Wow...a discussion about race on sherdog. How novel.
Look dude, as a hispanic that looks white and has a white name i can see shades of racism in interaction with others.
Most people who say there is no racism simply just haven't seen it. It takes different forms in different places. It is much less prevalent in major cities without segregated or semisegregated neighborhoods.
But to deny racism is to simply not look at the statistics. Not only current statistics, but historical statistics. Racial minorities have always experienced some level of discrimination.
Drug laws especially have always served to target a race as to make jobs more available to whites and maintain a system where whites were more likely to get hired.
First drug illegalized was opium, not because lawmakers cared about the victims of addiction, but because asian workers had been brought in to build railroads and their second generation was starting to compete with whites for jobs. Once an asian worker was arrested, he was less hirable then his white counterpart. The drug itself was only prevalent in asian communities and the standard set there was that laws can be abused to keep whites in socioeconomic power.
Look at todays modern war on drugs. Despite whites and blacks using drugs at the same rate. A black man is 4 times as likely to go to jail (not to mention recieve a higher sentence) than his white counterpart. Once a black man is convicted, he becomes less hireable than his white counterpart.
Look at housing. Historically, when home ownership culture really took off in this country, blacks were not given access to mortgages. This led to a long history of renting (paying other peoples mortgage at a higher rate) while never getting to own the property nor pass it down generations. Due to a historical trend of housing price increases (especially in urban areas) rents have increased transfering more wealth to the owners of the land while still offering minorities nothing in the way of actual ownership. Shit like this has gone on for generations and contributes to a class system that is inherently drawn among racial lines. It creates a problem where wealthy vs poor begins to look more and more like white vs minority simply due to racial discrimination that existed a long time ago leading to extreme wealth transfers to whites that have lasted generations.
Look at college. College has now become a vehicle for banks to indebt the citizenry. Kids are coming out of college with great jobs but debt so large that it will be at least 10-15 years before they are ever able to purchase a house at a reasonable interest rate. Furthurmore, banks tend to forget to tell students that student loans cannot be discharged through bankruptcy. So you're pretty much fucked if you dont graduate but your credit report has a huge balance for years if you do. Who do you think this system affects more, the child of a wealthy family who has saved to put the child through college (because they can afford to)? Or the child of a wealthy family who has to take out loans in order to go to school himself?
This example might seem trivial, but it preserves the same institutions that favor wealthy, typically-white families and businesses.
If the wealthy kid and the indebted kid graduate at the same time and same occupation. Lets say for example they are both successful....we will use physicians assistants as an example occupation. They both come out of school making 84,000 a year, but one of them had to take out loans which totaled 200,000 its about 6 years of school.
The one in debt will have a much harder time getting a mortgage or buying anything on credit as his debt is much higher. He has essentially mortgaged 10-15 years of his life for a good paying job. His wealthy counter part can probably buy a house after 1-2 years of work and begin investing in real estate and rental properties. Who is more likely to rent from who in this scenario?
Past historical racial discrimination has directly led to modern discrimination by basically drawing opportunities for wealth among racial lines. People might not be as racist anymore but historical racism has direct ties to the racism and feelings of disenfranchisement among minorities today. Where some poeple see coincidence, others see a rigged system.
Understanding past incidences of racism is absolutely necessary to coming close to understanding a term like "equal opportunity." Though the attitudes have changed alot, fixing the results of historical racist practices is necessary in order to eliminate the idea of a rigged system.