Racism Facts & Figures

Racism
Overall Population
  • White -76%
  • Hispanic -18%
  • Black – 13%

Science

All human beings belong to the same species, Homo sapiens. The diversity between humans is about 0.1% (one difference per one thousand nucleotides between two humans chosen at random).

National Institute of Health


Genetic evidence indicates that all humans are descendants from a migration of people from Africa 50,000-80,000 years ago.

National Science Foundation


Cost

Racism costs the US almost $2 trillion each year. This comes in the form of bias against workers, wage discrimination, hiring discrimination, discrimination based on price, services discrimination, discrete usage discrimination and capital investment discrimination.

W.K. Kellogg Foundation


History

Most scholars agree that “race” was a recent invention and that it was essentially a folk idea, not a product of scientific research. They hold that the real meaning of “race” in American society has to do with social realities, quite distinct from physical variations in the human species.

American Association of Physical Anthropologists


In America an extreme conception of human differences attempted to legitimize the folk ideas. Some people tried to “prove” scientifically that “the Negro” was a different and lower kind of human being. The first published materials arguing from a scientific perspective that “negroes” were a separate species from white men appeared in the last decade of the eighteenth century. They argued that Negroes were either a product of degeneration from that first creation, or descendants of a separate creation altogether.

PBS


Income

Median household income:
  • White – $67,865
  • Hispanic – $46,882
  • American Indian – $39,719
  • Black – $30,555

Wealth
African-Americans have a median wealth of $13,460.
Whites have a median wealth of $142,180.

Hate Groups

There are over 900 active “hate groups” in the US – a 60% increase since 2000 — and are found in all 50 states. These include: the Ku Klux Klan, Black Separatists, Racist Skinheads, White Nationals, Neo-Nazis, Neo-Confederates, Christian Identity and Anti-LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgendered).

Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)


Neo-Nazi groups are up 22% and anti-Muslim groups rose for a 3rd straight year.

Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)


There are typically around 6,000 hate crimes every year – with about 60% of them racially motivated or related to ethnicity/national origin bias.

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)


Education

The graduation rate for Asian public school students is 90%, for Whites it’s 88%, for Hispanics it’s 78% and for Blacks it’s 75%.

National Geographic


63% of Asians ages 18-24 are enrolled in college, 42% of Whites, 37% of Asians and 35% of Blacks.

National Geographic


Employment

Typically African American workers have the highest unemployment rate, followed by Hispanic, Asian and white workers.

Wikipedia


The share of private employer sponsored retirement coverage for Whites is 57%, for Blacks it’s 50%, for Asians it’s 48% and for Hispanics it’s 34%.

National Geographic


Pay

The median hourly wage for Black and Hispanic workers with a higher education is typically less than for Whites and Asians.

U.S. Department of Labor


The majority of low-wage workers are white, but black and Hispanic workers are far more likely to be in low-wage jobs.  53% of black workers and 60% of Hispanic workers earn under $15 an hour. In some states, the numbers are more dramatic: in North Carolina for example, 75% of Hispanic workers earn under $15 an hour.

Oxfam


Black and Hispanic women earn the lowest median wages per hour of any group. Hispanic women earn slightly more than 50% of what white men earn, roughly 54 cents to the dollar and black women make 64 cents to the dollar.

Oxfam


Health

There are 4% infant deaths per birth for Asians, 5% for Whites, 5% for Hispanics and 11% for Blacks.

National Geographic


6% of Whites live without insurance, 8% of Asians, 11% of Blacks and 16% of Hispanics.

7% of adult Whites have been diagnosed with diabetes, 8% of Asians, 12% of Hispanics and 13% of Blacks.

Infant Mortality Rate
Black babies are more than twice as likely to die than white babies.

Life Expectancy
  • Asians – 87.1 years
  • Hispanics – 81.8 years
  • Whites – 78.8 years
  • Native Americans – 77.5 years
  • Blacks – 75.3 years

Poverty

Over 18 million non-white Americans live below the poverty line. There are approximately 10 million Hispanics in poverty, 8 million African Americans, and 600,000 Native Americans in poverty. As a percentage of the population, 23% Native Americans lives in poverty — the highest percentage of any group.

Talk Poverty


12% of Asian children live in poverty, 12% of White children live in poverty, 32% of Hispanic children live in poverty and 38% of Black children live in poverty.

National Geographic


Housing

The home ownership rate for Whites is 72%, for Asians it’s 55%, for Hispanics it’s 46% and for Blacks it’s 42%.

National Geographic


Law Enforcement

Just 3% of “stop-and-frisk” encounters produce evidence of a crime.

Washington Post


Black drivers are about 30% more likely to be pulled over than White drivers. Black drivers are also more likely to be pulled over for alleged mechanical or equipment problems with their automobiles, or for record checks. Black drivers are also less likely to be told why they were pulled over.

U.S. Justice Department


Even though Whites are more likely to be found with illicit drugs, Black and Latino drivers are more likely to be searched once they have been pulled over. About 2% of White motorists are searched, compared to 6% of Black drivers and 7% of Latinos.

U.S. Justice Department


Based on footage captured by police-body cameras, officers speak with consistently less respect toward Black versus White community members, even after controlling for the race of the officer, the severity of the infraction, the location of the stop, and the outcome of the stop.

National Academy of Sciences


The Black arrest rate is 2 times as high as the White arrest rate for disorderly conduct, drug possession, simple assault, theft, vagrancy, and vandalism. The Black arrest rate for prostitution is almost 5 times higher than the White arrest rate, and the Black arrest rate for gambling is almost 10 times higher.

Boston University Law Review


Even though both Whites and Blacks use marijuana at similar rates, Black people are more than times more likely to be arrested for marijuana offenses than Whites.

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)


A majority of the motorists who had property confiscated by the police were nonwhite.

The Washington Post


Over 1,000 people have died after being shocked by police with a Taser. At least 32% of those were Black.

Equal Justice Initiative (EJI)


Black men are about 2.5 times more likely than White men to be killed by police, and Black men have a 1-in-1,000 chance of dying at the hands of police. Black women are 1.4 more times likely to be killed than White women. Latino men are 1.3 times more likely to be killed than White men.

National Academy of Sciences


31% of people killed by police are Black and 52% are white.

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)


People with more police contact report more trauma and anxiety symptoms. These associations are tied to how many stops they report, the intrusiveness of the encounters, and their perceptions of police fairness. Overall, the burden of police contact falls predominantly on young Black and Latino males.

National Center for Biotechnology Information


Criminal Justice System

In the U.S., black people make up 13% of the total population but constitute 34% of incarcerated individuals.

NAACP


White people make up 64% of the total populations but represent 32% of those incarcerated.

U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics


African Americans are incarcerated at more than times the rate of whites.

NAACP


The imprisonment rate for African American women is twice that of white women.

NAACP


Nationwide, African American children represent 32% of children who are arrested, 42% of children who are detained, and 52% cases that are waived to criminal court.


1 in every 10 black men in his thirties in prison or jail on any given day.

The Sentencing Project


Native American youth are 3 times as likely as white youth to be held in a juvenile detention facility.

The Sentencing Project


Despite similar rates of illicit drug usage, black people are more than 13 times more likely than white people to be jailed on drug charges.

Capital Punishment
Approximately 42% of those on death row in the United States are black.
Of the executions that have occurred since 1976:
  • 55% were Whites
  • 34% were Black
  • 8% were Latino

When the defendant was white and the victim black, 21 people were executed, but when the defendant was black and the victim white, 295 people were executed.

Death Penalty Information Center


Crime Victims

In the past decade, nearly 26,000 murders have gone unsolved in major American cities. Of those, more than 18,600 or almost 75%, were black.

The Washington Post


Harassment

38% of Latinos report that they have experienced harassment and prejudice because of their background. These have included:
  • Discrimination or unfair treatment – 24%
  • Criticized for speaking Spanish in public – 22%
  • Told to go back to their home country – 20%
  • Called offensive names – 16%

Pew Research Center


Voting

1 in 13 African Americans of voting age is disenfranchised, a rate more than 4 times greater than that of non-African Americans. Over 7% of the adult African American population is disenfranchised compared to 2% of the non-African American population.

9 states may impose a lifetime ban on voting by felons. They are: Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee and Wyoming.

 ProCon