“It’s time to stop blaming slavery and move on,” He Said.

I was talking with a friend of mine – white, male, mid 50s. He was telling me about his co-worker – black, male, mid 20s. The co-worker had been complaining about the “white establishment,” the “white man keeping him down,” and the “unfair advantage” that white people have in America. My friend said, “I finally got frustrated with it all and I told him, ‘You have a good job paying way more than I was paid in my 20s. You’ve got a nice car and all the opportunity in the world. Look, you were never a slave, and I was never a slave owner. It’s time to stop blaming slavery and move on.'”

The conversation got very interesting. I explained to him that things are far from equal in the U.S., and that one significant indicator of that inequality is the incarceration rates. In a fair and equally applied system of justice, one would expect the racial breakdown in the prisons to roughly align with the racial breakdown in the general public. But that’s clearly not the case, with whites being significantly under-represented in the prison population while blacks are way over-represented.

His first response to this was, “Maybe blacks just break the law more than whites do.”

This isn’t an illogical thought, but there is little to no evidence showing that blacks break the law significantly more than whites. There is, however, overwhelming evidence that blacks are stopped by police more often. And once stopped, more whites are given a warning, while more blacks are actually arrested. And once arrested, more whites are released, and more blacks are charged. And once charged, more whites are found not guilty or given probation and more blacks are sentenced. And blacks receive longer sentences than whites for the same crimes. This all adds up to a very clear explanation for the significant disparity in the racial profile of the prison population.

We then went on to talk about the racial disparity in getting jobs, getting an apartment, and even in getting a cab. We discussed the racial inequalities in getting into college and getting promotions. (The links provided are not meant to “prove” anything, but simply to provide additional reading on a few of the topics if you’re interested.)

By the end of our conversation my friend admitted that he didn’t know much of this information, and while he intended to do more research to verify and understand what I had shared, it certainly appeared that the black community today might have some very legitimate reasons for feeling frustrated and defensive.

As the conversation ended, I realized that I completely agree with my friend’s comment. It is time to stop blaming slavery. It’s time to stop pretending that racism was eliminated when slavery was abolished. It’s time to stop acting as if there has been nothing but complete racial equality as far back as any of us can remember. It’s time to stop pretending that racial inequalities don’t exist in our culture today, and it’s time to bring them into the open and discuss them without the conversation being framed as someone “clinging to slavery” as some type of excuse.

It’s time to stop blaming slavery and move on.