White conservatives often set out to dispel the idea of “white privilege” with something along these lines:

I worked hard for my college degree and my job. I reject the notion I only got this far because an African American was denied entry to my university or was passed over for an interview or employment due to racial discrimination, allowing me to take his or her place. You can’t prove that, so there’s no reason to take white privilege seriously. It was my qualifications and my blood, sweat, and tears that got me here.

As popular as this sentiment is, it betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what white privilege means, not to mention it flirts with obvious logical fallacies.

Saying white privilege exists is simply another way of saying racial discrimination exists (therefore the fact that those who deny racial discrimination is still a serious problem in American society are usually the same people who deny white privilege exists very much makes sense).

White privilege is not “I have my job because my racist boss rejected a black applicant, therefore I benefited from white privilege.” Rather, it is “I, being white, do not have to worry about being rejected as an applicant due to my skin color.”

In other words, due to your whiteness, it is a privilege to be divorced from the very possibility of experiencing anti-black racism. White privilege is the simple idea that a White You is likely going to have a much easier time going about life than a theoretical Black You.

Believe it or not, your blood, sweat, and tears — your hard work — can exist alongside the reality of white privilege. These things are in no way mutually exclusive.  

And what fact is better established through serious research than that the average black American generally has a harder time of things — has to work harder — than the average white person, due to an uphill battle against intergenerational poverty and mistreatment wrought by past and present discrimination?

It starts at birth. Blacks are four times more likely to grow up poor than whites — just by being born white, you have, by sheer chance, won a racial lottery.

When black children grow up, the different way blacks are often treated grows quickly apparent. Experiments show resumes with “black” names are 50% less likely to earn an interview than identical ones with “white” names.

As Tim Wise documents in Colorblind, blacks are less likely to be offered a quality home loan than whites with the same (sometimes worse) qualifications and income levels. Likewise, whites receive better medical care than blacks with identical diagnoses, medical histories, healthcare coverage, and so on. Blacks even earn, on average, less than equally qualified white workers in the same occupational positions.

Blacks are more likely to receive longer prison sentences and the death penalty than whites who commit the same crimes. They are more likely to be pulled over and searched while driving lawfully than whites driving lawfully. Unarmed Americans killed by police are usually twice as likely to be black than white. Unsurprising, as experiments show whites in simulations are much quicker to shoot both armed and unarmed blacks than armed and unarmed whites.

Wise documents research showing about 60% of whites will openly admit to trusting negative stereotypes about lower intelligence, higher aggression, and greater laziness in blacks. 25% of whites say an ideal neighborhood would be free of them. Nearly 90% of whites hold subconscious anti-black biases. As surprising as it may be to those who propagate “white denial,” racism can be measured scientifically.

Obviously, it is a “privilege” to be white and have no chance of experiencing anti-black racism (even if you still have a chance to be gunned down by a police officer, which happens to many unarmed whites as well; these things are not mutually exclusive, either).

So while you may have worked exceedingly hard to get where you are, that does not make anti-black racism and its horrid effects a myth. Even if we could prove you never personally left a black man or woman in the dust in your climb up the social ladder, white privilege still exists and it still applies to you. You are free of the very possibility of such mistreatment. And that is a privilege indeed.

One thing quite amusing about the conservative argument is its naked pride. Now, there is nothing wrong with being proud of your accomplishments…unless that pride drives or “justifies” your argument. Clearly, the use of the argument betrays concern that the idea of white privilege “devalues” one’s hard work and success. And because of that threat white privilege must be dismissed as a myth.

This is a perfect example of argumentum ad consequentiam: not believing x because you do not wish x to be true.

In a way, this is somewhat ironic. If a white person feels threatened by the suggestion white privilege might have contributed to his or her success, one can only imagine how a black person feels his or her success is threatened by its reality — facing the long struggle and dark obstacles placed on the path to success by past and present discrimination.

For more from the author, subscribe and follow or read his books.

Why would a White History Month be racist when Black History Month is not? Why is a black girl adorned in a “Black Girls Rock” t-shirt proud of her heritage while a white girl with a “White Girls Rock” emblazoned across her chest highly offensive? Why does “Black Power!” signify support for equality and social justice but “White Power!” glorify social injustice and inequality?

“Such a double standard!” white conservatives moan. “It smacks of reverse racism!”

It’s almost embarrassing having to explain the logic behind this alleged “double standard” to thinking adults, but someone has to do it. As such white Americans seem so utterly detached from their own country’s history, perhaps a comparative historical analysis would be valuable.

At the risk of violating Godwin’s Law (look it up), let us consider Germany and its Jewish population. American whites who can’t grasp why White History Month would be racist likely understand well why a celebration or commemoration of Jewish contributions and struggle in Germany would be a positive thing, while a celebration of “Aryan” (the so-called “master race”) heritage and history would be gravely insensitive and offensive.

One commemorates the oppressed, the survivors of near-total genocide. The other commemorates the oppressor, the ones operating the gas chambers.

Were it the other way around — had the Jews controlled Germany and began a mass slaughter of white Aryans — it would be a different story. In such a case, a national celebration of Judaism in Germany would be disturbing, divisive, and offensive.

“Ah, but not all Aryans were ‘operating the gas chambers,’ were they?” one may note. “Not all whites lynched or owned black men, women, and children, or supported Jim Crow laws. And why hold white people today guilty for the crimes of past generations?”

First, it is important to note that racial prejudice, and its dangerous effects, still exist in American society.

Research shows nearly all whites hold subconscious anti-black biases, and a solid majority consciously believe racist myths about blacks — and some are very open about their disdain and bigotry. Whites in simulations are much quicker to shoot both armed and unarmed blacks than whites. Black job applicants with identical resumes as white applicants are still less likely to be called back for an interview, and blacks are less likely to be offered a quality home loan than whites with the same (sometimes worse) qualifications and income levels. Likewise, whites receive better medical care at the same facilities than blacks with identical diagnoses and medical histories.  

Blacks are more likely to receive longer prison sentences and the death penalty than whites who commit the same crimes. They are more likely to be pulled over and searched while driving lawfully than whites driving lawfully. Unarmed Americans killed by police are consistently twice as likely to be black than white.

So some whites are indeed “guilty” today. Any other conclusion amounts to nothing more than white denial.

There is no need for a white individual to feel personally guilty about crimes committed by others, whether today or in the past. The only people who should feel guilt are those who consciously hold racist stereotypes about blacks to be true (ideas of black laziness, aggression, deviancy, and so on), discriminate against blacks because of this, or thoughtlessly deny the effects of our racial history (a black person is three times more likely to be poor than a white person, for example, due to history, not laziness special to their race).

“OK, so why would celebrating White History Month be racist, if those things don’t apply to myself nor others like me?”

Perhaps you wouldn’t be personally racist (though you do realize those who actually do celebrate white history and pride with marches, rallies, and billboards, or glorify “White Power,” tend to be in white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan or neo-Nazi organizations). Perhaps it would merely be embarrassingly thoughtless and frightfully callous.

That’s at best, because like the Jews of Germany American blacks are an historically (and to a degree contemporarily) oppressed group. And whites are the historic (and to a degree contemporary) oppressors — against blacks and literally all nonwhites who came to or lived in North America.

There was the savagery of black slavery: kidnapping, hunger, torture, execution, degradation, and rape. After the Civil War, white employers refused to pay blacks the same wages as whites, or hire them for more skilled, higher wage positions; white banks refused to provide home loans to blacks; school districts gerrymandered attendance zones to keep black and white schools distinct; white businesses fled from budding areas of black commerce; white producers charged black stores more for goods.

White residents fled from black neighbors; white real estate agents steered blacks far away from nicer homes in white areas; white city councils, city planners, and developers refused to invest and build in black areas; white voters rejected tax increases that would benefit black schools and neighborhoods; white landlords refused to properly maintain property inhabited by black families; white doctors declined to treat black patients.

Black history was nowhere to be found in standard history textbooks, another good reason for a Black History Month.

White policemen beat and abused blacks merely suspected of committing crimes against whites, but refused to investigate or prosecute black on black crime; white judges and juries handed black criminals longer prison sentences and more frequent executions; white terrorists shot, hung, burned, beat, mutilated and bombed innocent African Americans to keep them out of stores, schools, public facilities, neighborhoods, voting booths, and political positions. Peaceful protesters exercising First Amendment rights were attacked and killed by police and white vigilantes alike. The Black Power movement, which called for self-defense and revolution against an abusive State, using the Second Amendment and Declaration of Independence as justification, was one response to all this barbarism. 

Black History Month, and similar expressions of pride, celebrate important breakthroughs in the fight against white hatred and savagery. Whites today should celebrate important people and events in black history.

Were whites the historically oppressed group, had blacks enslaved and persecuted whites for centuries, White History Month would be understandable, appropriate, and something positive in modern society. But that is not our history, is it?

All this has a clear moral component. Morality concerns what causes harm to others; it’s about treating people with kindness and respect. Because of our history (and modern relations), white pride causes significantly more harm (psychologically, emotionally, even physically) to persons of color than black pride causes to white people.

You shouldn’t oppose celebrating white history, white power, and the white race because you feel personally guilty about the crimes against humanity committed by others. You oppose it because caring, compassionate, and wise people don’t celebrate the historically oppressive race of a society — even if it’s yours. They celebrate those who struggled against all odds. They celebrate the survivors. They stand in solidarity with the oppressed.

In other words, you should be fine with Black History Month, “Black Girls Rock!” t-shirts, or “Black Power!” declarations, and laugh at accusations of double standards and reverse racism, for two simple reasons:

Because you know your history and because you are a decent person.

For more from the author, subscribe and follow or read his books.

With film industry icons like Will Smith, Jada Pinkett-Smith, Spike Lee, and Michael Moore boycotting the 2016 Academy Awards at the end of this month due to lack of nominations for black professionals, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decided in late January to broaden racial and gender diversity in Academy membership.

Its board of governors has committed “to doubling the number of women and diverse members of the Academy by 2020.” Further, older members that are no longer active in the film industry will be phased out.

Spike Lee summed up the sentiment of Oscar protesters, who connect their discussions on social media using #OscarsSoWhite, when he said:

[H]ow is it possible for the 2nd consecutive year all 20 contenders under the actor category are white? And let’s not even get into the other branches. 40 white actors in 2 years and no flava at all.

While the 2015 and 2016 Oscars were and are characterized by a lack of diversity in acting roles, in 2014 Lupita Nyong’o won best supporting actress for 12 Years a Slave. She became the fourteenth black woman or man to win an Oscar in the Best Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, or Supporting Actress categories in the 88-year history of the Awards.

Over that same span of time, three black directors were nominated for Best Director, but none won. Steve McQueen became the first black producer to win Best Picture in 2013, for 12 Years a Slave.  

The whiteness of the past two years is troubling to many, as it was partly built on films Academy voters used to praise white professionals while ignoring the black professionals who worked on the same projects. Creed had a black star and black director, but only its white actor earned a Best Supporting Actor nomination. Straight Outta Compton had a black cast, director, and producer, but its white screenwriters were nominated for Best Screenplay. Many consider black acting performances in Beasts of No Nation, Concussion, and last year’s Selma unjustly ignored (Selma was nominated for best picture, but its black actors and black director received no nominations).

However, The Economist, looking at the Oscar wins since 2000, says, “The number of black actors winning Oscars in this century has been pretty much in line with the size of America’s overall black population.”

Blacks are 12.6% of the American population, and 10% of Oscar nominations since 2000 have gone to black actors… But blacks are under-represented in the roles that count for the Oscars, getting just 9% of the top [acting] roles since 2000… [But] once up for top roles, black actors do well, converting 9% of top roles into 10% of best-actor nominations and 15% of the coveted golden statuettes, a bit above their share of the general population.

The Economist concludes that the lack of diversity starts in drama schools and casting offices, putting blacks at a disadvantage in the competition for the Oscar wins (for example, black male directors are nowhere near the black population percentage, and black women directors are “nearly nonexistent”). It also notes Hispanics and Asians receive even less representation than blacks. Yet black underrepresentation is slight and confined to landing top roles in films, and by extension nominations, but then disappearing when the Academy votes on its winners.

So while there is work to be done to increase black representation in film roles, and to correct widespread conscious and subconscious anti-black biases that research undeniably demonstrates exists, it is pleasing to note African Americans are not underrepresented among Academy Award winners in recent history.

Yet it is perhaps beneficial that #OscarsSoWhite launched a discussion on Academy voting methods, as what’s truly lacking isn’t so much diversity among the victors, it’s diversity among the Academy voters, as well as a more democratic process of voting.

The Oscar nominees and winners are chosen by the 6,000 Academy members, a voting group about 94% white and 76% male. It’s only about 2% black.

To become a member, certain qualifications must be met; for example, qualifications for an actor include:

(a) have a minimum of three theatrical feature film credits, in all of which the roles played were scripted roles, one of which was released in the past five years, and all of which are of a caliber that reflect the high standards of the Academy,

and/or

(b)  have been nominated for an Academy Award in one of the acting categories

Once qualifications are met, “each candidate must receive the favorable endorsement of the appropriate Branch Executive Committee before his or her name is submitted to the Board of Governors for final approval.”

So while there are only slight disadvantages for blacks in film roles and nominations, the board of governors clearly needs to enact the reforms #OscarsSoWhite inspired. With 9% of top film roles, 10% of Oscar nominations, and 15% of the wins all going to blacks, either the Academy has been slow to admit blacks to membership or simply does not admit enough of them to offset the large number of old and new white members. As the Los Angeles Times wrote this month,

The academy has invited 452 people to join its ranks over the last two years, an unusually high number even though 20 of them were non-voting slots. By accepting more members, the academy hoped to bring more women and minorities into the organization.

Although the two new classes are noticeably more diverse than in past years, they failed to change the face of the academy in a material way because new members make up such a small percentage of the entire constituency, according to a Los Angeles Times analysis.

Since membership is controlled by the board of governors, there’s no democratic way to broaden diversity in the Academy. That power rests with the few. If the board does not take purposeful action, as it has decided to do, the demographics of the Oscar voters largely remain static.   

And by extension, if the voting body does not become more diverse, Oscar nominees and winners could tend to look the same year to year. So if a group is underrepresented at any point during the lifetime of the Academy, whether blacks, or Asians (underrepresented in nominations and wins compared to top roles and national population), or Hispanics (underrepresented in wins compared to nominations, top roles, and the national population), etc., there is no democratic, bottom-up, grassroots way to correct this.

This is quite different from a selection process like a popular vote. A meme went around the Internet recently about the NBA All-Star lineup being dominated by black players, to mock the #OscarsSoWhite boycott. It read: “2016 NBA All-Star Game has zero white players selected. Boycott for more diversity. #NBASoBlack.”

Yet the All-Stars are selected by a popular vote that is open to anyone–so not quite an adequate comparison. If white NBA fans (about 40% of viewers) felt there weren’t enough white players, they could theoretically “get out the vote” and see change, even if the 45% of NBA viewers who are black preferred to vote for black players. They could theoretically expand the pool of voters. Change the voter base, change the outcome.

The same mechanism isn’t in place for the Academy. Ordinary Americans can’t vote for nominees and winners. It’s just several thousand voters whose numbers and demographics remain unchanged except by a decree from the board of governors.  

Considering the Academy is never going to switch to a popular vote, the changes #OscarsSoWhite sparked are necessary to raise the 2% of black Academy voters to a percentage more equitable to their population in both the film industry and the country.

For more from the author, subscribe and follow or read his books.

Beyoncé and her dancers, clad in black leather and black berets, their hair Afroed, reminded the world as it watched Super Bowl 50 of the Black Panthers, a radical leftist organization birthed in the 1960s by white American oppression.

Beyoncé and her dancers stood together on the football field and raised their fists in the traditional radical symbol “power to the people,” a sign of both solidarity with allies pushing for positive social change and defiance against oppressors.

After the performance, a group of dancers raised their fists once more. One unfolded a piece of paper inscribed with “Justice 4 Mario Woods.” Woods, reportedly armed with a knife, was shot to death in a heated confrontation with both black and white San Francisco police in December. Super Bowl 50 was held in San Francisco.

The performers also posed for a similar photo hailing Black Power off the field after the show.

The halftime performance came one day after Beyoncé’s music video “Formation” came out, which drew fire from angry whites for its “anti-police” message. In the video, Beyoncé sits atop a sinking police cruiser, a black child dances in front of a line of policemen in riot gear, who eventually raise their hands, graffiti on a wall demands police “Stop Shooting Us,” etc. “Formation” was one of the songs performed during the Super Bowl.    

The Black Panther Party, founded by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, California, was largely inspired by the ideology of Islamic minister Malcolm X (Beyoncé and her women formed an “X” at one point, likely a reference to him). Malcolm X summed up his view on violence, in accordance with his faith and belief in self-defense, when he said in 1963, “Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery.” 

Formed in 1966, the year after Malcolm X’s assassination, the Panthers aimed to promote self-defense against police abuse and white vigilantes, to unify workers against capitalist exploitation, to embrace black pride, to make African Americans politically powerful and economically self-sufficient, to end illiteracy, hunger, and poverty in black communities, and to fight and die at any time for freedom.

Marxist ideas of transferring power to the common people–giving black people the economic, social, and political power to control their own destinies–attracted many. So did the idea of revolution, violent conflict, as a way to achieve basic human rights.

It was, after all, a time of virulent racism (it should be obvious to all that blacks faced far more severe and deadly oppression than the American colonists who rose up in revolution against the British).

White employers refused to pay blacks the same wages as whites, or hire them for more skilled, higher wage positions; white banks refused to provide home loans to blacks; school districts gerrymandered attendance zones to keep black and white schools distinct; white businesses fled from budding areas of black commerce; white producers charged black stores more for goods.

White residents fled from black neighbors; white real estate agents steered blacks away from nicer homes in white areas; white city councils, city planners, and developers refused to invest and build in black areas; white voters rejected tax increases that would benefit black schools and neighborhoods; white landlords refused to properly maintain property inhabited by black families.

White policemen beat and abused blacks suspected of committing crimes against whites, but ignored black on black crime in the ghettos; white judges and juries handed black criminals longer prison sentences and more frequent executions; white terrorists shot, hung, beat, mutilated and bombed innocent African Americans to keep them out of stores, schools, public facilities, neighborhoods, voting booths, and political positions.

Peaceful protesters exercising First Amendment rights were attacked and killed by police and vigilantes alike. The Black Panther Party and its message of self-protection appealed to those who saw Dr. King’s pacifism as inadequate (while respecting and upholding Dr. King’s belief in socialism).

So the Panthers made use of their Second Amendment rights: they armed themselves against a government that failed–for centuries–to protect their human rights, and in fact frequently worked to destroy said rights. They decided to defend themselves, especially against abusive policemen, whom they called “pigs.”

The Panthers used (what else?) the Declaration of Independence to justify revolution against the State. In their Ten-Point Program, which outlined their demands (the first being “We Want Freedom”), the Panthers reminded blacks and whites alike:

…governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government…

…when a long train of abuses and usurpations…evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

Yet the Party was more than organizing for self-defense and revolution. Nationally, the Party was renowned for organizing dozens of community programs such as free clothing, shoes, food, education, legal representation, and health clinics for communities of color. They worked with welfare organizations, churches, and local businesses (some white) to ease black poverty.

They organized black history classes, including some that introduced whites to the horrors of slavery and oppression; this glimpse of true history left many whites terrified, tearful, and angry enough to join the fight for civil rights. They held rallies, marches, and strikes to push for black equality.

And although Panther women faced frequent sexual pressure and advances from the men, and sexism in general, the Party aimed to liberate women and promote equality—it was “empowering,” a “source of pride” and “strength,” in the words of one female Black Panther leader.

By the early 1980s, the Black Panther Party was destroyed. From the outset, the U.S. government and local authorities worked to undermine and eliminate it.

The FBI, which has a long history of working to destroy leftist and civil rights organizations (the NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, etc.), installed spies, helped assassinate Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton in Chicago, forged letters to create disunity, illegally imprisoned activists, destroyed property like food meant for distribution to the poor, and attempted to discredit the Party through propaganda. The FBI authorized municipal police to terrorize members at home, at meetings, and at protests.

When Bobby Seale was arrested for protesting at the Democratic National Convention in 1968, he was not allowed to choose his own lawyer—he was gagged and bound in the courtroom. Many Party leaders were forced to flee the United States to avoid death or imprisonment.

The Panthers’ deadly clashes with police also lost them support from more moderate black civil rights groups and more affluent blacks, and of course progress in civil rights legislation also convinced some their promised revolution was no longer necessary.

(See Reynaldo Anderson, On the Ground: The Black Panther Party in Communities Across America; Gaidi Faraj, Unearthing the Underground: A Study of Radical Activism in the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army; Paul Alkebulan, Survival Pending Revolution: The History of the Black Panther Party.)

Today, with the rise of more radical movements like Occupy and Black Lives Matter, Beyoncé’s homage to the Panthers should come as no surprise. It is a time of immense anger toward the State and white-dominant society.

Research shows nearly all whites hold subconscious anti-black biases, and a solid majority consciously believe racist myths about blacks (whites in simulations are much quicker to shoot both armed and unarmed blacks). Black job applicants with identical resumes as white applicants are still less likely to be called back for an interview, and blacks are less likely to be offered a quality home loan than whites with the same (sometimes worse) qualifications and income levels. Likewise, whites receive better medical care at the same facilities than blacks with identical diagnoses and medical histories.  

Blacks are more likely to receive longer prison sentences and the death penalty than whites who commit the same crimes. They are more likely to be pulled over and searched while driving lawfully than whites driving lawfully. Unarmed Americans killed by police are consistently twice as likely to be black than white.

For more from the author, subscribe and follow or read his books.

We cannot end anti-black racism without ending poverty.

Poverty perpetuates racism in three ways.

First, disproportionate black poverty perpetuates racist white myths of black laziness. Second, black poverty breeds black crime, which reinforces in white minds ideas of the deviant, aggressive, violent black man. Third, black poverty leads to lower academic performance from black children, leading to white myths of lower intelligence in blacks.

Behind each of these racist beliefs, one can easily conclude, is an appalling lack of historical and sociological context.

For example, were (conservative) whites to accept the historical causes behind intergenerational black poverty–centuries of white oppression that confined black Americans to the lowest wages, the most miserable housing and schools, barred them from colleges, work programs, and welfare like Social Security, and banned them from positions of social, economic, and political power–the whole idea that their impoverished condition is due to laziness or irresponsibility or poor parenting would seem absurd.

The notion that whites don’t hold such ideas to be true is nothing more than white denial, rooted in a lack of education easily rectified by reading works such as Colorblind: The Rise of Post-Racial Politics and the Retreat from Racial Equity (Tim Wise).

Wise provides research that shows about 60% of whites will openly admit to trusting negative stereotypes about lower intelligence, higher aggression, and greater laziness in blacks. 25% of whites say an ideal neighborhood would be free of them.

Psychological research shows nearly 90% of whites hold subconscious anti-black biases.

Experiments reveal that resumes with “black” names are 50% less likely to earn an interview than identical ones with “white” names. Blacks are less likely to be offered a quality home loan than whites with the same (sometimes worse) qualifications and income levels. Likewise, whites receive better medical care at the same facilities than blacks with identical diagnoses and medical histories.  

Blacks are more likely to receive longer prison sentences and the death penalty than whites who commit the same crimes. They are more likely to be pulled over and searched while driving lawfully than whites driving lawfully. Unarmed Americans killed by police are usually twice as likely to be black than white. And so on.      

White inability to understand how past and present racism preserve intergenerational poverty today (it did not, shocking to many whites, end after the civil rights movement of the 1960s) helps keep racism a contemporary problem.

They fail to grasp how in each American city, only 150 years ago, former slaves started with nothing (no money, no wealth in home or business ownership) and battled racist sentiment, practices, and policies daily to build for themselves what they could, but still had little in comparison to whites to pass on to their children. And even with the weakening of the Jim Crow era only 50 years ago, blacks were still disproportionately poor and subject to savage racism. And today, many children of the civil rights era are still poor and have fewer opportunities due to anti-black biases, whether conscious or subconscious.

But that framework of historical fact does not fit well in conservative ideology.

In conservative thought, any person willing to work hard, be responsible, and “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” can rise out of poverty. The poor are therefore lazy, not working hard enough, irresponsible, lacking ambition. This likewise stems from a lack of education concerning socio-economic realities that ensure nearly all Americans will die in the social class in which they are born (see Lies My Teacher Told Me, Loewen).

If conservatives believe the poor are poor due to laziness, what then is the logical conclusion (historical context being ignored) when a conservative hears that blacks are 2 to 3 times likely to be poor than whites (see Colorblind, Wise)? That while there are more poor whites in the U.S. due to their sheer numbers (67% of the U.S. is white, 13% black), the average black American is nevertheless more likely to be impoverished?

There is only one conclusion: blacks are more likely to be lazy. It is a faulty premise, and a conclusion seeped in old beliefs of biological and cultural inferiority.

Consider now that poverty breeds crime.

This holds true regardless of skin color. But due to our racial history, the American landscape is characterized by crime-ridden slums in inner cities, dominated by minorities, surrounded by wealthier white suburbs. Within the “ghettos,” theft, murder, and gang violence inspire in conservative white minds racist ideas of blacks being more aggressive, dangerous, prone to criminality by nature.

The majority of Americans who commit crimes are not black, again due to population numbers. However, blacks, due to disproportionate poverty, commit crimes disproportionate to their population. For example, blacks make up 13% of the U.S. population, but about 20% of violent crimes are committed by blacks, about 40% of the people who rob others at gunpoint are black, etc. (Also, because we live fairly segregated lives, blacks are nearly always the victims of blacks, whites nearly always the victims of whites.)

If one cannot accept that our history led to disproportionate poverty, which led to disproportionate crime, the only alternative is to attribute black crime to innate deviancy and bloodlust.

Finally, black students in poor schools do not perform as well on standardized tests as white students in fine schools. For example, the average ACT score for blacks is about 17, for whites about 24.

To those willing to consider sociological context and study research, the cause of this is not difficult to ascertain.

Children who grow up in poverty are more likely to experience high-stress homes, absent parents, abandonment, displacement, homelessness, hunger, violence and sexual abuse, exposure to alcoholism, drug use, and crime, poor health, depression, developmental delays, decreased concentration and memory capabilities, and a host of other health problems.

A 2015 study showed that parts of the brain tied to academic performance are 8-10% smaller in children from very poor households.

Might this and the sad state of schools in the inner cities–low-quality teachers, crumbling facilities, overcrowded classes, a lack of books, supplies, physical and mental health care, and student worry over gas leaks, mice, and freezing temperatures–have something to do with lower test scores?

Or is it, as some conservatives feel, due to bad parenting (“black parents just don’t care enough about education”) or lower intelligence in blacks?

It is a sad state of affairs that yesterday racism bred minority poverty and today minority poverty is breeding racism.

To say that poverty is breeding racism is not to shift blame away from whites who consciously hold and spread anti-black biases–they should confront their misunderstandings through personal studies of history and social class. Rather, it is to suggest that if certain social conditions could be alleviated, if we could end poverty, it would go an enormous way to also ending racism. It could eliminate the misguided thinking of many whites and at the same time undo the worst sins of American history.

For more from the author, subscribe and follow or read his books.