and 85% of those people were frisked, compared to a mere
8% of white people stopped. Host a poetry slam to educate others on
racism and reduce prejudice in your community. Sign up for Slam Racism.
3. After being arrested, African-Americans are 33% more likely than whites to
be detained while facing a felony trial in New York.
4. In 2010, the U.S. Sentencing Commission reported that African Americans
receive 10% longer sentences than whites through the federal system for
the same crimes.
5. In 2009 African-Americans are 21% more likely than whites to receive
mandatory minimum sentences and 20% more likely to be sentenced to
prison than white drug defendants.
6. In a 2009 report, 2/3 of the criminals receiving life sentences were nonwhites. In New York, it is 83%.
7. African Americans make up 57% of the people in state prisons for drug
offenses.
8. The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics concluded that an African American
male born in 2001 has a 32% chance of going to jail in his lifetime, while a
Latino male has a 17% chance, and a white male only has a 6% chance.

9. In 2012, 51% of Americans expressed anti-black sentiments in a poll; a 3%

increase from 2008.
10.A survey in 2011 revealed that 52% of non-Hispanic whites expressed antiHispanic attitudes.
11.Reports show that nearly 50% of Americans under 18 are minorities. The
trend projects a reversal in the population where by 2030, the majority of
people under 18 will be of color, and by 2042 nonwhites will be the
majority of the U.S. population.

Timeline discrimination
1. Race-based slavery (1660s to 1860s): Whites use guns to steal land in
North America and force blacks to work on it as slaves. But no matter how
hard they try to misread Scripture they cannot hide the wrong they are
doing from their eyes. So they come up with a big lie: racism, that blacks
are not as good as whites, that blacks are screwed up, that blacks are born
bad. They build their society on that lie. The big lie receives the backing of
law, religion and science. But it does not quite work: the country cracks
apart into war between the slave south and the free north. (ku klux klan)
2. Jim Crow (1870s to 1960s): American apartheid. The slaves are freed but
with little in the way of civil rights, property or money. Whites fear free
blacks. They stereotype blacks as violent. They cow them with Klan terror
and lynchings. They keep blacks separate and unequal at the bottom of
society. Scientific racism reaches its height. Many blacks move north but
whites are racist there too: last hired, first fired, sundown towns, black
ghettos, etc.
3. 3. Colour-blind racism (1970s to present): After the civil rights movement
racism no longer receives the backing of law, religion or science. Most
whites think racism is wrong yet oppose policies to overcome racism in
hiring, housing, policing, schooling and so on. Meanwhile they imprison
black men in record numbers, at 20 times the world rate, 40 times the rate
in Ghana. They think it is blacks who are screwed up, not American
society. After all, whites say, Racism is dead because I do not see
colour and My best friend is black. Yet they still look down on blacks
and fear them. Most whites live in white neighbourhoods, go to white
schools and worship a white Jesus in a white church and think it is all
perfectly natural. Even though that world was created by racist fear
(white flight). History books, magazines, television, Hollywood and the
news still pump out racist messages night and day.

Jobless discrimination
With 14 million Americans out of work, the news media are reporting that
discrimination against the unemployed is increasing across the country. But their
stories often fail to mention the specific hurdles faced by African Americans,
whose unemployment rate is more than double that of whites. While Time

magazine, The New York Times, and The Huffington Post have all reported on this
growing trend, they have not provided critical information on what recourse is
available to victims of unemployment discrimination, nor cited the factors that
put African Americans at greater risk than whites.

The discrimination was so subtle that only a systematic experiment could reveal it.
This was not the loud de jure discrimination of the era of "no blacks need apply," but
instead today's quiet bias of "Oh, we already filled that position" or "We were actually
looking for someone with more experience" or "Maybe you'd be better suited to this
lower-paying job."