
Educators, media personalities, students, and others frequently claim that blacks are subject to “systemic racism.” It’s a broad claim and sounds scary, but what does it actually mean? One might infer from the term “systemic” that it refers to racism within organizations, whether in government agencies, private industry, or society in general. “Racism,” in this context, refers to obstacles to education, employment, and career advancement. I asked X’s AI (Grok) to dig into some employment data to test this broad claim. In this research, Grok cited a number of public sources including the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) data, the Center for American Progress, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Housing and Urban Development (HUD), private companies’ diversity reports, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filings, and data aggregated by third parties such as DiversIQ, Statista, and McKinsey. The employment data is presented below along with a brief discussion on the impact of education.