“Systemic racism isn’t about whether you like the color of somebody or not. It’s whether you have included them in the strategy for success.”

-TD Jakes

The other day, I had an intriguing conversation with a person who said that Systemic Racism no longer exists. They felt so obligated to say that they believed anyone who worked hard enough could achieve anything they put their mind to, you know, the old pull yourself up by your own bootstraps mentality. I, of course, disagreed. The whole conversation was brief.

Sadly, the great Invisible Knapsack brilliantly articulated in Peggy McIntosh’s work of the same name had not only enveloped their vision but also their mind. To conclude our conversation, I appropriately quoted Dr. Jamar Tisby’s quote from his best-selling book, The Color of Compromise: “Racism Never Goes Away, It Just Adapts.”

Feelings of Black and Indigenous Women and their families are systematically disregarded and therefore left wanting. The facts show severe disparities in maternal mortality rates vs. white women. For them, it is literally a matter of life and death.

Kevin Robinson

It would be one thing if this were a one-off conversation with an individual; unfortunately, in 2025, millions of Americans share these beliefs in a so-called postracial merit-based society. Remember, a majority of Americans endorsed this at the ballot box in 2024. While we still live in the day of the reality of Michelle Alexander’s book “The New Jim Crow,” which identifies an unjust Justice system. The numbers remain the same, regardless of our feelings; we can never close our eyes to facts.

Feelings of Black and Indigenous Women and their families are systematically disregarded and therefore left wanting. The facts show severe disparities in maternal mortality rates vs. white women. For them, it is literally a matter of life and death.

“According to –The Policy Center for Maternal Mental Health, https://policycentermmh.org/, Disparities widen for Black Women: Black women had a mortality rate of 50.3 deaths per 100,000 live births—more than three times the rate for White women (14.5), and significantly higher than Hispanic (12.4) and Asian (10.7) women.”

Data found in CDC.gov shows “American Indian and Alaska Native women are two times more likely to die of pregnancy-related causes than White women.”– CDC.gov, CDC Hear Her Campaign, MAY 15, 2024. Our quasi-post-racial society, sadly, has not reflected in narrowing of the wealth gap between ethnic minorities and white Americans. In fact, the gap has widened greatly in the last 5 years since our so-called racial reckoning of 2020.”

“Over the past four decades, the wealth disparity between white, Black, and Hispanic families has increased. In 1983, the average wealth of white families was about $320,000 higher than the average wealth of Black families and Hispanic families. By 2022, white families’ average wealth ($1.4 million) was more than $1 million higher than that of Black families ($211,596) and Hispanic families ($227,544). Put another way, white families had six times the average wealth of Black families and Hispanic families.”

–Urban.org Nine Charts about Wealth Inequality in America, April 25, 2024, Madeline Brown, Signe-Mary McKernan, Thea Garon, Oriya Cohen, Catherine Harvey, C. Eugene Steuerle, and Ofronama Biu

I could go on and on. We at Three-Fifths Magazine have been presenting these and more facts for over four years now and will continue to do so when necessary. Yet, for some reason, only 5 years after the George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery racial reckoning summer of 2020, we are still forced to justify the very existence of Systemic Racism. By retooling into a merit-based society, are we really telling grieving families of maternal mortality victims that they somehow deserved the outcome of these disparities, and that the most deserving get to live?

Are we truly prepared to excuse redlining and the generational wealth it denied communities of color? Is it possible that 2025 American wisdom suggests that only those who are merit-based, most deserving, have 2 to 3 times the wealth of people of darker hues?

America and Americans cannot say that we don’t see color. When the facts and data say we do. “Oh, but we do see your beautiful complexion and uniqueness,” some pseudo allies would say. We must ask ourselves the question, I’m I part of the problem or part of the solution? The demarcation exists in the words of TD Jakes’ “if you have not included them in the strategy for success.” regardless of your rhetoric, you are part of the problem. It is only fitting that a man of faith must clarify this most sweeping of erasures, the denial of Systemic Racism.

“While local governments may consider themselves fair and just, people of color fare worse than their white counterparts in every area: housing, employment, education, justice, and health. Current day disparities are just as bad and sometimes worse than they were before the Civil Rights era. Since then, most governments have not made significant changes in outcomes for employees or residents of color, even with years of effort.” https://www.racialequityalliance.org/

From here, the Honest Strategy would be to continue the kind of actions that were initiated in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where Truth and Reconciliation led to Reparations. DEI and DEIB programs, or whatever you prefer to call them, must persist, become more comprehensive, become widespread, and be deemed essential. Voting rights must be protected, and most importantly, everyone eligible to vote must exercise their right to do so. An effective strategy would be to educate individuals across the ethnic spectrum on the importance of voting, including the history of various suffrage movements. This includes developing a deeper understanding of the need for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, both then and now.

Keep in mind, we are talking about an Honest Strategy, one that invites more people into the possibilities of America than the kind of nefarious strategies of the past that traditionally kept the marginalized communities out.

“Because local governments have a unique responsibility to all residents, these racial inequities can and must be addressed. The public sector must be for the public good; current racial inequities are destructive. We must go beyond individual, intentional discrimination or acts of bigotry, and examine the systems in which we all live. We must investigate—honestly—how our longstanding systems, policies, and practices, unintentionally or not, have created and continue to maintain racial inequity, and we must change them.”

https://www.racialequityalliance.org/

“The integrity of the honest keeps them on track; the deviousness of crooks brings them to ruin.” -Proverbs 11:3, The Message (MSG)

Three-Fifths Magazine says to Ordinary Americans, this is your time to become Extraordinary Americans by embracing an Honest Strategy for the success of all our neighbors through respect and faithfulness. As fellow image bearers (Imago Dei) of our Creator emanating through each unique expression of human ethnicity and through our liberation upon the shoulders of motivation, we can discover the innovation to end cycles of standing at the threshold of true greatness destine for this country, only to see it slip-away again, and again, into the hands of division and misunderstanding.

Will we find the courage, through difference makers on all sides of the ethnic divide, to not only stand at this threshold but also cross it into becoming that success story of a multiethnic Democracy that we’ve yearned to embrace? Three-Fifths Magazine says yes! Now, what say you?