The tip of the iceberg
One of the more ridiculous Telegraph editorials I have ever read was your Aug. 31, 2019, editorial entitled, “WE MUST DO MORE TO END RACISM.” It should be obvious to even the casual reader that this editorial is not in the public interest, completely out of touch with the history of this country, out of touch with what is happening in contemporary 2019 USA, and an unfair and uniformed political hit job on former Vice President Joe Biden. Biden is absolutely correct, institutionalized racism is widespread, accepted and codified in our country in 2019.
Racial discrimination was and is the most pernicious, persistent problem in the United States since the inception of our country, before its inception, and up to the present day. Today, in the United States, we have cities like Furguson, Missouri, where 70 percent of the population is African American and yet only two people out of six on the city council are African American. That’s just one city, but this pattern is repeated too often across this country, which has disenfranchised black people from the democratic decision-making process.
Today in the U.S., we have a two-tiered justice system, which has resulted in the incarceration of people of color at a higher rate than white people, as well as harsher penalties for people of color, (for some of the same crimes as committed by white people), yet the fact remains that people of color do not commit crimes at a higher rate than white people. This is institutionalized racism.
In the United States, 65 years after Brown v. Board of Education, our public schools in the United States are just as segregated as they were in 1954. This is not a coincidence, but instead a result of public policy, which funnels funding and resources away from minority schools. The voucher system, charter schools and privatization of public schools are just other ways institutionalized racism works in all levels of our government, even though segregation is not specifically mentioned in these policies, it is exactly the intention and result. These examples of institutionalized and codified racism in the U.S. are just the tip of the iceberg.
The Telegraph editorial board does nothing for the public interest with this editorial. It is instead intended to placate some comfortable suburbanites validating their denial of institutionalized racism in the U.S. Strange how the Telegraph editorial board thinks that laws don’t work when it comes to passing tougher gun control laws, and yet naively tell us that institutionalized racism cannot exist in our country in 2019 because after all, it’s against the law. You can’t have it both ways.