Profiled Life: A Systems Approach to Understanding the Foundations and Persistence of Racism in America

Profiled Life helps to explain the adverse outcomes that People of Color experience, especially Black and Brown people, across all major social indicators including mortality, morbidity, college preparedness, income and wealth potential, prison rates, infectious and chronic disease outcomes, homeownership rates, single parent households, access to health care, and birth outcomes to name a few. The text reviews adverse outcomes across major social indicators and relates those outcomes to the history of racial subjugation and oppression which has and continues to profile groups leading to some of the worst treatment in society. Different theories which have tried to explain the standing and hierarchal patterns of racial ethnic groups are discussed and analyzed.

This text reminds its readers (both students and those groups and individuals new to the study of racism) that addressing racism requires more than individual introspection; that is only part of it. More importantly, we must adopt a systemic perspective. In addition to deconstructing language and concepts, it is imperative that we explore the origins of laws and policies until we get to the root cause of adverse outcomes across all major life indicators for People of Color. The root cause is racism. Here we describe how racism infiltrates all U.S. social systems.