• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Roamancing Travel Magazine

... travelling in search of those most elusive of creatures ~ love and romance

  • Home
  • Roamancing
  • Our Travellers
  • Article Library
  • Digital Nomad & Travelling Pet Gear Guide
  • Naturally Ours, Web Series
  • Podcasts
  • Contact Us
  • Show Search
Hide Search

A Brief History of Systemic Racism – an Open Letter

Alex recently did the research and wrote a letter to a loved one about Systemic Racism, Police Brutality, and the positives that are coming out of the Black Lives Matter Protests and Marches to explain to them why the current Black Lives Matter protests and marches are needed. As we feel this is an important issue and think she did an excellent job of both researching and addressing the problem, we are sharing her letter in 3-parts, here, on Being Emme, and on StoryToGo. Her research is focused on the United States, but as is evident in the news in recent weeks, this is very much an issue that needs addressing here at home in Canada too. You can read the first part of her letter by clicking here and the final part of the letter by clicking here.

Dear …

I took your advice and have been doing a lot of research and reading on the subject and I wanted to share with you what I’ve found.

It’s okay if we don’t see everything the same way – I’ll always listen and think about what you have to say and hope you’ll do the same for me! Because what’s the point of having a brain if I don’t use it for critical thinking? You taught me that. 

Anyways love you lots and hope you’ll read with an open mind.

Alex Charters

Below is a continuation of Alex’s letter that began with the sobering facts on police brutality.

A Brief History on Systemic Racism

The adoption of the 13th Amendment transitioned African-Americans from being enslaved in a historical context, to a new-age slavery due to a loophole that abolished slavery for everyone except criminals. This new-age form of slavery included Jim Crow, lynching, and criminalization.  Essentially, they used mass incarnation to replace the free labor lost from slavery. To do this they went on a mass campaign to dehumanize black’s and made them out to be criminals.  

Then in the 1930s, when Federal mortgage lending programs helped white Americans buy homes after World War II, black Americans suffered from a shameful catch-22. Federal policy said that the very presence of a black resident in a neighbourhood reduced the value of the homes there, effectively prohibiting African-American residents from borrowing money to buy a home.

Redlining refers to the system used by banks and the real estate industry in the 20th century to determine which neighbourhoods would get loans to buy homes, and neighbourhoods where people of colour lived — outlined in red ink — were deemed the riskiest to invest in.

Home Owners Loan Corporation Philadelphia – redlining map from 1936.

“Redlining basically meant it was fundamentally impossible for black and brown people to get loans. It was an active way of enforcing segregation.”

This practice prevented black families from amassing and maintaining wealth in the same way that white families could, resulting in the growth of the racial wealth gap and housing insecurity which persists today. The net worth of a typical white family ($171,000) is nearly ten times greater than that of a Black family ($17,150), according to the Federal Reserve’s 2016 Survey of Consumer Finance.

And sentencing laws of the past several decades meant that poor black Americans were thrown in prison for decades-long terms for crimes while their wealthier white counterparts got a slap on the wrist for the same crime.

The United States holds only 5% of the world’s population, but 25% of the world’s prisoners. 

Black men account for only 6.5% of the U.S. Population, but 40.2% of the U.S. prison population.

There’s a straight line between these policies and the state of black America today. The lack of Social Security kept black Americans toiling in old age or forced them to the streets.

“Tough on crime” sentencing policies have ballooned the black prison population, torn apart families and left millions of children to grow up in single-parent homes.

Systemic Racism Illustrated in the Statistics

Black women are 3 to 4 times as likely as white women to die in childbirth, in part because of a lack of access to quality health care.
Black children are more likely to attend under-resourced schools, thanks to a reliance on local property taxes for funding. Image care of COD Newsroom.
Black voters are four times as likely as white voters to report difficulties voting or engaging in politics than their white counterparts, in part because of laws that even today are designed to keep them for exercising their basic democratic rights; millions more have been disenfranchised because of felony convictions. Image courtesy of Susan Melkisethian.

According to the Bureau for Justice Statistics, people living in households with income below the federal poverty threshold are twice as likely to commit a violent crime than people in high-income households, regardless of race.

Americans live in a country where the poverty rate is more than twice as high among black Americans than white. And that has as much to do with 400 years of systematic racism than anything else.

2020 Stats on Systemic Racism in the United States:

An analysis of data from 40 states and the District of Columbia, released last month by the nonpartisan APM Research Lab, found black Americans are more than twice as likely as whites, Latinos or Asian-Americans to die from the coronavirus. In some states, the disparity is much greater.

I understand a lot of what you said on Sunday and agree that Canada is not America. We have our own problems that we need to face but I think supporting the Civil Rights Movement in America is very important right now. (And added by the editor similar issues do exist in Canada, particular towards our Indigenous people.)

The international support and media attention have forced America to take action and start making real change.

Alex Charters

Read on for the third portion of this Open Letter to learn about the positive changes that have come from the Black Lives Matter protests and marches so far.

For a first hand account from the Black Lives Matter protests and marches in the United States, read Lori’s experiences partaking in the marches in Arizona, as an interracial family.


References

  • https://allianceinaction.org/2017/02/14/mass-incarceration-lessons-learned-from-ava-duvernays-13th/
  • https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/06/15/systemic-racism-what-does-mean/5343549002/
  • https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/scfindex.htm
  • https://time.com/5851855/systemic-racism-america/
  • https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/hpnvv0812.pdf
  • https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/poverty-rate-by-raceethnicity
  • https://www.apmresearchlab.org/covid/deaths-by-race
  • https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hblog20170808.061398/full/

Written by:
Alex Charters
Published on:
June 24, 2020
Thoughts:
1 Comment

Categories: Alex Charters, All Aboard!, Black Lives Matter, History, Nerding Out, Our Travelers, The Red Boot DiariesTags: Black Lives Matter, racism

Reader Interactions

Trackbacks

  1. E² – Entertainment & Education : At Home Entertainment Magazine ~ Edition 2 - StoryToGo says:
    February 25, 2024 at 10:23 am

    […] A Brief History of Systemic Racism – an Open Letter […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Search Our Site

Roamancing Travel

Travelling the globe uncovering the love & beauty all around us!

We're not your average jet-set crew; we're just as happy to hunker around a campfire as we are to be finely wined & dined, as we roamance travel.

Join the Adventure On …

RSS Feed Directory

Lollygag Over Adventures to Be




Recent Adventures

Harbour View on the Island country of Grenada in the Caribbean Sea.

Pure Grenada Wellness

April 8, 2025 by Diana Ballon

Lycia, Türkiye – Where the Dead are Always with Us

March 29, 2025 by Liz Campbell

Fishermen hunting at sea with a spear.

The Last Kereks: A Story of Tradition and Survival in the Far North Russia

March 5, 2025 by Katerina Mukhina

Cape Forchu Lighthouse, near Yarmouth, Nova Scotia on the Acadian Shores

Where to Stay in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia and the Acadian Shores

January 14, 2025 by Erica Hargreave

A young aviation lover poises into front of a Canadian Armed Forces Jet at the Canadian Museum of Flight

Canadian Museum of Flight : a hidden gem in Aviation

January 7, 2025 by Anne Webster

BCIT Media Storytelling Courses

Our Post-Secondary Accredited Courses with BCIT's Media Storytelling Department:

Building Your Digital Media Presence (online)
Social Media Storytelling (online)

Feedspot Top Canada Travel Blog

Explore more

Pitch Us Partner With Us Contact Us

Footer

Produced By …

This is another tale brought to you by the creatively whacky minds at Ahimsa Media.

Copyright 2011 © 2025 · Genesis Framework by StudioPress · · Log in