Systemic racism exists in Central Florida and across the United States
From Congress to a University of Central Florida professor's now deleted tweets saying, "Black privilege is real," there's a consistent questioning of whether systemic racism exists.
There is a mentality that says, "Why can't all those black people, chanting in the streets for reform, just get a job, save their money, be respectful to police, and do better?"
"So, a lot of people, if they imagine a bird and a bird cage, if you're only thinking about one bar, right, so maybe just the criminal justice system, you kind of look and say, 'Well, why can't the bird get out of that, right? There's only one bar in front of them, they should be able to go to the left or right and get around it.' But if you were to step back and look at the complete picture and see the complete cage, you'd see that there are all these interlocking connected bars, right? So criminal justice, education, housing, all these different things. It doesn't mean that Blacks or people of color, it's impossible for them to get out of situations that they're in. But it's much more difficult because of the interlocking nature of the system," University of Central Florida Sociology Professor Jonathan Cox said.
It's a snapshot of America's systems of oppression.
Of course, there's the nearly 250 years that Black people were shipped, whipped, bought, sold, and forced into the back-breaking work of building the country's economic power for free, but beyond that, there's a recurring issue when it comes to wealth and opportunity in America: racist housing policies, and there are many.
Cox referred to the GI Bill, to start.
"That was billions of dollars that was pumped into the U.S. economy. And that's where we started to see the development of the white middle class," Cox said.
So, starting in 1944, the U.S. government offered veterans coming back from World War II money to start businesses or to get a college education and low or no interest home loans. But it was still the time of legalized segregation. There was no federal oversight.
"Over a million Black veterans were denied these benefits, right, which is a significant number of people, right. And so again, this money was dispersed over like 30 years worth of time. So just imagine the compounding effects of 30 years where Blacks are not allowed to participate or allowed to participate in much lower rates than whites, right? They just don't have, they can't keep up, right, we're starting at a much different place. Now years later, where whites who were able to access this money were then able to turn this around, give money to their children, help pay for their children's education," Cox said.
"African-Americans who were prohibited -- not because they didn't want to -- not that they didn't like living among whites --- they were prohibited from moving into these suburbs, and they could afford to do so," Richard Rothstein, author of "The Color of Law," said.
In his New York Times bestseller, Rothstein wrote that these same loans were being given to white middle, and lower class families, not just vets, with a requirement not to sell to Black people.
Then, there's redlining -- the government's refusal to insure loans in or near African-American neighborhoods, like areas highlighted in a decades-old map of Philadelphia.
"You know, the homeownership rate of Black families in the Orlando metropolitan area is 44%. Contrast that to white families where it's above average, it's at 70%," said Skylar Olsen, senior economist for Zillow.
Olsen shared the current percentages, that are especially damaging, since, for so many Americans, wealth is tied up in a home.
The locations where people live also impact the education they receive.
WESH 2 News spoke with University of Central Florida history professor Dr. Robert Cassanello.
"So, you know there's that wall between Maitland and Eatonville when you drive through? That wall was only built in the early 1960s," Cassanello said.
Cassanello said walls of all kinds denied Black people access in Florida.
He said, even though Black people successfully lobbied to create Florida's public education system, until the 1920s, they were only taught through the 10th grade in underfunded schools.
Decades later, Cassanello said Florida started pumping money into Black schools.
Like the original Jones High School, it had the exact same blueprint as the original Edgewater High, the white school -- unheard of at the time.
"The attempt was to argue before the Supreme Court that Florida schools, both Black and white, were funded equally or almost equal, and they thought that would defend the state of Florida against any desegregation case," Cassanello said.
The plan failed -- with the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education ruling -- that "separate but equal" schools were unconstitutional.
Schools slowly integrated, but today, 66 years later, less than 1 percent of Jones' student population is white.
"This is because of, you know, desegregation practices that exacerbated racial segregation rather than alleviated, as well as white flight," Cassanello said.
In the 1950s, America started building highways, which not only kept Blacks and whites separate, but also decimated Black neighborhoods.
I-4, included.
"City leaders were never interested in the opinion of residents of Parramore or about which homes and businesses would be disrupted by I-4. But they really were concerned when the residents of Winter Park were upset about I-4 going too close to the downtown of Winter Park," Cassanello said.
Cassanello said that's why the highway skirts the very edges of Winter Park, but goes straight through Downtown Orlando.
He said Black people being left out of major public decisions started to change after the Civil Rights Movement and after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed.
Technically, Black men had the right to vote since 1870, but there were challenges.
"We saw poll taxes, right, so you know, requiring a certain amount of money to be able to vote. We saw laws about grandfather clauses. We saw the implementation of literacy tests and other forms of testing to see to see if Blacks were able to vote," Cox said.
Cassanello said in Florida, voting directions were printed in newspapers -- so clearly, you'd have to know how to read.
Now, nearly two years after Florida voters overwhelmingly passed it, Amendment 4 is caught in a legal fight -- over ex-felons having to pay fines and fees before being granted their voting rights.
Some call that a "modern day" poll tax.
Then, there's violence.
This November will mark 100 years since the Ocoee Massacre.
Professor Paul Ortiz says July Perry's lynching during that massacre is part of the state's often untold history: Florida had the highest number of lynchings per capita in the country from 1880 to 1940.
Ortiz says policing is steeped with the mentality of those mobs who murdered Black people, initially as "slave patrols."
Ortiz also referred to a 2016 Sarasota Herald-Tribune report on sentencing in Florida, which found, among many disparities -- "judges in Flagler County put Blacks convicted of armed robbery away for nearly triple the time" of whites.
Nearly 2,500 days for Blacks, 957 for whites.
LaShawnda K. Jackson has personally seen bias in the courtroom.
She's also the Orange County Bar Association's first Black president in the organization's 87 years. She is a great example of something Cox pointed out.
Black people are underrepresented in executive-level leadership, top levels of government, and even if you're able to get hired at a reputable law firm, and serve your community, you'll still experience racism.
Below are a few book suggestions from the professors featured in this story
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
A World More Concrete: Real Estate and the Remaking of Jim Crow South Florida by N. D. B. CONNOLLY
The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935 by James D. Anderson
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein
'So You Want to Talk About Race' by Ijeoma Oluo
'Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower' by Brittney Cooper
'Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations About Race' by Beverly Daniel Tatum
'When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir' by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bandele
'Chokehold: Policing Black Men' by Paul Butler
'Waking Up White, and Finding Myself in the Story of Race' by Debby Irving