 Oh, hello there. Did you know I've never had a racist thought in my life? I am pure without sin. Oh, shit. Did I just use white to signify my moral purity? That's not racist. Is it? Oh no. Oh no. I think I did a racism. Okay. It's okay. Got the hammer. You know what to do. Just follow the procedure. Get out, you son of a bitch. Okay. Okay. You can fix this. You can make it okay again. Pure without sin! We all know that in the past, racism was definitely a big problem, but what about now? Some people say that racism is no longer an issue, but others disagree. Let's solve this unsolved mystery, shall we? Does racism still exist? Ah, here we go. Does racism exist? Absolutely not. And it has never existed. I grew up in Alabama. I grew up under the Jim Crow laws. I went to an all-black school. There were scientists there for colors only, for whites only. That sounds pretty racist. But it wasn't racist. But it wasn't racist. The racism never existed view is obviously so absurd that only a small number of weirdos believe it. But there are a lot of people who think that in this day and age, racism is no longer a problem. They admit that some people are racist, but they don't think it's like a wildly pervasive pattern that amounts to racial oppression. Allow me to object and present you with evidence to the contrary. But first, I just want to say a couple things. I once heard someone say that because there are laws against racial discrimination, then that means it no longer exists. But let's think about that for a minute. There are laws against drugs. Does that mean drugs don't exist? What, do you think people don't get high? Damn, what corny ass middle school did you go to? And another thing, pointing out the existence of racial oppression is not the same thing as trying to make white people feel guilty or bad or ashamed. Really, it's not. I know some people do try to make it about that, but that's their choice to put those two things together. And you don't have to make the same choice to do that in your mind because they're like two separate things and you can buy into one without necessarily buying into the other. I mean, yeah, if someone's being an asshole, they should feel guilty. But I'm talking about the wider existence of racial oppression and that's not something that any one person should be caring on their back. Okay, enough about feelings. Let's get to the facts. Evidence 12. Employment and racism. That's right, we're doing a countdown. Are Emily and Greg more employable than Laquisha and Jamal? This is the title of a 2004 study published in American Economic Review. The researchers send out nearly 5,000 resumes for jobs in Boston and Chicago. The resumes used fake names and half the time the name sounded African American like Laquisha Washington or Jamal Jones. The other half of the time the name sounded white like Emily Walsh or Greg Baker. The researchers wanted to know, Will these names make a difference in how often employers ask for a job interview? The researchers spoke to hiring managers before they did the study and the hiring managers were certain that Laquisha and Jamal would get more interview requests than Emily and Greg. Why? Because of affirmative action, that's why they said that employers are desperate to hire qualified black employees. Sorry Emily and Greg, but you don't stand a chance. Well, those hiring managers were wrong. Amazingly wrong. Amazing. Amazing. Amazing. Here's what actually happened. Emily and Greg got 50% more interview requests than Laquisha and Jamal. The resumes were identical for education, job experience, skills. The only difference was the names. But still, resumes with white sounding names got more calls. But don't worry, the researchers found a way to get Laquisha and Jamal an equal number of calls as Emily and Greg. And all they had to do was give Laquisha and Jamal an extra eight years of relevant job experience? What the fuck? For Jamal and Greg to have an equal chance of getting a job interview, Jamal needs an eight extra years of relevant job experience. Oh, but what's this? There was another resume experiment and it found that black and white sounding names were treated the same. But if you actually look at the names they used for black people, they were Chloe Washington and Ryan Jefferson. And I don't know about you, but when I picture Chloe and Ryan, I'm not really assuming they're black. Now the researchers said that it's their last names that indicate blackness, because apparently in the United States like 75 to 90% of people with these last names are black. But as the author of the study mentioned, There is a fair criticism that maybe no one knows that. And the Captain Obvious Award goes to whoever did this study. I forgot their name. Evidence 11. Employment and racism. Again. Imagine two people with equal levels of education and job experience, but one of them has been to prison. Which one of them will have a harder time finding a job? The answer should be obvious, but it's not. A research investigation hired young men in New York City and Milwaukee to pretend to be job seekers, gave them resumes with equal qualifications and sent them to apply for jobs. Half the men were told to pretend they have a criminal record and this made it much less likely that they got a job interview. No surprise there, but when the researchers analyzed the results by race, things got weird. Look at this chart. White men with a criminal record were more likely to get job interviews than black men with no record. I mean, what the hell? A black man gets treated worse than a criminal even though he's committed no crime? This is part of being black. You never know who's going to perceive you or treat you as worse than a criminal just because of how you look. Evidence 10. Housing and racism. This next bit of evidence comes from yet another undercover investigation. In this case, researchers hired people in Seattle to pretend to look for a place to rent. For each house or apartment, they would at one point send a black person and another point send a white person. And these two people were told to report identical rental profiles, so same income, same family size and so on. So the landlords should see the candidates as equally qualified, but as you can guess, no they didn't. Nearly 70% of the landlords discriminated against the black renters. Now you might have noticed I've only been giving evidence of racism against black Americans, but other groups face racism too in the US and around the world, and the consequences can be horrendous. But this video focuses just on black Americans. Why? Well, it's easier to focus on just one group and also in the past I already did a lot of research on this, so that also made it easier. But still, I apologize for not covering other groups. My only excuse is laziness. In fact, that reminds me. Ah, shit. Evidence 9. Banking and racism. There's plenty of research showing that people of color are less likely than whites to get approved for loans. And when they do get loans, they tend to be charged higher interest rates. And if you're like buying a house, just a few extra interest points can add up to tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. People of all races are victims of subprime loans, but the data shows that in the US it happens least often to whites, then Asians, then Latinos, and most often to black people. So are these racial differences caused by different credit scores? That's part of it, but the pattern still exists even when comparing people with the same credit score. Although this is clearly racism, it's not just white people doing it. It's well documented that there were many black loan officers and black mortgage brokers who were hired to target black people for subprime loans. Racism is a weird and complicated thing. Evidence 8. Courts and racism. If two people commit the same crime and have the same criminal record, you'd expect them to get the same sentence, right? Not if they're not the same race. Same crime, same record, but black people are still more likely to be sent to prison rather than probation and they get longer sentences. Evidence 7. Police and racism. That's the sound of the police! The KKK is the oldest terrorist organization in the USA. Its views can be summed up in a quote from their former leader, Hiram Evans. The white race must be supreme. I'm sorry, can we just take a moment to appreciate how ridiculous these outfits are? You supposed to be the master race? You fucking look like Silk Pajama Gandalf! Look at this guy's face, his pose. He thinks he's so cool. How the fuck you think that when you're a piece of human garbage with an ice cream cone on your head? And is that a cape? An actual fucking cape? Why you think this is a Marvel movie? Bitch, you ain't even good enough for DC Comics. The KKK is no one for its long history of using assault, death threats, terrorism, and murder against anyone who's not white, but especially black people. In 2014, police officers in Fruitland Park, Florida were outed as members of the KKK and they were trying to recruit other officers to join. In 2015, police officers in Miami were outed for sending each other text messages like this. I had a wet dream that you two found those shits in the Volkswagen and gave them the death penalty right there on the spot. Sometimes extreme racism will infect entire departments like in Madison County, Mississippi, where they had the blank arrest forms pre-filled with two words, black and male. I wish I could tell you that these were isolated incidents, but just months ago, a research report was published by a University of Georgetown law professor named Vita B. Johnson. The report states, Since 2009, there have been a number of instances of police officers being identified as members of white supremacist groups in Florida, Alabama, and Louisiana. In that same period, there have been scandals in over 100 different police departments in 49 different states where individuals have sent overtly racist emails, texts, or made racist comments via social media. 49 states, that's nearly all of them. But on the other hand, the number of police departments involved is not even 1% of the total, so it might seem like this is all very rare. But let's examine that assumption. In 2006, the FBI warned that white supremacists were infiltrating police departments. This wasn't just a hunch, it was based on the FBI surveilling and monitoring these groups. FBI said that white supremacist police would try to keep their views secret to avoid being discovered, which is like, duh, of course they would try to keep it secret. So, when racist cops are exposed in the media, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Now, this does not mean that most cops are like hate-filled KKK type racists, but evidence and reason do suggest that the problem goes deeper than what has been discovered. Evidence 6. Police and racism again. You probably know that compared to white people, black people are more likely to be arrested, but there's debate about why. Is it because black people commit more crime? Is it because racist cops? Is it a combination of both? Arrest rates are not the most accurate reflection of crime rates. A way to get closer to the truth is the National Crime Victimization Survey. Every year, researchers interview a nationally representative sample of 160,000 Americans. This allows researchers to speak directly to victims of crime and ask them questions. The survey does not include murder victims, since the dead don't do phone surveys. Only the living are that stupid. A couple years ago, the US Department of Justice took a few years of this survey data and compiled a report on race and violent crime. Again, homicide offenders were not counted, but this is not going to skew the results because homicide is less than 1% of violent crime. So let's examine the data. Black Americans are about 13% of the population, and according to Victims of Crime, they're 22.7% of violent offenders. You'll notice that's a lot higher than 13%, which is strong evidence that the black crime rate is indeed higher. Of course, it makes you wonder, why is the crime rate higher? And this question has been investigated by sociologists. And they tend to conclude that it's because black people are more likely to face harsh socioeconomic conditions, like high rates of concentrated neighborhood poverty. And when people of any race experience these conditions, their crime rates are higher. But let's get back on topic. Since crime victims report that black people are 22.7% of violent offenders, then we'd expect black people to also be 22.7% of those arrested for violent crime. But if you look at arrest rates for the same years and same crimes covered by this report, black people are 33.5% of those arrested. That's nearly 1.5 times higher than seems to be warranted, according to the surveys of victims. This is very strong evidence that police show a pattern of racism in who they arrest. Evidence 5. Employment and racism. Yet again. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, if you calculate median wages, white people who work full-time earn $933 per week, but black people who work full-time earn $724 per week. That's 78 cents on every dollar. Now if you're wondering why there's this wage gap, this has been investigated by researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank, and they put their findings in these graphs. You can see that two big reasons for the gap are education, whites tend to have more, and industry or occupation, whites tend to work in higher-paying jobs and industries. You can also see that state, age, and working part-time only explain tiny little bits of the wage gap. A great big chunk of the wage gap is shown in the burgundy color and labeled as unexplained. It's not accounted for by any measured reason. So, what explains the unexplained? Well, with so many things ruled out, it's probably racism, either that or like aliens, mind-controlling employers, and making them pay black people less. Although, I guess that would be racism too. Racist aliens! I knew it! I knew it all along! But even the other big factors in the wage gap, industry, occupation, education, even these can at least be somewhat explained by racism, and we've already seen that with employment, and we'll be seeing it next with education. You know, this is not a bad look for me, and it keeps the mind-control race out, which frankly I could use that kind of help. Evidence for school and racism. A research study found that, more than any other racial group, black students reported getting the most praise from their teacher, even though they got the lowest grades. Now, this might sound like black students are being favored. It's the other students who are victims of racism. They're getting better grades, but less praise. That's not fair. But getting praise for low achievement doesn't make you feel good. It makes you feel like the teacher thinks you're dumb. Like, wow, 55%, that's really good. For you. For you. For you. For you. For you. Um, thanks? Like, if they thought you were capable of better, they wouldn't praise you. They'd be like, yo, you need to step up. Many teachers overpraise mediocre or even bad work in a misguided attempt to be encouraging. And research finds that teachers are more likely to overpraise students of color. But when teachers give undeserved praise, it's a sign that they have low expectations of those students. And when you have low expectations of someone, it affects how you treat them. Same goes for high expectations. There's a classic research study from 1968, which told first and second grade teachers that their class was full of kids who'd been specially selected for their high intellectual potential. But the truth was, there was nothing special about these kids. You hear that, kids? You ain't special. None of you are goddamn special. Especially not you, Jimmy. I am special. You ain't mom since so. Fuck you, Jimmy. They were just the normal, random group of kids that any teacher would get, but by the end of the school year, their IQ scores were higher. How did that happen? Well, the theory is that because the teachers believed their students were gifted, this created a self-fulfilling prophecy. By treating the kids as smarter than they actually were, they became smarter. This study had some weaknesses, but since then, there's been decades of research confirming that high expectations lead to higher student achievement and low expectations lead to lower achievement. I find this to be quite amazing and also alarming when you consider all the research, which shows that when it comes to black students, low expectations from teachers is the norm. Some may think that teachers develop these low expectations based on experience. After all, black students on average have lower grades and lower test scores, but to what extent are these low grades and scores a self-fulfilling prophecy? Also, having high expectations doesn't have to mean that you already expect a student to be capable of doing great. It means believing in their potential it means seeing a student with low grades and thinking, this kid can learn to do better. Listen to this quote from the father of a high school student. I've heard a counselor say that black students shouldn't take honors classes because they wouldn't do well in them and it was a black counselor who said that. The racism of low expectations doesn't just come from white teachers, it can come from anyone. Evidence 3. Healthcare and Racism It's well documented that black Americans with cardiovascular disease are less likely than white Americans to receive medical treatment. This inequality in who gets treatment is linked to inequality in who survives. It's a significant reason why black Americans die from cardiovascular disease 30% more often than whites. When I first heard this, I was like, ugh, that's awful. I bet it's because black people are less likely to have health insurance. But it turns out that does not fully explain it and neither does socioeconomic status, the choices of patients, or disease severity. To some degree, this inequality in medical treatment is caused by racism and nobody's saying that's the only cause but it is part of the picture. Some strong evidence comes from a research study where actors played the role of a patient. They were eight actors, two black women, two black men, two white women, and two white men. 720 doctors were randomly assigned to watch a video of one of these actors being given a medical interview and based on that, the doctor gave recommendations for treatment. Each actor described identical medical histories and symptoms so there was no reason for the doctors to give different recommendations and yet they did. The black actors were less likely to be referred for the appropriate treatment of cardiac catheterization. Outcomes like this are usually not caused by the type of racism that makes people hate or want to exclude. This is a subtle, unconscious racial bias, the kind that even good people have without being aware of it. This type of racism is less ugly but the consequences can be just as horrendous. As we see here, this subtle, unconscious racism can make its way into situations where people are at their most vulnerable where it's literally a matter of life or death and this racism is not limited to white people. In fact, both black doctors and white doctors show the same pattern of being less likely to recommend cardiac catheterization for their black patients. School, employment, housing, banking, police, courts, healthcare. These are the major institutions of society. These are the institutions that have a huge impact on your life and we've just seen a slew of evidence showing a pattern of racism in all of them. But the harm and devastation of racism doesn't always come from the way people treat you. It can come from the power of economic and social forces which have been shaped by racism but which have now taken on a life of their own. And that's what the final two pieces of evidence in this video are about. Students of color are more likely to be in classes with a large number of students. They're also more likely to have teachers with fewer years of teaching experience, teachers who are not certified, math teachers who don't have a math degree and teachers with high levels of absence. What? You expect me to show up every goddamn day? Let's focus on just one of these issues, class size. A larger class means the teacher has less time and attention for each student. It also means that the teacher will have a harder time keeping order and it's more likely the class will become too loud and chaotic for learning. A smaller class size can benefit any student but research shows that class size has an even stronger effect on black students than on white students. A study by professors at Princeton University found that a small class size improves test scores for both black and white students. But for black students, the game is more than twice as large in the short run and more than three times as large in the long run. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, differences in class size can explain approximately 15% of the black-white gap in educational achievement. And they're talking about current classroom sizes. Other research estimates that if all students regardless of race were in small classes, the black-white test score gap would be cut by 38%. Evidence one, wealth and racial inequality. The amount of wealth you have has a huge impact on your life. Wealth helps you afford a home in a nice neighborhood and send your kids to a good school. You create opportunities for your children that help them get ahead in life. Wealth is also what catches you when you fall on hard times like a stretch of unemployment or illness. If you're middle class, wealth catches you from falling into poverty. And if you're poor, a bit of wealth can catch you from falling into homelessness. 7 out of 10 black kids born into a middle class family will eventually fall below that at some point in their life. And a major reason for this is that they don't have wealth to catch them. The racial wealth gap is humongous. Recent data shows that white households have 10 times more wealth than black households. And if you exclude the value of vehicles, the wealth gap is even bigger. If you believe the American dream, this 10 to 1 difference in wealth is the result of a 10 to 1 difference in talent, hard work and deservingness. But if you look at the American reality, you'll see that the wealth gap is the result of generations of slavery, followed by generations of legal discrimination, extreme racism and racially discriminatory government policies. These policies included redlining, which made it extremely difficult for black people to buy a home and also meant that when they did manage to buy a home that the value of it would probably go down. Redlining had a huge impact because for most Americans, home ownership is by far their biggest source of wealth. I know it's been a while since these things happened, but still, we all know that wealth gets passed down from parents to children to grandchildren to great-grandchildren to great-great on-and-on and non-non-blah-blah-blah. We also know that wealth begets wealth. So like, if you don't have enough money, you're gonna go into debt, but if you have a bit more than enough money, you can invest it, and that leads to more money. Put these two things together, one that wealth is passed down from generation to that wealth grows over time, and then it's no wonder that wealth inequalities created hundreds of years ago can still be felt so powerfully today. You can see this when you look at the wealth gap broken down by household income. If you compare black and white families who are in the same income bracket, the white families still have way more wealth. But the real surprise is that even low-income white families have more wealth than middle-income black families. If I'm being honest, I gotta say I'm pretty skeptical of the racial wealth gap ever closing so long as we live in a capitalist society. By design, capitalism makes it easy for those with wealth to become wealthier and hard for those without wealth to get ahead. This is a problem that goes beyond race. It affects anyone born into a family with little to no wealth, but it's a problem that more often affects black people. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Nicholas Kristof wrote, Well, folks, it's time to wrap up the video. Amazing! But before I go, there's just three quick things I want to say. One, research facts and data are important for understanding racial oppression, but so is listening to the experiences of people who actually live it. And for that, you'll need to check out the writing and videos of people of color who talk about these issues. So if you want, I've put a few suggestions in the video description below. And feel free to add suggestions in the comments. Two, if you think this video has an important message please share it online, tell people about it, and next time someone tells you that racism is no longer a problem instead of tearing your hair out or tearing their hair out, just send them this video. Hopefully it'll convince them, and if not, well, you never know. It might plant a little seed that will one day bloom into a beautiful flower of not being someone who doesn't believe that racism is no longer a problem. And last but not least, I want to say a big thank you to anyone who's ever liked or commented on my videos, to anyone who's ever shared my videos, and to all my subscribers. You rock. Bye! Good morning, KKK. And that, dear comrades, is how lucky Black Cat died.