[GOLD STAR]! But this is pretty significant. For most of my life I was blissfully unaware

of the fact that I’m white. My race never affected me - a huge benefit I didn’t even

know I had.

Growing up, I knew racism was bad...but I didn’t fully understand what racism was.

I thought racism was: slurs, discrimination, hatred based on skin color. About 50 years

ago [GRAPHIC: CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT] direct, in-your-face, overt racism became illegal

and less socially acceptable. Which had 2 side effects on white America: first, it allowed

us to believe that racism was over. “YAY!!! MLK!!! EQUALITY FOR ALL!!” Second, it enabled

white folks to frame the ongoing struggles of the black community as a character flaw.

After Ferguson, a family member said to me: “Look, black people have a lot of problems

because they have a bad culture. Bad values. They’re violent, they’re lazy, broken

families. Look at them rioting like animals. That’s not racism, that’s just the facts.”

Woah - tell me how you really feel! People usually aren’t so blunt about it - but if

you look closely enough, you’ll see these sentiments about black america echoed...everywhere

So I taught school for 20 years. Lots of people of color who didn't want to work as hard. They wanted to give it to them.

They don't like make a living for themselves. They just drop out high school and like,

"Oh, I'm gonna have kids and I'm gonna get a wealthy check""I'm gonna get my GED"

"I'll get my GED, I'll go work at McDonald, and..."

Young black men often reject education and gravitate towards street culture, drugs, hustling, games

Nobody forces them to do that, again. It's a personal decision.

[B-ROLL]. The message to be black? It's to be inferior.

But that’s not the facts, that’s just racism. Racism isn’t just burning crosses

and white hoods. Racism a seeping system of invisible forces that keep people of color

in a permanent 2nd class status. It’s the foundational fabric of our society, woven

with values, attitudes, stereotypes, policies, economics, and laws. Jim Crow laws of the

past were replaced with shiny, new laws that were just as racist, but looked better on

the surface. This made it harder than ever for white america to see the truth: the odds

are ever in our favor...and they always have been. Let’s take a trip down memory lane.

STOP 1: Wealth Between 1934 and 1962, the government backed

$120 billion of home loans. But they refused to give home loans for black folks OR

even if black folks lived NEARBY. This went on for decades. This practice - called redlining

- essentially (1) forced black americans into poor urban centers - the beginning of “the

ghetto” (2) segregated America to this day, (3) made it impossible to invest in the future

of black neighborhoods, and (4) made it impossible for black americans to start inheriting property

and wealth the same way that white americans worked.

STOP 2: Education. Property taxes fund schools - which means

families lives in nice houses (maybe ones they got with the help of the government) get a

better education. With a better education they have more opportunities,

more resources, more connections, more jobs more….money, money, money.

STOP 3: Jobs. A lack of educational opportunities

meant many black folks were relegeted to low-wage manual labor. Today, when looking at the same

exact resume, employers are 50% more likely to call back a resume labour with a white sounding name.

STOP 4: Mass incarceration. Shortly after the civil rights movement, prisons

became privatized, for-profit businesses. Fill those cells, make that money! And they

did. The prison population shot up from 200,000 to 2.4 MILLION! MIILLLLLIONNNN!

More than any country in the world! And who filled those cells? People of color.

More African american adults are under correctional control today than were in slaves in 1850, a decade before the civil war began.

Black men are now in prison 6 times the rate of

white men. Did black men just become 6 times more dangerous? Course not - sentencing changed.

Sweeping laws were written that specifically targeted the black communities. For instance,

the sentence for possession of crack (more common among people of color because it’s

cheaper) was 100 times harsher than the sentence for cocaine

STOP 5: Racial profiling. It wasn’t just harsher sentencing. Communities

of color are also policed more harshly

The few memory that I have with my dad as kid is seeing him be yelled and questioned by police on the streets.

When they didn't like the answers, he was giving them to the questions, they proceeded the rest of the questions......me.

policies like show me your papers and stop & frisk target people of color under the law

So shocker, they’re more likely to be arrested for the stuff that white people are also doing,

and they’re twice as likely to get pulled over. Take the late Walter Scott - pulled

over for a broken tail light in South Carolina, only to be shot in the back 5 times by a cop.

STOP 6: Police brutality. Police brutality is front and center of the

race conversation right now. Twice a week in the US, white officers kill black suspects

- most of whom are unarmed - and consequences for those crimes are minimal, if any. The

police themselves admit to the use of excessive force and rampant racial bias in departments.

So what does America do? Arm the police military supplies: tanks, protective gear, firepower

used in war - all while wagging a finger at protestors who dare to be outraged by it.

This is just the tip of the racism iceberg. We need to ask ourselves: what’s really

causing the problems that we’re observing in America? What advantages has white America

been given - often without realizing it? The first step in combatting racism (and often

the hardest) is acknowledging that the system is unfair. Racism is a powerful institution

built by 400 years of slavery, 100 years of overt discrimination, 50 plus more years of covert

discrimination. That legacy doesn’t just disappear overnight.

America, we have a lot of work to do.