[GOLD STAR]! But this is pretty significant. For most of my life I was blissfully unaware

但很重要的是，我人生中大部分的時間很幸運地並不會特別意識到自己是白人

of the fact that I’m white. My race never affected me - a huge benefit I didn’t even

我的種族從來不會困擾我-而這正是一個我自己甚至不知道

know I had.

的優勢

Growing up, I knew racism was bad...but I didn’t fully understand what racism was.

長大後我學到種族歧視是不好的，但我還是沒有完全了解到底什麼是種族歧視

I thought racism was: slurs, discrimination, hatred based on skin color. About 50 years

我之前認為的種族歧視是：辱罵、差別待遇、因為他人膚色產生的仇恨

ago [GRAPHIC: CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT] direct, in-your-face, overt racism became illegal

五十年前開始，直接、不加掩飾的，公開的種族歧視成了違法的行為，歧視也逐漸不為社會所接受

and less socially acceptable. Which had 2 side effects on white America: first, it allowed

但也因此對美國白人要成兩個副作用：第一，它讓我們相信總族歧視已經消失了

us to believe that racism was over. “YAY!!! MLK!!! EQUALITY FOR ALL!!” Second, it enabled

「耶！金恩博士！大家都是平等的了！」第二，種族歧視已經是違法的事實，讓白人

white folks to frame the ongoing struggles of the black community as a character flaw.

得以將黑人社群正面臨的掙扎與生活困境歸咎為他們的「性格上的缺陷」

After Ferguson, a family member said to me: “Look, black people have a lot of problems

在Ferguson事件(2014年的一樁黑人青年被警槍殺事件）我有一家人說：「你看！黑人會有這麼多問題

because they have a bad culture. Bad values. They’re violent, they’re lazy, broken

就是因為他們有不好的文化、不好的價值觀。他們過於暴力、懶惰、成長在不完善的家庭

families. Look at them rioting like animals. That’s not racism, that’s just the facts.”

你看看他們暴動的樣子就像野獸一樣，這不是種族歧視，我只是說出事實！」

Woah - tell me how you really feel! People usually aren’t so blunt about it - but if

哇喔！告訴我你怎麼看這段話！人們通常不會這麼不加掩飾的敘述他們口中的「事實」

you look closely enough, you’ll see these sentiments about black america echoed...everywhere

但如果你仔細觀察，你會發現這些對於美國黑人的「意見」無所不在的在我們的社會中不斷重述

So I taught school for 20 years. Lots of people of color who didn't want to work as hard. They wanted to give it to them.

They don't like make a living for themselves. They just drop out high school and like,

"Oh, I'm gonna have kids and I'm gonna get a wealthy check""I'm gonna get my GED"

"I'll get my GED, I'll go work at McDonald, and..."

Young black men often reject education and gravitate towards street culture, drugs, hustling, games

Nobody forces them to do that, again. It's a personal decision.

[B-ROLL]. The message to be black? It's to be inferior.

But that’s not the facts, that’s just racism. Racism isn’t just burning crosses

and white hoods. Racism a seeping system of invisible forces that keep people of color

in a permanent 2nd class status. It’s the foundational fabric of our society, woven

with values, attitudes, stereotypes, policies, economics, and laws. Jim Crow laws of the

past were replaced with shiny, new laws that were just as racist, but looked better on

the surface. This made it harder than ever for white america to see the truth: the odds

are ever in our favor...and they always have been. Let’s take a trip down memory lane.

STOP 1: Wealth Between 1934 and 1962, the government backed

$120 billion of home loans. But they refused to give home loans for black folks OR

even if black folks lived NEARBY. This went on for decades. This practice - called redlining

- essentially (1) forced black americans into poor urban centers - the beginning of “the

ghetto” (2) segregated America to this day, (3) made it impossible to invest in the future

of black neighborhoods, and (4) made it impossible for black americans to start inheriting property

and wealth the same way that white americans worked.

STOP 2: Education. Property taxes fund schools - which means

families lives in nice houses (maybe ones they got with the help of the government) get a

better education. With a better education they have more opportunities,

more resources, more connections, more jobs more….money, money, money.

STOP 3: Jobs. A lack of educational opportunities

meant many black folks were relegeted to low-wage manual labor. Today, when looking at the same

exact resume, employers are 50% more likely to call back a resume labour with a white sounding name.

STOP 4: Mass incarceration. Shortly after the civil rights movement, prisons

became privatized, for-profit businesses. Fill those cells, make that money! And they

did. The prison population shot up from 200,000 to 2.4 MILLION! MIILLLLLIONNNN!

More than any country in the world! And who filled those cells? People of color.

More African american adults are under correctional control today than were in slaves in 1850, a decade before the civil war began.

Black men are now in prison 6 times the rate of

white men. Did black men just become 6 times more dangerous? Course not - sentencing changed.

Sweeping laws were written that specifically targeted the black communities. For instance,

the sentence for possession of crack (more common among people of color because it’s

cheaper) was 100 times harsher than the sentence for cocaine

STOP 5: Racial profiling. It wasn’t just harsher sentencing. Communities

of color are also policed more harshly

The few memory that I have with my dad as kid is seeing him be yelled and questioned by police on the streets.

When they didn't like the answers, he was giving them to the questions, they proceeded the rest of the questions......me.

policies like show me your papers and stop & frisk target people of color under the law

So shocker, they’re more likely to be arrested for the stuff that white people are also doing,

and they’re twice as likely to get pulled over. Take the late Walter Scott - pulled

over for a broken tail light in South Carolina, only to be shot in the back 5 times by a cop.

STOP 6: Police brutality. Police brutality is front and center of the

race conversation right now. Twice a week in the US, white officers kill black suspects

- most of whom are unarmed - and consequences for those crimes are minimal, if any. The

police themselves admit to the use of excessive force and rampant racial bias in departments.

So what does America do? Arm the police military supplies: tanks, protective gear, firepower

used in war - all while wagging a finger at protestors who dare to be outraged by it.

This is just the tip of the racism iceberg. We need to ask ourselves: what’s really

causing the problems that we’re observing in America? What advantages has white America

been given - often without realizing it? The first step in combatting racism (and often

the hardest) is acknowledging that the system is unfair. Racism is a powerful institution

built by 400 years of slavery, 100 years of overt discrimination, 50 plus more years of covert

discrimination. That legacy doesn’t just disappear overnight.

America, we have a lot of work to do.