A study finds black men in American still face pervasive systemic racism

Last week, the New York Times published a story about a study that had harrowing implications for black boys and cements the idea of white privilege and racism creating unfair disparities in our society. It seems, even if he is raised in a wealthy family, a black boy is trapped in poverty. Now it’s time to get beyond simple descriptions of inequality and think of how we got here and what’s next.

Reports about inequality existing are not new, but many people justify them by describing class as the real problem or stating differences between races are somehow inherent and deserved. The civil rights movement did not end all racism. The fact that inequality exists isn’t surprising — where and why is what’s most interesting. The Times' article confronts assumptions of racism like the idea that black people might have different cognitive abilities. It sheds new light on the importance of fathers in the neighborhood, not in the individual home.

The scope of the study — made up almost entirely of Americans in their late 30s — is what makes it most damning. This shows you can’t just boil all inequality down to class: ultimately, a poor white boy still has more privilege than any black boy. White boys raised in a poor family have a chance of rising up the class ladder, but black boys are much more likely to stay poor in adulthood. It had surprising findings about women: black women and white women raised in similar households do not have an income gap.

We need more reporting and research that goes beyond what we already know, not only showing there are disparities, but how entrenched they are in our society. What we have currently is what some would call equality of opportunity: the opportunities exist, but certain communities just don’t go for them or aren’t smart enough to get them. As the theory goes, because schools are integrated, if black children aren’t doing well in school, it can’t be because they’re getting a subpar education. This idea is wrong. This is not enough to achieve true equality. In an ideal world, I wouldn’t be able to predict the next Congress will be overwhelmingly white and male. I also shouldn’t be able to predict it’s harder for a black child to exceed — or even maintain — their parents’ socioeconomic status. Race is the main factor to explain these disparities.

Still, the study leaves much to be desired with other groups, like Asian Pacific Islander Americans, whose perceived advantage was not investigated. Instead, it bought into the cheapness of the model minority myth without thinking about the impact of past immigration policies. There are other structural factors to take into account when thinking about which Asian Pacific Islander American ethnicities do well and which don’t, and all are still impacted by structural racism.

When former President Barack Obama was elected, I remember hearing statements like, “You can’t play the race card when a black man is president.” Still, it appears black men are hardest hit by racism — with a black man raised by millionaires is just as likely to end up in jail as a white man growing up in a household making $36,000. Even though things may have improved, this study reveals how far there is to go before there is true equity, when perhaps we won’t have to worry about the most qualified person getting the job or whether one child is born with a higher chance of being incarcerated than another.

Nicole Dan is a UF political science and journalism senior. Her column focuses on race and culture.