presentation for racism

Talks to help you understand racism in America

From passionate pleas for reform to poetic turns of phrase, these talks take an honest look at everyday realities of Black Americans and illuminate the way forward.

The path to ending systemic racism in the US

The urgency of intersectionality

Color blind or color brave?

How we can make racism a solvable problem -- and improve policing

Racism has a cost for everyone

An interview with the founders of Black Lives Matter

How racism makes us sick

How to deconstruct racism, one headline at a time

How to raise a Black son in America

The danger of a single story

My road trip through the whitest towns in America

25 Questions to Begin a Conversation About Racism

Talking about racism is difficult. these questions may help..

Posted March 16, 2021 | Reviewed by Jessica Schrader

Racial relations have been fraught since 1619 with the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in America. In recent years, a heightened awareness around racial justice has led to discussions around matters such as inequities in nearly every aspect of society, from income and wealth to schools and health. Recently Georgetown University, which once kept itself solvent by selling slaves, has pledged to raise millions of dollars in the form of restitution to be distributed to organizations dedicated to racial justice.

Black Lives Matter brought home the outrage of Black people’s relation to law enforcement, encounters which frequently lead to everyday humiliations and can and often do turn dangerous and deadly.

The entertainment and business communities have acknowledged the ways in which people of color have been systematically excluded from positions of influence and power, while educational institutions try to deal with the lack of diversity and the inadequate and often inaccurate portrayal of racial history in the nation.

With the ongoing injustices and inequities of racial matters in mind, I’ve created a series of questions to facilitate a dialogue around numerous difficult and often ambiguous situations. Although these vignettes are presented in a binary fashion, they are meant to open the doors to discussion, insight, education , personal growth, and action. They were written as rhetorical or leading. I don’t have right answers in mind.

Most illustrations are taken from real-life situations where all that is known publicly is what has been reported by the media.

The questions are best approached with an open mind and probably work best in small, diverse groups.

The questions weren’t created to convince anyone of a correct position but rather to explore the ways in which everyone continues to be hobbled by a vicious past.

Even broaching the questions I’ve posed potentially opens me up to the charge of being a white racist. If that’s the case, I welcome a discussion where all parties are respectful of one another and where each person acknowledges that no one has all the answers and that everyone has something to learn.

There are many paths to change. This may be one of them.

1. A white person lives in a community that is more than 50% African American. Is this non-racist if the average cost of a house is $1 million-plus?

2. A white student attends an elite HBCU where tuition is about $50,000 per year. Is the student anti-racist?

3. A white student attends a college with very few Black students but joins the Black Student Union. Is he being anti-racist?

4. A person donates 10 percent of her income to charitable causes, for example, National Public Radio, Green Peace, the local food pantry, her church, Amnesty International and the Human Rights Campaign. Should she divert some of her contributions to an organization devoted exclusively to a Black cause?

5. If a white person volunteers for Latino justice, does this qualify as anti-racist?

6. If a person patronizes Chinese, Mexican, and Mediterranean restaurants, where there is rarely a Black customer, should she consider eating elsewhere?

7. A person is committed to buying locally but none of the shops are Black-owned. Should she consider traveling elsewhere to shop?

8. Is it anti-racist to read books that examine racism if the books are written by white people?

9. If a white person attends folk music concerts but not concerts by Black performers, is she being racist?

10. Is a white person who acknowledges systemic racism but believes that racism is best addressed by changing individuals’ attitudes and behavior racist?

11. If a white person’s hair is naturally curly, is it racist to wear it as an Afro or in dreads?

12. If a Black and a white candidate are running against each other and the Black candidate admires Clarence Thomas and other Black conservatives while the white candidate is a liberal (and there are no other choices), what should a white person do in this election?

13. If a white person chooses to move to a Black neighborhood knowing that this could be the beginning of gentrification, is this racist?

14. Is it racist if a white person seeks out a Black person to befriend?

15. A physician rarely sees a person of color or has professional affiliations with persons of color because she specializes in Tay-Sachs disease, which affects mainly people of Jewish ancestry. Is her practice racist?

16. In the classroom of a white teacher who supports BLM and also believes in open discussions, two white students get into a debate about Black Lives Matter vs. all lives matter. Is she racist if she doesn’t state her opinion?

17. A white student rejects her local high school, which has many Black students, to attend a public school that is dedicated to his interest in science that has very few Blacks but many Asians. Is he racist?

18. If a wealthy Black person makes indisputably demeaning and disparaging remarks to a white delivery man who responds in kind, is it racist for a white person to sympathize with the worker?

19. Is it racist or anti-racist for a lawyer to quote verbatim before the jury and public the racist language used by a defendant?

20. A woman walking alone on a deserted street sees a group of young Black men on the sidewalk and continues after crossing to the other side of the street. Does her race determine whether the action is racist?

21. Is it racist for a white returned Peace Corps Volunteer, who lived three years in Africa, to wear Kente cloth dress?

22. A podcast series is dropped because the white host once opposed the formation of a union that was widely supported by Black workers. Several of the writers and directors of the podcast are people of color who have also lost their jobs as ‘collateral damage.’ Were those who canceled the podcast anti-racist or racist?

23. After hearing Mavis Staples and other Black singers’ rendition of Stephen Foster’s "Hard Times," a white entertainer covered the song. Was she racist for doing so because much of Foster’s 19th music was written for and performed in minstrel shows, although this particular song was not?

24. Is it racist for a white person to laugh at the jokes of a Black comedian whose performance, which is before a Black audience, centers around poking fun at the foibles of Black people?

25. A series of meetings “intended to give white people a space to learn about and process their awareness of and complicity in unjust systems without harming their friends of color” is for white people only. Is the program racist?

Arthur Dobrin, DSW, is Professor Emeritus of University Studies, Hofstra University and Leader Emeritus, Ethical Humanist Society of Long Island. He is the author of more than 25 books, including The Lost Art of Happiness and Teaching Right from Wrong .

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Race Matters: PowerPoint Presentation

Racial inequities are deeply embedded in our social policies and practices. Looking behind the policies to the outcomes for white vs. ethnic families and workers sheds light on the importance of these issues. Reframing the conversation through the Race Matters Toolkit can transform our view and the results. This presentation shows how to use the toolkit effectively. For more information visit the Race Matters Institute website.

Statements & Quotations

Because racial inequities are deeply embedded and are readily reinforced by dominant ways of viewing people and issues, there is no guarantee that good people with good intentions will necessarily produce good results.

Disparities are often created and maintained inadvertently through policies and practices that contain barriers to opportunity.

Key Takeaway

Defining racial inequalities.

Being classified as black, Asian, Native American or Latino has never carried the same advantages as being classified as white. Given the right message, analysis and tools, people will work toward racial equity.

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Fighting racism is everyone's responsibility. To do so, the most important thing is to educate from childhood on respect for all people, regardless of their skin color, sex, religion, etc. With this newsletter proposal you can help to raise awareness about this issue. It has an elegant brown design and illustrations of people of different origins. The serif typography of the titles contrasts very well with the sans serif of the texts. Download this template now and do your bit for the cause.

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Talking About Race and Racism

Teaching 'the new jim crow' lesson 1: talking about race and racism, essential question.

• What do I need to participate in an open and honest conversation about the content of The New Jim Crow?
• Effective instruction about The New Jim Crow requires advanced preparation for how to talk about race and racism.   
• Students will reflect on their own comfort level when talking about race.
• Students will distinguish between intent and impact and reflect on what it means in the context of class discussions about The New Jim Crow.
• Students will describe how stereotypes inform our implicit biases and how implicit bias impacts our interactions.  
• Students will establish norms and learn strategies for having open and honest conversations about the content of The New Jim Crow .

Tier II and III Vocabulary

• colorblindness 
• mass incarceration            
• stereotype               

Write the prompts (below) on the board, and allow students time to quietly and independently respond in writing. If you have a journal procedure, use it here. Allow time for sharing and discussion.

On a scale of 0-5, how comfortable are you talking about race? Explain.   On a scale of 0-5, how comfortable are you talking about racism? Explain.

0 = I would rather not talk about race/racism. 1 = I am very uncomfortable talking about race/racism. 2 = I am usually uncomfortable talking about race/racism. 3 = I am sometimes uncomfortable talking about race/racism. 4 = I am usually comfortable talking about race/racism. 5 = I am very comfortable talking about race/racism.

Chalk Talk  

Introduce students to frequently used terms in The New Jim Crow . Use this activity to assess their prior knowledge, familiarity and attitudes toward the words and their connotations.

• Write each of the Tier II and III vocabulary words listed at the top of this lesson on a piece of chart paper. Hang the chart papers around the classroom.
• Distribute students evenly at each chart paper. Provide each student with a marker; if possible, use the same color. 
• Tell students they will have two minutes to comment on the term by writing their knowledge, beliefs or questions on the poster. Emphasize that there are no right or wrong responses and that they will have the opportunity to learn more and discuss these terms in future lessons. This is a completely silent activity. If they wish to react or respond to what one of their peers has written, they may do so by drawing an arrow and responding in writing. 
• After two minutes, have students rotate to the chart paper on their right. 
• Repeat steps three and four until each student has commented on each term.
• Allow some time for students to circle back through the chart papers and notice what they, as a class, have “said.” 
• Explain to students that over the next several lessons they will be reading about and discussing a host of race-related facts and myths and directly discussing issues of racism in the United States. Each of the terms they see around the room will be important in those conversations and continued to be defined and debated.
• Tell students that it is important to discuss certain things as a classroom community before starting the lessons to ensure that there is as much comfort as possible when talking about race and racism. Remind them that talking about race and racism will never feel comfortable for all people and that, in some places, everyone may not be completely safe. But your goal as their teacher is to create a classroom community of respect and support. To that end, share any insights and tools with them that you found helpful from the activities in “Preparing to Teach The New Jim Crow .”

Our Words: Intent vs. Impact

• Ask the class: “Have you ever been hurt by something someone said or did and when that person finds out they’ve hurt you, their response is ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you?’” Have students share examples. 
• Explain the difference between the intent of our words and the impact of our words. Go back to the examples shared in step one, and ask students to compare the intent and the impact of words used in those situations.
• Tell students that when we talk about racial issues, such as those that will be raised in The New Jim Crow , the way we say things to classmates can matter as much, or more, than what we mean.
• Have student volunteers read the scenario below, as you pause to ask questions along the way.
• Explain that in sensitive and difficult conversations we have to be mindful of the impact our words will have on others. We also have to be understanding of the fact that the way another person’s words make us feel may not be what they intended. 

Apple: Wow, Basil! I’m so impressed with your presentation. You’re so smart! Every time you present, I can’t believe you’re a product of public schools.

Pause (ask students): What is Apple’s intent? What does she want to convey to Basil?

Basil: [to his peer, Luisa] I can’t believe Apple would say that. I love my school! I love this city. She is so insensitive and judgmental. She should know better. I can’t stand to be around her anymore.

Pause (ask students): What is the impact of Apple’ s comment on Basil?

Luisa: [to another peer, Jett] Did you hear what Apple said to Basil? He is so offended. Which is too bad—they were good friends. I don’t think Apple meant to be insensitive.  

Jett: [to a new student, Leila] Everyone here is pretty cool, except for Apple. Avoid her at all costs!

Pause (ask students): What are the ramifications of Apple’s initial comment? What is the relationship between intent and impact?

Debrief with a Talking Circle 

• Gather in a circle. Locate the talking piece or, if this is the first time doing a Talking Circle, choose a talking piece. 
• Pose a question or raise a topic and then pass the talking piece around the Circle moving clockwise. Students can pass if they want. Remember, only the student holding the talking piece can speak. Others listen. 

The following are some suggested questions for reflection and debriefing at this point in the lesson:

• Let’s talk a little about our warm-up questions. How comfortable are you talking about race? Say more about that.
• What are your feelings about the eight words hanging up in our classroom?  
• What did you take away from our discussion of impact versus intent of our words?  
• How are you feeling at this point? Is there anything you would like to share?  

Implicit Bias and Stereotypes

• Explain that, in The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander addresses stereotypes that are untrue, offensive and hurtful. These ideas exist in the world and in our heads even if we don’t want them to. Stereotypes can cause deep harm even if nobody actively “intends” that harm. In order to expose stereotypes and to explore how they shape our interactions with others despite our best intentions, we first have to acknowledge their existence. Our question as a class community is, how do we challenge these false assumptions together?
• Provide students with the definition of stereotype : an exaggerated belief, image or distorted truth about a group or person—a generalization that allows for little or no individual differences or social variation. Stereotypes are based on images in mass media or reputations passed on by parents, peers and other members of society. Stereotypes can be positive or negative but are always harmful. 
• African American/Black
• European American/White
• Hawaiian/ Pacific Islander
• Hispanic/Latino/Chicano
• Middle Eastern/Arab
• Native American
• Have students unpack stereotypes they have been taught, been told or believe about these racial and ethnic groups. Students do not have to identify if they believe the stereotype or where they learned it. 
• have a whole group discussion where students take turns reporting as you write a list of stereotypes on the board.
• have students write each of their examples on sticky notes. Collect and read the examples out loud and/or post them on the board next to the list.
• provide students with adhesive dots and have them mark next to the statements/stereotypes that they, too, have been taught, told or believe. This should be done in silence. The idea is to gain a sense of which stereotypes are most pervasive and dominant in your particular classroom community.
• Explain that stereotypes such as these are sometimes expressed in racist jokes, slurs and images or through actions such as blatant discrimination or even violent hate crimes. Today, these overt and explicit kinds of racism are widely frowned upon and considered unacceptable. Most people would say they consciously reject racist attitudes and behavior. 
• Stereotypes, however, can influence our attitudes and behavior in ways that we are unconscious of. Explain this is the idea of i mplicit bias : stereotypes or biases against groups of people that may be in our heads even though we do not want them to be. Provide more definition and description of implicit bias, such as this discussion from the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity: “Also known as implicit social cognition, implicit bias refers to the attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner. These biases, which encompass both favorable and unfavorable assessments, are activated involuntarily and without an individual’s awareness or intentional control. Residing deep in the subconscious, these biases are different from known biases that individuals may choose to conceal for the purposes of social and/or political correctness. Rather, implicit biases are not accessible through introspection. The implicit associations we harbor in our subconscious cause us to have feelings and attitudes about other people based on characteristics such as race, ethnicity, age, and appearance. These associations develop over the course of a lifetime beginning at a very early age through exposure to direct and indirect messages. In addition to early life experiences, the media and news programming are often-cited origins of implicit associations.” — The Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity
• A doctor doesn’t ask his Latina patient if she has any questions.
• A teacher assigns her only Asian student to tutor other students.
• An employer places the resumes of applicants with Arabic-sounding names at the bottom of the stack.
• A woman who clutches her purse when a black man enters the elevator.
• What is/are the implicit bias(es) at work in the scenario?
• Would most people consider the interactions in these scenarios as racist? How could you prove it to someone?
• Is it possible that the doctor, teacher, employer and woman on the elevator are unaware of their biases? Could they even hold antiracist views on a conscious level in their everyday lives?
• Do you think we all have implicit biases? What are some implicit biases you and/or your classmates might hold? How could this impact your conversations about race?
• Why were the responses so different?
• Do you think the passersby were racist? Did they hold stereotypes? Implicit biases? 
• What would you have done?
• Conclude by showing this short video clip about selective attention. The clip illustrates that we tend to see only what we’re primed to see. In this case, we are primed to count the number of passes and completely miss the gorilla! Stereotypes operate in a similar way in forming implicit biases. Stereotypes can operate as primers and prevent us from accurately perceiving situations and people. What does it mean that our perception can be so easily fooled? In the scenarios above, what were the doctor, teacher, employer and woman on the elevator primed to see? How about the passersby at the park? In each case, what might they fail to see or understand as a result of their implicit biases?

Establishing Rules and Norms

• debrief with them or allow them time to reflect on their own (e.g., talking circles and journaling).
• check in with them throughout the lesson to see how they are feeling and doing (e.g., fist-to-five).
• encourage them to ask for a pause when they are feeling strong emotions that prevent them from moving forward (e.g., stoplight).
• introduce them to methods for communicating through strong emotions (e.g., RCRC).
• Gather in a Talking Circle. Locate the talking piece. Pose the question, “What do you need from your classmates and teacher to have an open and honest dialogue about the information we will encounter in  The New Jim Crow ?” Pass the talking piece around the Circle moving clockwise. Remember, only the student holding the talking piece can speak. Others listen.
• After the Talking Circle, draft rules and norms that everyone will adhere to as you embark upon this lesson series. Where possible, try to relate the discussion back to existing classroom rules.

Exit Ticket

Have students write a letter to themselves in which they discuss their fears and hopes for talking about The New Jim Crow with their teacher and classmates. What are they thinking that wasn’t said today in class? What do they know that others might not? What do they want to learn? What do they want to share?

Guarantee that you will not read or share their letters. Provide them with envelopes that they can seal.

Have students open their letters at the end of this lesson series and give them the opportunity to write a postscript, sharing what they have learned and how they may have changed since they first wrote the letter.  

Return to  Teaching The New Jim Crow  | Proceed to Lesson 2 - Introducing The New Jim Crow

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What to do about mental health crisis among black males.

During the daylong “Black Men and Mental Health” symposium, Bryan Bonaparte discussed the church’s role.

Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer

Nikki Rojas

Harvard Staff Writer

Symposium examines thorny, multifaceted dilemma from systemic racism in policing, healthcare to stigma attached to psychotherapy in community

Amid a mental health crisis affecting both younger and adult Black males, the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research held a daylong symposium on May 13 to have critical conversations untangling the complexities of the problem and examining potential solutions.

According to the National Institute of Minority Health and Health disparities, Black men are four times likelier to die by suicide than Black women. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry has seen a 60 percent rise in suicide rates among Black boys over the past two decades.

“While we see a significant rise in our young people experiencing feelings of sadness, anxiety, anger, or hopelessness, we know that young people of color are having an even harder time compared to their peers,” Boston Mayor Michelle Wu ’07, J.D. ’12, said in a video message as part of the opening ceremonies. “Black boys and Black men face the additional challenges of stigma and systemic racism so entrenched that it affects the quality of mental health care they receive.”

Michael Rain , a joint fellow at the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics and the Hutchins Center, said often these issues are “compounded and diluted, leading to a lack of solutions that address our particular needs.”

In various sessions, panelists discussed issues including the impact of “the talk” many Black parents have with their children on how best to safely deal with interactions with police to the stigmatization of psychotherapy in the Black community. Nearly 54 million U.S. residents age 16 or older had police contact in 2020, with Black people accounting for 18 percent.

“We are committed to ensuring that the mental health of Black men and boys is not only a conversation, but it’s at the forefront of the work that we are pursuing.” Frank Farrow, Mayor’s Office of Black Male Advancement

Some speakers debated the role religion plays in tackling mental health issues, with some saying that God and not therapy allowed them to overcome their traumatic experiences. Participants at a session on psychotherapy, however, pushed back on the notion of religion as a cure-all to mental health challenges.

“I was raised Christian, but I see that the church — in whatever way you want to describe it — can be a stick to beat yourself with,” Bryan Bonaparte, a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Westminster, argued. “If you’re not doing things in the way that the church wants you to, or you think the church wants you to, then there’s no other way.”  

He continued: “Just go and pray is often the response that you get. Do not go and seek someone that has a medical degree, because you’re not going to get your answers from a book. You’re going to get your answers from up there.”

Psychologist Martin Pierre noted that Black men should be allowed to not only identify and feel their emotions, but to make connections and relationships that will allow them to cope with the stresses of being a Black American. He also called for a more culturally responsive approach to mental health issues in the Black community.

“Black Men and Mental Health” was the brainchild of the Rev. Professor Keith Magee from the University College London’s Black Britain and Beyond think tank. Magee planned the conference with Hutchins Center director Henry Louis Gates Jr. after receiving thousands of responses from Black men and those who care about Black men about his CNN op-ed . The city of Boston also partnered in the event.

“It’s an honor for us to convene this symposium, which is providing a vital public service by giving voice to the complex, often difficult, yet crucially important set of issues surrounding Black men and mental health at a time in our country that can only be described as gruesome,” said Gates, who is also the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor.

Attendees pushed panelists and organizers to continue these conversations and encourage policy changes that will help Black men and boys on local and national levels. In response, former Democratic U.S. Representative Kendrick Meek from Florida promised to use his connections to make positive change.

Earlier in the day, Frank Farrow, executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Black Male Advancement in Boston, had also noted the importance of retaining focus on marshaling resources and finding solutions.

“We are committed to ensuring that the mental health of Black men and boys is not only a conversation, but it’s at the forefront of the work that we are pursuing,” Farrow said. “We know that Black men and boys face deep inequities, disparities, and we want to make sure that we’re leading and that our voice is at the forefront.”

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Guest Essay

It’s Time to End the Quiet Cruelty of Property Taxes

By Andrew W. Kahrl

Dr. Kahrl is a professor of history and African American studies at the University of Virginia and the author of “The Black Tax: 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America.”

Property taxes, the lifeblood of local governments and school districts, are among the most powerful and stealthy engines of racism and wealth inequality our nation has ever produced. And while the Biden administration has offered many solutions for making the tax code fairer, it has yet to effectively tackle a problem that has resulted not only in the extraordinary overtaxation of Black and Latino homeowners but also in the worsening of disparities between wealthy and poorer communities. Fixing these problems requires nothing short of a fundamental re-examination of how taxes are distributed.

In theory, the property tax would seem to be an eminently fair one: The higher the value of your property, the more you pay. The problem with this system is that the tax is administered by local officials who enjoy a remarkable degree of autonomy and that tax rates are typically based on the collective wealth of a given community. This results in wealthy communities enjoying lower effective tax rates while generating more tax revenues; at the same time, poorer ones are forced to tax property at higher effective rates while generating less in return. As such, property assessments have been manipulated throughout our nation’s history to ensure that valuable property is taxed the least relative to its worth and that the wealthiest places will always have more resources than poorer ones.

Black people have paid the heaviest cost. Since they began acquiring property after emancipation, African Americans have been overtaxed by local governments. By the early 1900s, an acre of Black-owned land was valued, for tax purposes, higher than an acre of white-owned land in most of Virginia’s counties, according to my calculations, despite being worth about half as much. And for all the taxes Black people paid, they got little to nothing in return. Where Black neighborhoods began, paved streets, sidewalks and water and sewer lines often ended. Black taxpayers helped to pay for the better-resourced schools white children attended. Even as white supremacists treated “colored” schools as another of the white man’s burdens, the truth was that throughout the Jim Crow era, Black taxpayers subsidized white education.

Freedom from these kleptocratic regimes drove millions of African Americans to move to Northern and Midwestern states in the Great Migration from 1915 to 1970, but they were unable to escape racist assessments, which encompassed both the undervaluation of their property for sales purposes and the overvaluation of their property for taxation purposes. During those years, the nation’s real estate industry made white-owned property in white neighborhoods worth more because it was white. Since local tax revenue was tied to local real estate markets, newly formed suburbs had a fiscal incentive to exclude Black people, and cities had even more reason to keep Black people confined to urban ghettos.

As the postwar metropolis became a patchwork of local governments, each with its own tax base, the fiscal rationale for segregation intensified. Cities were fiscally incentivized to cater to the interests of white homeowners and provide better services for white neighborhoods, especially as middle-class white people began streaming into the suburbs, taking their tax dollars with them.

One way to cater to wealthy and white homeowners’ interests is to intentionally conduct property assessments less often. The city of Boston did not conduct a citywide property reassessment between 1946 and 1977. Over that time, the values of properties in Black neighborhoods increased slowly when compared with the values in white neighborhoods or even fell, which led to property owners’ paying relatively more in taxes than their homes were worth. At the same time, owners of properties in white neighborhoods got an increasingly good tax deal as their neighborhoods increased in value.

As was the case in other American cities, Boston’s decision most likely derived from the fear that any updates would hasten the exodus of white homeowners and businesses to the suburbs. By the 1960s, assessments on residential properties in Boston’s poor neighborhoods were up to one and a half times as great as their actual values, while assessments in the city’s more affluent neighborhoods were, on average, 40 percent of market value.

Jersey City, N.J., did not conduct a citywide real estate reassessment between 1988 and 2018 as part of a larger strategy for promoting high-end real estate development. During that time, real estate prices along the city’s waterfront soared but their owners’ tax bills remained relatively steady. By 2015, a home in one of the city’s Black and Latino neighborhoods worth $175,000 received the same tax bill as a home in the city’s downtown worth $530,000.

These are hardly exceptions. Numerous studies conducted during those years found that assessments in predominantly Black neighborhoods of U.S. cities were grossly higher relative to value than those in white areas.

These problems persist. A recent report by the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy found that property assessments were regressive (meaning lower-valued properties were assessed higher relative to value than higher-valued ones) in 97.7 percent of U.S. counties. Black-owned homes and properties in Black neighborhoods continue to be devalued on the open market, making this regressive tax, in effect, a racist tax.

The overtaxation of Black homes and neighborhoods is also a symptom of a much larger problem in America’s federated fiscal structure. By design, this system produces winners and losers: localities with ample resources to provide the goods and services that we as a nation have entrusted to local governments and others that struggle to keep the lights on, the streets paved, the schools open and drinking water safe . Worse yet, it compels any fiscally disadvantaged locality seeking to improve its fortunes to do so by showering businesses and corporations with tax breaks and subsidies while cutting services and shifting tax burdens onto the poor and disadvantaged. A local tax on local real estate places Black people and cities with large Black populations at a permanent disadvantage. More than that, it gives middle-class white people strong incentives to preserve their relative advantages, fueling the zero-sum politics that keep Americans divided, accelerates the upward redistribution of wealth and impoverishes us all.

There are technical solutions. One, which requires local governments to adopt more accurate assessment models and regularly update assessment rolls, can help make property taxes fairer. But none of the proposed reforms being discussed can be applied nationally because local tax policies are the prerogative of the states and, often, local governments themselves. Given the variety and complexity of state and local property tax laws and procedures and how much local governments continue to rely on tax reductions and tax shifting to attract and retain certain people and businesses, we cannot expect them to fix these problems on their own.

The best way to make local property taxes fairer and more equitable is to make them less important. The federal government can do this by reinvesting in our cities, counties and school districts through a federal fiscal equity program, like those found in other advanced federated nations. Canada, Germany and Australia, among others, direct federal funds to lower units of government with lower capacities to raise revenue.

And what better way to pay for the program than to tap our wealthiest, who have benefited from our unjust taxation scheme for so long? President Biden is calling for a 25 percent tax on the incomes and annual increases in the values of the holdings of people claiming more than $100 million in assets, but we could accomplish far more by enacting a wealth tax on the 1 percent. Even a modest 4 percent wealth tax on people whose total assets exceed $50 million could generate upward of $400 billion in additional annual revenue, which should be more than enough to ensure that the needs of every city, county and public school system in America are met. By ensuring that localities have the resources they need, we can counteract the unequal outcomes and rank injustices that our current system generates.

Andrew W. Kahrl is a professor of history and African American studies at the University of Virginia and the author of “ The Black Tax : 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America.”

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

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Victoria Police presentation on youth crime criticised for 'racist' focus on 'African gangs'

The first email landed just after 1:30pm on the final day of May last year.

"I want to provide the feedback that the language, tone, and imagery of the second presentation this morning was very racist," it read.

"I assume formal feedback will be provided to Victoria Police but wanted to flag my concerns."

The internal email from Victoria's justice department was about a recent presentation by police, which had been pitched as a "really impactful" look at the youth gang landscape in Victoria. In the aftermath, attendees complained they should have been warned beforehand they would see "someone get stabbed to death".

Warning: This story contains references to racial slurs.

The presentation followed a three-day conference on gangs which had attracted law enforcement officers from America, England, Italy and New Zealand.

Dozens of public servants from the Department of Justice and some from the premier's department had been invited to take part.

The two-and-a-half-hour session started well, with police staff outlining details of the state's 47 youth gangs and 607 known members and their approach to disrupting them.

But the second half left staff "disturbed", "upset" and "extremely affected", according to more than 200 pages of internal departmental documents obtained by the ABC under Freedom of Information laws.

Police later apologised for the presentation, but denied it was racist.

'Very graphic and violent footage'

The day before the presentation, an email went out warning that Victoria Police had advised there would be "graphic footage that some attendees may find confronting" and that people might want to "excuse themselves" if they found it distressing.

In the aftermath, multiple staff said the warning was insufficient for what was shown.

One staff member said to put it "bluntly", police "should have said, 'We are about to show you someone get stabbed to death.'"

Victoria Police told the ABC its warnings gave people "ample opportunity" to leave the presentation.

Internal emails from the justice department said "explicit videos and even CCTV footage of a murder was shown", along with "very graphic and violent footage" from a "range of serious violent incidents including stabbings and still images involving young people and adults allegedly involved both as victims and perpetrators".

On eight separate occasions in the documents, the word "gratuitous" is used to describe the graphic content shown.

In one person's handwritten notes from the session, they questioned why they were watching a murder. The attendee wrote: "Unclear purpose of showing [this] video is." 

Among the audience were people who knew both victims and offenders.

"Some of those in attendance are also members of our vibrant African and South Sudanese Australian communities, including those who personally knew the victims of serious assaults and who were shown video in the presentation of these assaults," one email said.

While several people acknowledged the "traumatic experiences" officers faced, and the need for policy makers to "understand the practical and operational realities" of frontline police work, they didn't think the presentation helped achieve this.

One person commented they were "disturbed" by "the casual way the violent imagery was discussed" and another said the commentary was "upsetting … flippant, and racist in several points."

It is unclear how many of the attendees complained based on the consolidated feedback provided in the emails, but the secretary of the department described it as "significant staff concerns".

Victoria Police says it received "a combination of both positive and negative feedback" following the presentation.

'Utterance of racial slurs' and a focus on 'African gangs'

It wasn't just the graphic videos and photos that left people "disturbed".

Department emails said the second presentation "focused almost exclusively on offending by African background Australian young people and adults", without "any explanation or evidence as to why".

Attendees contrasted that with the first presentation delivered during the same session, which also referenced Caucasian and Afghan-Australian offenders.

One attendee recalled a slide in the second presentation that featured pictures of two young men of African background handcuffed on the ground.

"The presenter went on to say that one of these men had been found to not be involved in the incident at all," they said. "I question why the image of this person's face was kept in the presentation."

Multiple attendees complained that the presenter referred to a 13-year-old as an "offender for life", laughed "inappropriately" when identifying people in prison, made comments "trivialising family violence", and used the 'n-word'.

The slur was reportedly used by the presenter when reading a social media post that wasn't on the screen, "meaning there was a deliberate decision to use that word which would otherwise not have been seen/heard by the audience," one attendee said.

One staff member's notes of the presentation said, "'n-word'… completely gratuitous" and the photos were "all POC [people of colour], no blurred faces" including one of a "bloody wound to face" and one of someone "in a pool of blood".

Police said, "with hindsight" it accepted that "reading out social media posts from gang members containing certain words may have been offensive to a number of individuals and this was not our intent."

Members of the department's South Sudanese Australian Youth Justice Expert Working Group, who were at the session, said the "utterance of racial slurs" needed to be denounced and that the focus on people of African background should be "called out as racist or, at the very least, noted that it was received as racism by many members of the audience".

The Department of Justice refused a request from the ABC to speak with the chair of the working group.

That the presentation was "solely focused on African gangs" was raised during the session, according to one person who emailed their managers.

"One person posted a question asking whether 'youth gangs is an African young people issue only or was this presentation designed to focus on one group.' This question was not answered," another attendee wrote. 

Another person's notes of the session disagreed, they said the presenter acknowledged white gang members, but said "memberships of non-Caucasians is over represented".

A third person said it "bordered on racial profiling" and lamented a lack of awareness "that ethnicity is not the true common denominator".

"We expect that the longer‐term corporate memory of Victoria Police provides ample evidence that the common denominator is poverty, marginalisation, pre‐existing trauma and/or cultural barriers," they wrote. "Accordingly, it is not a surprise that offending may be temporarily elevated amongst ethnic groups associated with recent mass migration trends."

Victoria's Crime Statistics Agency data shows the number of offenders under 24 who were born in Sudan and South Sudan has fallen in the past few years, from 508 in 2020/21 to 258 in 2022/23.

That's compared to the 13,973 youth offenders who were born in Australia.

However, nearly 18 per cent of youth offenders did not have their country of birth recorded, and data on the  ethnic identity of known offenders is not available .

The new chair of the South Sudanese Community Association in Victoria, Andrew Ohide, said he could not comment on the presentation but that it was difficult for young people who were unfairly judged by police or members of the public when they were with a group of friends, saying it was "rubbish" and "not helpful".

"For a community to be safe, we need to look to each other and see all of us as Australian," he said.

He said if people did the wrong thing, he expected police to act, but he worried the public and the media often focused on offenders from an African background.

"When they're [involved in] positive things, you call them Australian, but when they cause any minor problem, now — it's South Sudanese," he said.

Acting chief commissioner apologised to department secretary, documents show

Just after 6pm on the day of the presentation, senior justice department staff were emailed a summary of concerns and complaints regarding the presentation.

One deputy secretary replied that it was "disappointing and shocking".

Another wrote: "It seems a massive backward step by VicPol. A response is clearly warranted."

They emailed staff who had attended, "to acknowledge and apologise for the distress, anger, and disappointment that the presentation has caused" and tell them the material "did not reflect [the department's] values".

Two days after the presentation, justice department secretary Kate Houghton and then-acting police chief commissioner Neil Paterson had "a few conversations".

If the secretary stuck to the speaking notes prepared for the call, she raised concerns about gratuitous use of graphic and violent footage, unacceptable language and commentary, racial profiling, and the potential misuse of CCTV footage from correctional facilities.

A follow-up email went out to attendees that afternoon saying: "The Acting Chief Commissioner has apologised and confirmed that action will be taken to address the concerns raised. The Secretary would like to thank you for having the courage to raise that this presentation was not acceptable."

Then-acting chief commissioner Neil Paterson also made an apology to a member of the South Sudanese Australian Youth Justice Expertise Working Group, which one working group member described as "both sincere and assuring".

"He apologised on behalf of the VicPol and asked me to convey his apologies to the team," the group member wrote in an email, adding Mr Paterson "said it was inappropriate to give such a graphic presentation" particularly "to those who might know some of those young [people]".

Victoria Police declined an interview with the ABC, but did respond to a series of questions in a statement.

"While everything presented depicted the realities of the job and the youth gang situation, we understand the content may have been confronting for people who do not work in a policing environment," it said.

It said the footage was not "shown to be gratuitous but rather to demonstrate the factual reality" of what "police are confronting on a regular basis".

The statement pushed back against allegations of racism or racial profiling.

"To be clear, there was no racism in the presentation, nor did Victoria Police employees focus on any specific ethnicity or group but rather criminal offending examples."

The Chair of Criminology at the University of Melbourne, Associate Professor Diana Johns said she wasn't surprised to hear about the presentation and the concerns that were raised.

"These are not the everyday things that most of us live with, they're exceptions.

"Yet, the world of policing, very often there's a focus on violence and a normalisation of the things that police see each day, in their working day, that normalises both the violence and the violent response to violence," she said.

She claimed "every city in the world, policing is racialised" and said the community needed to listen to the experiences of young people of colour.

"Police accountability is absolutely critical — police accountability in terms of having independent oversight, in terms of having mechanisms for police to be held accountable when they do the wrong thing, but also to be accountable to their communities they're serving."

Attendees question motivation for presentation

The documents obtained by the ABC suggest some attendees interpreted the presentation as a "scare campaign" attempting to dissuade department staff from supporting a rise in the minimum age of criminal responsibility or bail reforms.

One person was typing notes while the police session was underway.

They started out detailed, but during the second presentation they had largely descended into a serious of questions, including: "What do these phrases mean?", "Rubbish family violence thing?", "Know your audience?", "Bit propaganda-ish?".

The notes finish with one final thought: "What is the purpose of your presooooo"

Another attendee said "there was no constructive discussion of what tools/levers police were lacking other than that we shouldn't be making their lives harder by changing bail, raising the age etc".

The invitation to the session was targeted at people working on raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility, which is currently 10, but is set to increase to 12 by the end of the year.

Victoria Police said the presentation was requested by some Justice Department staff who had attended the international gangs conference.

"The purpose was to give employees an insight into the youth gang environment, including some of the challenges police face, impacts on community, and the considerable efforts being made to manage, engage and divert these young people before they escalate into more serious offending," its statement said.

You can read a letter of complaint to the Acting Chief Commissioner below:

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• Race Relations

What is the cost of racism? More lawmakers are embracing reparations for Black people

As President Joe Biden and Congress have failed to deliver on promises of police accountability and amid a conservative-led backlash against diversity, equity and inclusion policies, many Black Americans are uplifting a centuries-old debate around reparations for slavery as the clearest pathway to racial equality.

Ahead of the July Fourth holiday, more than 45% of Americans said racism is a big problem or the biggest problem facing the United States, according to a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll. About 38% of respondents said racism is a problem but not one of the biggest facing the nation. Only about 14% of Americans said racism is not a problem.

The poll comes during what many see as a racial crossroads for the country, spotlighted by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling Thursday that banned affirmative action in college admissions. 

"There's almost a cold war in America over the future of the country, and central to that debate is the issue of race and ethnicity, not only Black people but all nonwhite peoples," Marc Morial, president and chief executive officer of the National Urban League, told USA TODAY.

Morial said the USA TODAY polling data represents a tension in a country whose face is rapidly changing and was exemplified by an electorate that swung from Barack Obama's historic election in 2008 to elevating Donald Trump eight years later.

Black Americans' views differ greatly from those of whites, Hispanics

Race has already been tossed around in the early stages of the 2024 presidential campaign as Republicans Nikki Haley and Tim Scott, both of South Carolina , have trotted out their ethnic heritage as examples of how far the country has come.

"When I hear people telling me that America is a racist nation, I've got to say − not my America, not our America, not the United States of America," Scott, the lone Black Republican in the Senate, said at a Fox News town hall in June .

But what’s clear is that as the United States becomes more diverse , how Americans rank racism as an issue is largely determined by their heritage.

An overwhelming 79% of Black Americans said racism is either the biggest problem or a problem in the United States, according to the USA TODAY/Suffolk University survey. That far exceeded the 39% of whites and 46% of Hispanics who said the same.

On the flip side, 17% of whites said racism isn't a problem, joined by 13% of Hispanics.

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Astoundingly, the pollster said, not a single Black respondent said racism was not a problem in the survey.

“Usually you get someone, somewhere in a demographic group to either be not sure or say not one of the categories," said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center in Boston.

"No Black voters are undecided, and no Black voters said not a problem," he said. "So this issue is really a black and white issue."

Why do many Black people want reparations?

Polling shows reparations for slavery is just as divisive as other issues along lines of race, but in recent years the subject has been injected with new vigor from activists exhausted with being ping-ponged between protest and vote strategies.

Pia Harris, a Black activist and program director for the San Francisco Housing Development Corp., said reparations are necessary to compensate for the lack of progress made in housing discrimination and other areas.

“We’re just trying to be brought to the same point as everyone else. We really are at a disadvantage and not at a starting line,” she said. 

Cities such as Evanston, Illinois, are making reparations through a housing restorative program or a direct cash option to qualified Black residents. There is also California’s first-in-the-nation reparations task force seeking legislation, and in New York , state lawmakers recently passed a bill to consider reparations. 

“The conversation is front and center now,” said Kamm Howard , executive director of Reparations United, a Chicago-based organization. 

The national discourse on reparations is "a consequence of renewed energy to see a 157-year-old justice claim and unpaid debt finally met," said William Darity , a Duke University economist who co-wrote the 2020 book "From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century."

"I don’t think there is any greater degree of frustration today than there was 30 years ago, but there was not the same level of activity around reparations at that time," Darity told USA TODAY.

He said the federal government should pay at least $14 trillion in reparations to Black Americans "to equalize the average level of wealth between Black and white Americans."

' Black America is watching' California’s reparations plan

Supporters for reparations also point out the trajectory of opinion among whites has improved over the past two decades.

At the start of the century, a University of Chicago study examining attitudes toward reparations found only 4% of white Americans endorsed the idea. But a 2023 survey by University of Massachusetts at Amherst researchers places the level of white support closer to 30%, including 57% of Americans who are 18 to 29 years old.

"This is a dramatic change in white attitudes, signaling an opportunity to build the social movement that will pressure Congress to legislate a comprehensive plan for reparations for Black Americans who had ancestors enslaved in the United States," Darity said.

Advocates want Biden to create a federal reparations commission through an executive order. Howard said no action at all could cost the president his reelection given how crucial Black voters were to Biden's victory in 2020.  

In California, activists such as Cheryl Grills , a clinical psychologist and member of California’s Reparations Task Force, said Black Americans should be paid for the ongoing legacy of harm left by slavery.

"Those include eminent domain, redlining, the quality of schools and trying to get employment," Grills said.

California Assembly member and fellow task force member Reginald Sawyer-Jones said Black America is watching what transpires: "As so goes California, so goes the nation."

The nine-member task force approved 100 recommendations that economists suggested could add up to as much as $1.2 million per eligible Black resident. On Thursday, the task force submitted a 1,100-page report for state lawmakers to consider.

The report recommended cash payments, providing policies for opportunities and free college tuition as examples. But the report doesn't issue a specific dollar amount owed to residents, and the state Legislature won't discuss any reparations-related bills until 2024.

State Sen. Steven Bradford , a task force member, said any reparations cost will be high, but harm to Black Californians has been "just as high."

State Attorney General Rob Bonta also urged legislators to proceed with reparations. "They are necessary. They are warranted. They are needed," he said. "It's time for remedying."

Contributing: Marc Ramirez and Kayla Jimenez

How the Asian American film community has risen past racism, blocked opportunities

"Soul of a Nation" explores the history of Asian Americans in cinema.

For Asian American artists, the success of movies and TV shows like "Everything Everywhere All at Once" and "Never Have I Ever," have been a long time coming, after they faced decades of racism and closed doors in Hollywood.

Asian American actors say the struggles they have faced to make it to the screen are a result of the country's xenophobic attitudes towards Asian Americans, South Asians, Hawaiians and Pacific Islander immigrants.

"I came here in 1953. I began to feel the prejudice of the society," veteran actor James Hong told ABC News. "In those days, there were no so-called important roles for Asians."

Hong, 94, and other Asian American artists say that recent years have shown not only is the industry more open to sharing those stories, but also audiences are craving them as well.

MORE: Video Culture Conversations: Hollywood representation behind the lens

The ABC News' special " The New Face of Hollywood – A Soul of a Nation Presentation," will explore the history of the community in movies and TV and how they continue to make their voices heard. The special airs on ABC May 26 at 8 p.m. ET and is streaming on Hulu the next day.

Jeff Yang, a film journalist and author, told ABC News that Asian Americans faced strict barriers to many industries going back to the 19th century with the Chinese Exclusion Act.

The Exclusion Act, along with other policies like the Immigration Act of 1924 and the Japanese internment camps during World War II, fed into the nation's anti-Asian sentiment, according to experts.

Even when those acts were repealed in the middle of the 20th century, the sentiment and racism remained, according to Yang.

"That effectively made it impossible to make Asians the hero of any story in early Hollywood," he said.

Yang said that even when movies or TV shows had Asian characters, they would be portrayed by white actors in makeup. If an Asian was cast in a role, it would typically be a villain or a stereotypical caricature that was the butt of a racist joke, he said.

Hong recalled seeing J. Carrol Naish put on the makeup and act out those stereotypes as the title role of the TV show "The New Adventures of Charlie Chan."

"I was hurt, but in that sense, [the] hurt became so prevalent that it didn't really hurt," he said.

Yang noted that Asian women were either cast "as seductive temptresses, or as self-martyring, lotus blossoms."

Although most of Anna May Wong's movie roles fit into this mold, she was able to achieve major stardom in the entertainment industry and became the first Asian American female movie star, according to Yang.

Anna Wong, Anna May Wong's niece, told ABC News that she grew up admiring her namesake and the talent she brought to the screen during the early decades of motion pictures.

"Her very first successful movie, 'The Toll of the Sea,' she was 17, and it's a silent movie. But if you watch that movie, you see so much emotion coming from her," she told ABC News.

Despite that draw, Anna May Wong was also a victim of Hollywood's racism, according to film experts.

Wong lost the lead role of O-Lan in the 1937 film "The Good Earth," and filmmakers instead went with German-born actress Luise Rainer. Rainer, who appeared in yellowface to portray the Asian character, went on to win an Academy Award for her performance.

"People like Anna May Wong had to endure that humiliation, those stereotypes, those boxes, and they become invisible and excised," Wajahat Ali, a columnist and author, told ABC News. "It's like little flowers blooming from concrete that get stamped out, but the memory and the history…persevere."

Actor, writer and producer Nancy Kwan won a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer for her leading role in the 1960 hit film "The World of Suzie Wong." Kwan portrayed a Chinese prostitute in the film. "Casting an Asian girl like me in the role was one of the first major roles for an Asian actor," Kwan told ABC News.

"In the early '60s, there were hardly any roles for Asians,” she said.

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Kwan recalled a time when she was in San Francisco promoting a film when a woman interrupted her in the middle of an interview. Kwan said, "this Chinese lady turns to me and said, Damn, Nancy, you played the prostitute, and now they think all Chinese women are prostitutes."

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She told ABC News she responded, "I'm an actress. I play all sorts of roles. This one happened to be a prostitute."

Kwan said even being offered a role was a rare opportunity for actors like her. Kwan said it was a different era with "white actors playing Asians."

"It's difficult when you ask a minority or a person working in the industry, when there are not that many roles available, how they feel about it," she said.

In 1961 Kwan went on to star in the musical film “Flower Drum Song.” “Since the film [“The World of Suzie Wong”] did well, it gave me an opportunity to go into my next film, which was Flower Drum Song where I get to sing and dance… so, it was really a gift, a thrill,” Kwan said.

Flower Drum Song was the first major Hollywood feature film top have a majority Asian-American cast in an Asian-American centered story. Kwan played the leading role along with veteran actor James Hong.

Hong said he too struggled for a while in the industry, but he kept on going and would become a popular character actor in various hit shows and movies like "Seinfeld," "Mulan," and his biggest role in the Academy Award-winning movie "Everything Everywhere All at Once."

Hong said he is proud of how the success of Asian-led film projects has opened up opportunities that he never had during his early career.

"It took me 70 years, but now it's exploded," he said. "Asian creators are creating, they're acting, they're producing, they're writing, they're directing. It's a dream come true."

Younger Asian American artists say they have been inspired by those who came before them.

Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, the 21-year-old star of the Netflix comedy series "Never Have I Ever," told ABC News that she was proud of the work that the show's creator Mindy Kaling did to present a grounded portrayal of South Asian Americans.

"It's nice to see people who look like me get to experience that representation. And it makes me realize the impact of 'Never Have I Ever' as a whole, and just projects, like 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' how they can have an impact on diversity and representation," Ramakrishnan said.

Jason Scott Lee, a fourth-generation Hawaiian, and star of films like “Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story” and “Mulan” told ABC News that Pacific Islander artists are also fighting back against stereotypes with film and TV projects.

MORE: Asians and Pacific Islanders battle 'invisibility' in media, Hollywood: Study

Last year he starred in "The Wind & the Reckoning," a historical movie set in the late 19th century that extensively used the Hawaiian language.

"It was extremely important for me as an actor and having a Hawaiian ancestry to do it like this," Lee said. "It feels like the landscape is shifting, that there's a bit of a paradigm shift there."

Kelvin Yu, the showrunner of the new Disney+ series "American Born Chinese," which stars Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh and Oscar-winner Ke Huy Quan, says he, too, wanted to present one-of-a-kind stories that celebrate Chinese culture and history. Yu, who spoke to ABC News before the writers strike, said that the audience is hungry for those types of stories.

"The goal is changing the way people understand America, what kinds of stories are gratifying, what kinds of stories they want to see, or what kinds of stories they're willing to invest in," he said.

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Spectator racism is still rife in Australia's major football codes—new research shows it may even be getting worse

by Keith Parry, Connor MacDonald, Daryl Adair and Jamie Cleland, The Conversation

The annual Indigenous rounds in the Australian Football League (AFL) and National Rugby League (NRL) celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.

These events highlight the contributions of Indigenous players and aim to promote cultural awareness and foster reconciliation.

Some non-Indigenous sports fans, however, do not appreciate these initiatives. Some, in fact, continue to hurl bigoted abuse at players.

While many people would assume spectator racism is becoming rarer, our new study suggests the opposite is true among Australia's major male-dominated sporting codes.

Spectator racism may be getting worse

Some Australian football spectators use the stadium to vent hostile attitudes toward people of color, whether Indigenous, Pacific Islander, African or Asian.

This realization prompted us to conduct the first large-scale study of spectator racism in the three major men's leagues.

In 2021, we surveyed 2,047 participants from across the AFL, NRL and A-League Men, focusing on those who self-identified as white. We wanted to gather insights on racism as they witnessed and understood it while attending matches.

We found sobering evidence of the persistence of racism within these spectator communities, despite efforts by sports to combat it: 50% of AFL fans, 36% of NRL spectators and 27% of A-League Men fans had witnessed racist behavior during their lifetimes.

We asked respondents when they had witnessed racism and, as the table below shows, fans of all codes reported they had seen it at greater levels in the past two years compared to periods before this time.

This finding suggests fan racism is getting worse in all three sports and in the A-League Men, this reported racism is growing at the fastest rate of the three codes.

Acknowledging the problem

Spectator racism has long been an issue in Australian men's sports.

National sport governing bodies acknowledge there is a problem, but have for many years struggled to effectively combat it, either failing to respond resolutely or doing so too slowly .

In 2021, the Australian Human Rights Commission provided sports with guidelines for addressing spectator racism , and since then penalties for transgressions have become more consistent.

However, poor behavior from some fans has hardly disappeared.

Our new research, published in the International Review for the Sociology of Sport , found spectator racism continues to be present in three major Australian men's leagues: the AFL, NRL and A-League Men.

The impact on athletes

The impact of fan racism is brutal for players.

In recent years, Indigenous footballers Adam Goodes and Latrell Mitchell and Cody Walker have borne the brunt of vitriol like this.

By comparison, the A-League Men has featured few Indigenous players, but racism towards athletes from migrant backgrounds has certainly been obvious, along with neo-Nazi expressions of white supremacy.

Fan explanations for racism

Many survey respondents contended that spectator racism is learned behavior, passed down through families or like-minded fans. In that sense, racism is normalized, especially in public places like sports stadiums where barrackers may feel anonymous.

Most of those surveyed strongly criticized racial prejudice , acknowledging Australia's history of racism and ongoing examples of bigotry at sport events, with some pointing to even worse behavior among fans online via social media .

Some fans who opposed racism explained it as a moral failing of individuals, whom they perceived to be "bad apples." But by focusing solely on individuals, they overlooked wider social influences.

Racism is acquired behavior, not just a personal choice, and it arises via institutions such as sport and social practices like barracking at the footy.

Some respondents from our study were comfortable with "casual bigotry" whereby racist comments made in the "heat of the moment" are deemed "banter." They seemed unaware this permissive attitude allows racist discourses to remain alive.

A minority of respondents were unfazed by any of this, freely admitting their own racist views, declaring a belief that sports, and society, are best served by white power.

Sport's response to racism

In the football codes, there is now better awareness of what constitutes racist barracking at games. Greater media coverage of racist incidents, especially via its capture on digital devices, has improved the chance of offenders being exposed, along with potential consequences.

Just as importantly, the three football leagues have improved their detection measures, such as by anonymous reporting hotlines within stadiums. Indeed, our study showed most fans are aware of mechanisms to report racist (or other discriminatory) behavior.

Yet, despite a significant proportion of our survey respondents indicating they had observed inappropriate crowd conduct, just 3% of AFL fans, 2% of NRL fans, and 1% of A-League Men supporters reported using the hotlines.

So, there is a gap between some white fans witnessing and reporting racist incidents.

Therefore, while sports leagues have introduced penalties for racism, the effectiveness of these measures is limited by their reliance on witness responses and the complexity of observers providing proof.

What more can be done?

In the context of anti-racism and Australian society, the fight against bigotry must not be left to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and people from culturally diverse backgrounds.

Prime responsibility lies with white Australians who, after all, are generally privileged to not be objects of racial bigotry. Therefore, white sports fans who reject the ideology of white supremacy, like racist barracking at a game, have the opportunity to demonstrate a sense of solidarity with those who have been the subject of abuse.

It is often said education can alter racist attitudes. After all, if racism can be learned, surely it can be unlearned .

That process is certainly worth pursuing but in the short term, the imposition of consequences for inappropriate fan conduct is vital.

The football codes are finally getting serious about penalties, with lengthy or even life-time bans .

What is urgently needed, though, is a greater commitment by fans, especially white fans, to report racism when they observe it. Otherwise they're giving a free kick to bigots.

Provided by The Conversation

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