Teddy O'Reilly's column, \Exploring racism leads to frustration,"" stated many disturbing facts about racism in Wisconsin and the country. As advanced as we like to consider our society, it is very sad that racism still exists. However, most of the statistics quoted in the article do not represent racism, but socioeconomic differences between races.
The statistics lead to the article painting a very misleading picture about racism in our country. Studies have consistently shown socioeconomic factors play a much greater role in outcomes than race in a child's life. On average, blacks in our country are much poorer than whites and this will explain most of the disturbing statistics. Although I disagree on the cause of the statistics, I still agree that something needs to be done. While forums and strategies on race relations can be positive and help deal with racism, they will not change the economic disparities between races. What is needed is a nationwide effort against poverty.
It is a shame that a nation as wealthy as ours has so much poverty. We need government policies that help the poor, and we need a social campaign to convince people in this country that we have a moral obligation to help our less-fortunate fellow citizens. In addition to the intended goal of fighting poverty, perhaps this type of strategy will also help decrease racism.
