Systemic injustice has been a large-scale problem in the United States society ever since the country was founded. Even in modern times, it is still regarded as a problem. A phenomenon that I personally witnessed was during the past few weeks in the off-campus area. It was the first weekend of the second semester, and parties were full force to celebrate the start of the spring semester. I was walking to my off-campus house, which is on the corner of 14th and Indianola, and I witnessed a group of six or seven African American people being stopped by the police for no apparent reason (as far as I knew). I saw the same group of people earlier and noticed that they were party hopping like the many other people at the time. Out of everyone in groups roaming around the off-campus area, they were the only people who I saw being talked to by police. I stood and observed the scene for a bit, and I overheard the police telling them to go home, as well as some stuff that I couldn’t comprehend from a distance. I believe this is systemic injustice because out of all the people who were wandering around campus that night, they were the only group that I saw being stopped and questioned by police. The impact that this has is that it shows that police still have a mistrust among the African American community, and still have personal bias of crime rather than everyone else. The specific category in play here was most likely systemic racism, since the police zeroed in on one of the few colored groups in campus that were at a minority at the time compared to the whites. The police tend to have bias of crimes, like a mentioned toward African American people, which is why it is systemic racism. Something that would have to change for the wrong to be a right would be if the African American group went up to the police themselves, rather than the police stopping them. I don’t know for sure if that is what actually happened, but based off of a history of systemic racism, I doubt that is what happened.
The extent of these types of situations seems to be never ending. There are also other ways that society has performed systemic racism amongst African Americans. From the articles linked below, the article from American Progress points out that African American households make an average income of around $20,000 per year compared to white households who average around $170,000 a year. This shows that society has been structured around favoring white households, while not giving a chance to those of African Americans households. The other article written by Catalyst shows the many instances of systemic racism in America, and how it has been structured into every day life.
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/reports/2018/02/21/447051/systematic-inequality/
https://www.catalyst.org/research/structural-racism-black-americans/