Recently, a fellow classmate suggested to me that in the United States, in 
the year 2003, racism no longer exists.  Hmmm…that's a very interesting 
premise.  As a result, this classmate believes that programs that take 
race into consideration, such as affirmative action, should be ended 
once and for all.  So hence, the affirmative action debate rages on.  For 
the purpose of this article though, affirmative action is only a side note to 
a larger issue at hand, which is whether we as a nation should consider 
race in any form.  

By the life of me, I cannot fathom how someone today can claim that 
racism is dead.  There is a preponderance of evidence to show that we 
have not achieved the color-blind society that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 
once dreamed about.  In fact, I know I may be going out on a limb here, 
but I would argue that racism today is alive and well.  

Quite honestly, a dissertation can be written about racism today.  One 
does not have to search deep to find evidence proving this fact.  The 
reality is that in 2003, racism in the United States still exists.  And just to 
give the detractors some point of reference with regards to my belief that 
racism does exist today, I'll present the following studies just as a quick 
indication that racism is not a thing of the past.  Furthermore, I present 
these studies as a way to establish that racism is not just an anecdotal 
concern, such as occasional prejudiced assertions of racial superiority 
by members of the majority community, but instead a concern that is 
infused into the power structures of the United States.

According to The Real War on Crime: The Report of the National 
Criminal Justice Commission, African Americans account for 13 
percent of all drug users, but 35 percent of those arrested for drug 
possession, 55 percent of those convicted for drug possession and 
74 percent of those imprisoned for drug possession.  There is also 
a U.S. Justice Department study called And Justice for Some, which 
reports that black and Hispanic offenders receive harsher treatment 
than white ones with similar records at every step of the justice 
system. That's right, even Attorney General John "Mr. Anti-Civil Rights" 
Ashcroft and his department reported that racism permeates the 
realm of criminal justice.  

And this is only one example among many that I can cite regarding the 
existence of racism today.  In my eyes, it really doesn't take a study to 
show that racism exists… All someone has to really do is open their 
eyes and look at the country around them.  Maybe folks have forgotten 
that, only slightly more than a decade ago, the L.A. Riots broke out as 
a result of the acquittal of three police officers charged in the beating 
of Rodney King.  Sgt. Stacey Koon and two other officers were found 
completely not guilty on all counts of official misconduct, excessive 
force, filing false police reports, and assault with a deadly weapon.  
In revisiting the video of the beating today and the trial that followed it, 
I feel pretty safe in asserting the following:  (1) that the beating of 
Rodney King was only an extension of the abuses that police 
department have been committing to minority communities throughout
U.S. history, as well as in the present day, and (2) the acquittal was 
a result of a jury not composed of individuals representing a cross-
section of our diverse U.S. society, i.e. it was a predominantly white 
jury.

Furthermore, the abuses committed by the L.A. police department did 
not stop there.  The racism permeates every aspect of their dealing 
with minority communities during the 1990s.  Although not as high 
profile a case as that of Rodney King, the L.A. police department made 
news in the late-1990's resulting from allegations that the CRASH 
(Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums) unit was planting 
evidence, falsifying police reports and intimidating witnesses in order 
to secure convictions of Latino youth.  

These examples are not an attempt to single out the Los Angeles police 
department as the only government entity that is subject to complaints 
of racism.  The reality is that the racist attitudes displayed by officers 
of the Los Angeles Police are not limited to that department alone.  
These attitudes and racist practices are showcased by police 
department across the country.  

Does anyone remember Amadu Dialo?  He was the African immigrant 
who was shot by New York police officers 41 times at point blank range 
in his own home.  Officers claimed that he was reaching for a gun when 
they shot him.  It was found that Mr. Dialo was unarmed.  Or how about 
Abner Louima?  He was the Haitian man that was tortured by New York 
police officers.  In 1997, Officers Justin Volpe, Charles Schwarz, Thomas 
Bruder, and Thomas Wiese were charged with violating Louima's civil 
rights for allegedly beating the Haitian immigrant following an August 
1997 disturbance outside a Brooklyn nightclub.  In addition to beating 
Louima in the patrol car, Louima was assaulted in the precinct bathroom, 
where he was held down by Schwarz while Volpe shoved a wooden stick 
into his rectum.  This led to Louima receiving the largest police brutality 
settlement in New York's history.



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