A friend of mine, we’ll call him “Steve”, and I have frequent debates about policy. He does not identify as a republican, however most of his ideology lines up with the right wing.
Likewise, I do not identify as a democrat, but the strong majority of my ideology lines up with the left. We disagree on a lot of important stuff, but this particular piece will be about…race (Queue the scary music.)
So Steve often tells me things like “I grew up in an all Hispanic neighborhood as a member of the only white family in the neighborhood. All the stories I hear about black people being followed around in stores, being treated differently by police, all that happened to me growing up.”
When he tells me things like that, it is to imply that black people aren’t REALLY treated differently in America, it’s all in our heads because similar things happened to him as a white person.
Well Steve, I have two responses to that.
1. You prove the point that minorities are treated differently by authority. Imagine what you, as the minority in your community went through on a large scale. And instead of you being a white minority in one neighborhood, you were the black minority of an entire country. Simply extrapolate that line of thought and you’ll see why you’re proving me right.
2. Empirical data shows otherwise.
What data is that? Here’s a few links for dat ass…
The above link references the “Resume Study”, which finds that when companies look at two resumes, with EVERYTHING BEING THE SAME EXCEPT the way the name sounds. So when Sarah or Becky graduate college with honors and a master’s degree in business, they are WAY more likely to get that new position, versus when Tyeisha applies with the exact same resume, that callback is far less common.
Don’t believe that one? Cool.
The link posted above is a study that shows if you have a white hand holding an iPod, selling this item is WAY easier than if you have a black hand holding the exact same object, for the exact same price, in that exact same condition.
Need more? I got more.
Here’s video of a white man, a white woman, and a black man. What are all three of them doing? Trying to steal a bike. I bet you know what the reactions were from everyone around them…
1. White man attempts to steal a bike, nobody says or does anything. They don’t even really look at him crazy.
2. White woman attempts to steal a bike, and not only did nobody say or do anything to stop her, some people actively tried to assist her.
3. Black man attempts to steal bike, on the same street, in front of the same store, at the same time of day….the police were there within 10 minutes.
So Steve, my friend, unless you can explain the above three facts in a way that doesn’t show any sort of ethnic bias, I think this issue has very little grey area, it’s all black and white (you know damn well the pun was intended.)
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