Examples Of Structural Racism

The first link, Tricia Rose’s lecture on how structural racism works, addresses that exact issue. She focuses on five factors that contribute to structural racism: housing, wealth, education, criminal justice, and mass media. Regarding housing, she argues that discriminatory housing policies have worsened the inequality in education, health, policing, etc., as well as contributed to consistent racial discrimination. She also argues that the racial wealth gap, specifically between the years of 1984 and 2007 quadrupled, and that schools with an increasing percentage of black students continually become poorer. Finally she argues that the criminal justice system normalizes inequalities in its prisons, courts, laws, etc., and the mass media persistently
I believe the way the media twists stories to cater to their beliefs has always been an issue, but once she brought it up I could not help but think about how the media characterizes African Americans. For example, if police shoot a black person, that person is almost always automatically deemed as a “thug” by the media, whereas if it is a white person, more specifically a white male, they are almost always classified as mentally ill. I have always wondered why this is, for after watching the news for years, I have noticed that the majority, if not all, of the major violent shootings or acts of aggression are performed by white people, yet it is the African Americans who receive the bad reputation through the media, so I cannot help but passionately agree with her that this is a major issue in fueling structural racism. Secondly, in the video, “Is Racism Over Yet?,” youtuber Laci Green provides factual evidence that it is, in fact, not. She provides proof of the inequality in wealth, education, jobs, etc., and highlights issue such as racial