Why It’s Not Enough To Be “Not Racist”

For years, extremists have been trying to stop schools from teaching a real and honest history of racism in America. They’ve challenged curriculum and taken over school boards to change policies from the inside. Diversity, equity, and inclusion programs are being cancelled. And book bans have increased year over year, with books by diverse authors or about diverse characters being banned at disproportionately high rates.

Our Freedom to Parent campaign fights book bans and other attacks on public education.

Our Project 2025 tracker shows how attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion are straight out of the extremist playbook.

Black women are more than twice as likely to die during pregnancy and childbirth than white women, and Indigenous women are more than 4 times as likely! And abortion bans are disproportionately harming Black, Latino, and Indigenous women. Learn more about these health disparities from our “We Decide, Not Politicians” campaign.

We desperately need more research on healthcare disparities by race, and healthcare providers need more education and training in this area. For example, pulse oximeters don’t work as well for Black patients, a problem that has long been ignored in research. And as recently as 2016, a study found that half of white medical residents believed in biological differences between Black and white people, including that Black people have thicker skin or a higher pain tolerance — they don’t! Donald Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have ended federally funded research into health disparities based on race, which will make these problems much harder to solve. Learn more about these cuts and how they’re related to Project 2025 here.

Racism in environmental policies can also cause health problems. Harmful facilities like landfills and industrial plants are often located near communities of color, which leads to negative health impacts from waste and other emissions. And historically, racism in city planning led to fewer trees and more concrete and asphalt in Black and brown neighborhoods, making the people who live there more susceptible to heat-related illnesses.

Racism has kept Black Americans from having equal opportunities to gain wealth — especially through education, employment, and land or home ownership — which is why a wealth gap persists between Black and white Americans today.

• Even after slavery ended, Jim Crow laws kept Black people from owning homes in certain neighborhoods. This led to segregated neighborhoods which still exist today.
• Agencies started defining these “Black neighborhoods” as being riskier for mortgage lending, leading to higher rates and fees, and lower property values. Black homebuyers still face this discrimination from real estate agents and lenders.
• Black veterans were denied GI benefits after World War II, which widened the gap between Black and white veterans’ home ownership, educational advancement, employment, and wealth. Those gaps persist today.
• School segregation kept Black children from getting equal educational opportunities. This also meant restricted access to career opportunities, keeping Black Americans in lower-paying jobs.

Learn more from the Center for American Progress about how these systems of racism created the current wealth gap between Black and white Americans, and learn more about economic issues like this that matter to suburban women from Momonomics.

There is a long history of voter suppression in our country, and extremists are still trying to disenfranchise Black and brown voters today.

In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ended a process called “preclearance” which was created by the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Preclearance meant that the federal government reviewed all new voting laws in states that had a documented history of racial discrimination. Since then, 29 states have passed 94 new restrictive voting laws, many of which are racially discriminatory. And the gap between white voters and nonwhite voters has increased to 18 percentage points.

Here are just some examples of restrictive voting laws:

• Voter ID laws are proven to disproportionately harm Black and brown voters because they are less likely to have a qualifying ID.
• Reducing voter registration periods or early voting periods; limiting or closing polling locations; and ending or restricting mail-in voting have all been shown to disproportionately impact voters of color.
• Restricting or criminalizing voter assistance — like handing out water and snacks to voters waiting in long lines — harms more voters of color because polling places with fewer white voters have been shown to face longer lines and wait times.
• Drawing unfair voting districts to favor a certain party, also known as gerrymandering, happens during redistricting processes and both major political parties are guilty of it! It is often accomplished by reducing minority representation across districts. After the 2022 midterm elections, gerrymandering by Republicans in North Carolina and Georgia gave the party the majority in the U.S. House in 2024, which is enabling the Trump administration to enact his agenda.

We take a deeper dive into all this here in our “Protect Your Voting Rights” campaign.