The System of Systematic Racism
On December 4, 1969, the FBI, with the assistance of the Chicago Police Department, entered the home of a 21-year-old Black man and shot him to death while he slept. That man was Fred Hampton, a Black Panther who dared to stand against violence and injustice in America. The officers who killed Hampton were acquitted of all charges, despite overwhelming evidence confirming that they entered his apartment and fired 99 shots without cause, executing the young man in cold blood.
The actions of the FBI and Chicago police were praised by Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover, who saw individuals like Black Panther members, Malcolm X, and even Martin Luther King Jr. as the greatest threats to democracy in America. Black men who rebelled against the system of racial injustice, violence, and hatred have always been met with violence and hate. Black people—stolen from their homeland, stripped of their identity, treated like cattle, and bought and sold for profit—had to be ‘checked’ with violence. They were the commodity necessary to build a nation, and today, they continue to be viewed as such, albeit in a different form.
The prison system has become the next iteration of slavery and sharecropping. The history of using Black people for labor has been replaced by mass incarceration. Whether by design or unconscious bias, Black Americans continue to be systemically abused by a nation that touts freedom. Masters and foremen have transformed into prison wardens and guards; police officers, once slave catchers, now pursue Black individuals, subjecting them to violence or killing those they see as ‘resistors’ in cold blood. What’s tragic is that nothing has ever been done to truly address the systemic racism that keeps Black people enslaved.
Some corporations have shamelessly invested in this system of mass incarceration for cheap labor. Companies like Starbucks, Verizon, and State Farm use prison labor, yet would never consider hiring these same individuals in the open market, using their criminal records as a barrier to employment once they are released. Other corporations quietly distance themselves once exposed, never investing a dime in restitution for exploiting prisoners.
To placate Black Americans, solutions to racial injustice are almost always reduced to promises of funding for housing, healthcare, and the gold standard: education. These promises have been made repeatedly for decades, yet they remain ineffective at bridging the gap of racism. In reality, government housing is often inadequate, and healthcare in urban communities is substandard. Education or STEM programs, though well-intentioned, are designed to handpick the brightest of our children while leaving others behind, perpetuating a system where Black individuals, unable to ‘assimilate’ because of the color of our skin, become obvious targets in corporate America.
After the deaths of George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks, corporations made promises for change, and some states even offered to defund the police or reallocate funds to mental health and social programs. Promises that will never be met. Yet, they continue to avoid addressing mass incarceration.
I believe that solving the problem of racism in America requires radical change, starting with the restoration of the American Black family. It must go beyond prison reform and address the deeper issues. Funds should be dedicated to real rehabilitation. Corporations that use prison labor should be required to pay prisoners fair wages and give them equal employment opportunities once they have paid their debt to society. Prisoners should be offered the chance to earn a diploma, pursue a college degree, or, for young offenders, join the military.
This is not the 1960s; we are no longer fighting segregation. Our fight now is even more essential: it is a fight to restore our families amid the destruction of our community by gun violence, drugs, and the police. I am tired of hearing apologies from white people—apologies that don’t lead to meaningful change. Instead of promising to fund or defund yet another program designed to help the sick and poor, or another education initiative that lifts up only a token few, how about making strategic investments to restore to a nation of Black people everything that has been stolen?
