TWO AMERICAS.

• Author: Bubar, Joe
• Position: Cover story

The kind of world you grow up and live in is still too often determined by your race. A look at inequality in five key areas of American life. BY

RACE in AMERICA

This year, Upfront is publishing a series of articles highlighting racism in the U.S. and efforts to combat it.

Recent events have shone a spotlight on racial inequality in American society. The protests following the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other Black Americans, have highlighted the racial discrimination that persists in policing and the criminal justice system. And the COVID-19 pandemic has called attention to enormous racial disparities in wealth and access to guality health care.

Together, these historic events have sparked national discussions about the ways in which many Black and white Americans continue to live in two different--and very unequal--worlds.

"Every one of our systems in America has been impacted--infected, in fact--in some significant way by these racial disparities and these racial inequalities," says Yohuru Williams, a civil rights scholar at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Many experts point out that these inequalities are rooted in systemic racism. Systemic racism refers to laws, customs, and practices built into society over time that have disadvantaged people of color. Even though many of these laws have changed, their effects can still be felt.

Here's a look at five ways that racial inequality persists in American life--and how Black Americans have persevered in the face of this inequality for centuries.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE

As highlighted by the protests this summer, there are longstanding inequalities in policing. Federal statistics show that, nationwide, Black drivers are 31 percent more likely to be pulled over than white drivers for minor infractions, such as speeding. And a recent study by researchers at Northeastern University and Harvard University found that Black people are three times as likely as white people to be shot and killed by the police during interactions where the victim appears to pose little or no threat to officers.

Research also shows that Black and Latinx people are more likely than white people to be arrested, convicted, and given longer sentences for similar offenses. Experts say that's a big reason why Black and Latinx Americans are imprisoned at disproportionate rates. They make up 56 percent of the incarcerated population, despite accounting for only 32 percent of the U.S. population.

Racist sentencing policies have also contributed to high numbers of Black and Latinx people in prison. For example, the U.S. prison population exploded in the 1980s, when President Ronald Reagan declared a "war...