NOTE FROM EDITORS:
As Skeptic Publisher Michael Shermer writes in his Introduction to this special issue on Race Matters, the issues outlined in this article documenting the continuation of systemically racist social structures—even as racist attitudes have improved dramatically over the past half century—mean that race still matters very much in this country. It is thus incumbent on all of us to properly understand the causes of these issues so that we may implement a rational and science-based response to them.
To explain systemic racism, we start with the historical origins of race in the U.S.—that is, the social, political, and economic mechanisms that have maintained it over time. Race is baked into the history of the U.S. going back to colonial times1,2,3 and continuing through early independence when slavery was quietly written into the nation’s Constitution.4 Although the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution ended slavery and granted due process, equal protection, and voting rights to the formerly enslaved, efforts to combat systemic racism in the U.S. faltered when Reconstruction collapsed in the disputed election of 1876, which triggered the withdrawal of federal troops from the South.5