New York City local news stations are representing 3 out of every 4 criminals as Black (75%), when the NYPD’s actual Black arrest rate is only 2 out of 4 people (51%).
Full study (2015)
We are raised to believe that white supremacy is limited to extremists: KKK, white nationalists, the alt-right, etc. That is a falsehood that removes the responsibility for racism to others, to bad people we don’t have anything to do with. White supremacy is all around us.
In case the words from the people who are affected by white supremacy are not enough (and they should be), this website lists some of the scientific evidence that shows that white supremacy is systemic, that it's everywhere, and that it keeps people of color, particularly black people, down in all aspects of life.
Media
Full study (2015)
Even though Asians, for example, make up more than half of the world’s population, and just under 6 % of the US population, only 3% of all roles in 2017 and 2018 were played by Asians.
Full study (2018)
In a study, ten percent of TV immigrants were connected with incarceration, meaning either they were depicted as currently incarcerated or there was a reference to previous or future incarceration. There is no reliable data on the percentage of immigrants who are incarcerated, but research from the CATO Institute shows that undocumented immigrants “are 47 percent less likely to be incarcerated than native-born Americans and legal immigrants are 78 percent less likely to be incarcerated than natives.”
Full study (2018)
Black people were “significantly underrepresented in the population of missing persons who received coverage,” even though missing people of color make up nearly 40 percent of all missing persons cases. The analysis also found white women were overrepresented in news coverage, accounting for more than half of missing persons coverage when they make up 30 percent of missing persons cases.
Health
Half of white medical trainees believe such myths as black people have thicker skin or less sensitive nerve endings than white people. Following from this belief, Black patients are 22% less likely than white patients to receive any pain medication.
Researchers analyzed data of 1.8 million hospital births in Florida, occurring between 1992 and 2015, and determined the race of the physicians who were in charge of the birth of each infant.
The findings suggest that when Black physicians were in charge of the birth of Black babies, their mortality rate was cut in half; and when Black newborns were cared for by white doctors, they were about three times more likely to die in the hospital — when compared with white babies.
A large body of published research reveals that racial and ethnic minorities experience a lower quality of health services, and are less likely to receive even routine medical procedures than are white Americans.
Even when variations in such factors as insurance status, income, age, co-morbid conditions, and symptom expression are taken into account, African Americans – and in some cases, Hispanics – are less likely to receive appropriate cardiac medication or to undergo coronary artery bypass surgery, are less likely to receive hemodialysis and kidney transplantation, and are likely to receive a lower quality of basic clinical services such as intensive care.
An algorithm widely used in US hospitals was less likely to refer black people than white people who were equally sick to programmes that aim to improve care for patients with complex medical needs. Hospitals and insurers use the algorithm and others like it to help manage care for about 200 million people in the United States each year.
Remedying this disparity would increase the percentage of Black patients receiving additional help from 17.7 to 46.5%.
An internal Veterans Affairs report shows Black veterans were more often denied benefits for post-traumatic stress disorder than their white counterparts.
The analysis crunched claims data from fiscal year 2011 through 2016 and showed that Black veterans seeking disability benefits for PTSD were denied 57% of the time, compared to 43% for white veterans.
The analysis is significant because research has shown that minority vets had higher rates (5.8%) of PTSD than nonminority veterans (5%). Black Vietnam veterans were found to have higher rates of PTSD, in part because they were more likely to be in combat than their white counterparts.
Education & childhood
A study by Georgetown Law’s Center on Poverty and Inequality finds that adults view black girls as less innocent and more adult-like than their white peers, especially in the age range of 5-14. The study applied statistical analysis to a survey of 325 adults from a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds and educational levels across the United States.
The report reveals that adults think:
- Black girls seem older than white girls of the same age
- Black girls need less nurturing than white girls
- Black girls need less protection than white girls
- Black girls need to be supported less than white girls
- Black girls need to be comforted less than white girls
- Black girls are more independent than white girls
- Black girls know more about adult topics than white girls.
- Black girls know more about sex than white girls.
The research team examined individual school records and school campus data pertaining to all seventh-grade public school students in Texas in 2000, 2001, and 2002. The study group size and rich datasets from the education and juvenile justice systems made it possible to conduct multivariate analyses. Using this approach, the researchers could control for 83 variables, effectively isolating the impact that independent factors had on the likelihood of a student’s being suspended and expelled.
Isolating the effect of race alone on disciplinary actions, they found that African-American students had a 31 percent higher likelihood of a school discretionary action, compared to otherwise identical white and Hispanic students.
Justice, law, and policing
Black men who commit the same crimes as white men receive federal prison sentences that are, on average, nearly 20 percent longer, according to a report on sentencing disparities from the United States Sentencing Commission (USSC). These disparities were observed “after controlling for a wide variety of sentencing factors,” including age, education, citizenship, weapon possession and prior criminal history.
Researchers analyzed bail in five large U.S. counties found that blacks received $7,000 higher bail than whites for violent crimes, $13,000 higher for drug crimes and $10,000 higher for crimes related to public order. These disparities were calculated after adjusting for the seriousness of the crime, criminal history and other variables.
Blacks are far more likely than whites to be arrested for selling drugs (3.6 times more likely) or possessing drugs (2.5 times more likely). This is despite the fact that data from the 2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health shows that 6.6 percent of white adolescents and young adults (aged 12 to 25) sold drugs, compared to just 5.0 percent of blacks (a 32 percent difference).
Researchers assessed racial disparities in policing in the United States by compiling and analyzing a dataset detailing nearly 100 million traffic stops carried out by 21 state patrol agencies and 35 municipal police departments over almost a decade. We found that black drivers were less likely to be stopped after sunset, when a ‘veil of darkness’ masks one’s race, suggesting bias in stop decisions: officers who engage in racial profiling are less able to identify a driver’s race after dark than during the day.
During traffic stops, 24% of black drivers and passengers were searched, compared with 16% of Latinos and 5% of whites. Yet whites were found with drugs, weapons or other contraband in 20% of searches, compared with 17% for blacks and 16% for Latinos. The totals include both searches of the vehicles and pat-down searches of the occupants.
In August 2017, the Mississippi Association of Gang Investigators said 53 percent of verified gang members in Mississipi are white. But journalists learnt that everyone arrested under the 2010 gang law through 2017 were African American.
Researchers looked at 222,542 cases in the New York County District Attorney’s Office in 2010-2011. When controlling for the influence of other factors, including charge seriousness and prior record, compared to white defendants, blacks were 10% more likely (odds ratio = 1.48), Latinos 3% more likely (odds ratio = 1.14), and Asians 21% less likely (odds ratio = 0.41) to be detained. Racial disparities in pretrial detention were particularly large for misdemeanor person offenses where blacks were 20% more likely than whites to be detained.
Researchers who examined the application of the "habitual-offender" sentence enhancement for offenders in Florida in 1992 and 1993 found that black defendants with multiple prior convictions are 28 percent more likely to be charged as “habitual offenders” than white defendants with similar criminal records. The authors conclude that “assessments of dangerousness and culpability are linked to race and ethnicity, even after offense seriousness and prior record are controlled.”
Employment
Researchers looked at two kinds of experiments: résumé and in-person audits. In the first, researchers send out résumés with similar levels of education, experience, and so on, but the names differ so some résumés have a stereotypically black or Latino name and the others have a stereotypically white name. In the second, applicants go in-person to apply for a job; they each share similar qualifications, but some are white while others are black or brown.
In total, the researchers produced 24 studies with 30 estimates of discrimination for black and Latino Americans, collectively representing more than 54,000 applications submitted for more than 25,000 positions.
They concluded that, on average, “white applicants receive 36% more callbacks than equally qualified African Americans” while “white applicants receive on average 24% more callbacks than Latinos.”
Four studies demonstrated a bias against Black women with natural hairstyles in job recruitment. In Study 1, participants evaluated profiles of Black and White female job applicants across a variety of hairstyles. We found that Black women with natural hairstyles were perceived to be less professional, less competent, and less likely to be recommended for a job interview than Black women with straightened hairstyles and White women with either curly or straight hairstyles. We replicated these findings in a controlled experiment in Study 2. In Study 3A and 3B, we found Black women with natural hairstyles received more negative evaluations when they applied for a job in an industry with strong dress norms.
Housing
Even in mixed-race and predominantly white neighborhoods, Black homeowners say, their homes are consistently appraised for less than those of their neighbors, stymying their path toward building equity and further perpetuating income equality in the United States.
The yearlong analysis, based on 31 million records, relied on techniques used by leading academics, the Federal Reserve and Department of Justice to identify lending disparities. It found a pattern of troubling denials for people of color across the country. That was true even when controlling for applicants' income, loan amount and neighborhood.
An NPR investigation found that white communities nationwide have disproportionately received more federal buyouts after a disaster than communities of color. Federal disaster aid is allocated based on a cost-benefit calculation meant to minimize taxpayer risk. That means money is not necessarily doled out to those who need it most but rather to those whose property is worth more — and to those who own property in the first place. That mirrors the existing racial wealth gap in the United States.
NPR analyzed records from a Federal Emergency Management Agency database of more than 40,000 property acquisitions, or "buyouts," funded by the agency from 1989 through 2017. The program buys homes from eligible homeowners who opt in. It then turns those lots into open space.
Our analysis shows that most of the buyouts in the FEMA database happened in neighborhoods that were more than 85 percent white and non-Hispanic, even though disasters affect all kinds of communities. For context, the U.S. is 62 percent white and non-Hispanic.