↩ enchy In the U.S, systemic racism affects a large number of minorities, particularly African-Americans. They are more likely to be convicted for drug offenses (despite repeated studies showing that drug use rates are consistent between races), denied housing and employment, targeted by law enforcement, and have fewer resources in their schools (public schools are funded in part by taxes, poor communities pay less in taxes because they make less, the schools, in turn, are given less funding resulting in a lower quality education, perpetuating the cycle of poverty through lack of resources). And this is mainly due to the ghettoization of inner cities that resulted from the "white flight" to the suburbs during and after the Civil Rights Movement.
With all this in mind, denying that systemic racism is a component of U.S. society presents flawed logic. Those who deny it seem to believe that the U.S. is a complete meritocracy, and anyone with a poor quality of life is entirely responsible for it (e.g, people who complain about lazy people living off government benefits and believe they are the cause of fewer people working, instead of considering that the problem lies mostly with the employers for refusing to provide adequate wages). And since segregation is illegal, then all minorities must be on the same footing as Caucasians, making them as responsible for their destiny as anyone.
While this logic completely ignores historical context, its underlying point, whether intentional or not, is that minorities struggle to make it by in life because they are "not working hard enough" or are "not willing to improve their situation". This ignores the deeper circumstances entrenched in society that make life more difficult for minorities and instead creates the implication that they are just lazy and more willing to complain about their lives than actually improve them. Also for the record, I am a minority but am quite well off. I didn't have to experience what I've described to know it exists. Keep in mind that I'm not saying all people are racist, I'm saying that lingering effects of intentional racism from the Civil Rights Movement era still has an impact on current minorities even though the laws have made direct targeting of people based on race illegal.