racial inequality is not necessarily the same thing as racism, though the two do often go hand in hand. Perhaps it would be fair to say that racism is defined by a prejudice towards a group of people based on their race or ethnicity, and racial inequality is the result of that prejudice. For example, while it would be hard to point towards the racism of any one individual to account for the disparity between wealth in white families, and wealth in black families, it is nevertheless certainly an example of racial inequality. The fact that average black people have less money than white people is very plainly a result of lack of opportunity.

After all, we know quite plainly that while western culture (particularly the United States) values the “pull yourself up by the bootstraps narrative”, it is ultimately usually generational wealth that wins the day.

The racial inequality, in this case, is a result of the fact that African Americans started as slaves in this country, and then suffered through Jim Crowe laws, and other circumstance that contributed to a difficulty in establishing a foothold in prosperous circumstance.

It is important to note that situations of racial inequality do not necessarily pertain to every member of a given race. For example, not all African Americans struggle economically, and not all Caucasians prosper financially. In fact, there are countless examples of each case where the exact opposite is true. When people refer to racial inequality, they are talking about patterns that all too often manifest themselves in our society.

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3 years ago