Many of the bleakest moments in American history revolve around inequality. And while there have been incredible wins for civil rights along the way, the country still has a lot of work to do. Systemic racism continues to create significant obstacles for people of color in the United States, but it’s easy for white Americans not to notice the impacts that it has.
So one woman came up with a brilliant analogy to help explain this concept to her mother, and her message quickly went viral after being posted on TikTok. Below, you’ll find the full explanation, as well as some of the replies fascinated viewers shared.
In a video that has amassed 3.5 million views, this woman explained systemic racism with a brilliant analogy
Both the mother and grandmother previously had conservative beliefs until the youngest generation changed their minds
She compared the system to a rigged game of Monopoly
Here's the full explanation
Systemic and structural racism have been prevalent in the United States since the country was founded
Despite the fact that slavery was abolished in 1865, and the Civil Rights Act was signed in 1964, the United States is still far from free of racism.
A 2026 survey from the Pew Research Center found that 10% of Americans consider racial diversity bad for the country. And 19% of Republican and Republican leaning Americans believe that a racially and ethnically diverse population has had a negative impact on the country’s culture.
These bigoted views don’t only appear in the minds of individuals, though. Systemic racism has had its ugly claws in the country for centuries, and we’re still working on dismantling it today.
According to research published in HealthAffairs, “systemic and structural racism are forms of racism that are pervasively and deeply embedded in systems, laws, written or unwritten policies, and entrenched practices and beliefs that produce, condone, and perpetuate widespread unfair treatment and oppression of people of color, with adverse health consequences.”
Examples of this include residential segregation, unfair lending practices, barriers to home ownership and accumulating wealth, the dependence that schools have on local property taxes, environmental injustice, biased policies and sentencing of people of color, and voter suppression policies.
The National Urban League’s 2022 report on the State of Black America found that the median household income for Black Americans is 37% less than that of white Americans.
Meanwhile, Black couples are more than twice as likely as white couples to be denied a mortgage or home improvement loan. Because of this, Black Americans have only 59% of the median home equity of white households and only 13% of the wealth.
Black Americans are still dealing with the impacts of centuries of oppression
This systemic racism bleeds into all aspects of life. Black women are 59% more likely to lose their lives in or due to childbirth than white women in the US. And Black men are 52% more likely to lose their lives to prostate cancer than their white peers.
When it comes to encounters with law enforcement, Black Americans are more than twice as likely as white people to experience threats or use of force. They are also three times more likely to be jailed if arrested and 93% more likely to be the victims of a hate crime.
Unfortunately, the impacts of systemic racism start at a very young age. PBS explains that classrooms with more minority students are more likely to be led by inexperienced or even uncertified educators.
Fewer of these students will have the opportunity to take STEM classes that could lead to a higher-paying job in the future. Black students are also less likely to graduate from college.
The monopoly analogy perfectly explains why Black Americans are still trying to “catch up,” even after decades of supposedly having “equal rights.”
If a white person’s great-great-grandparents owned property, that wealth has helped future generations up until today. On the flip side, if a Black American’s great-great-grandparents were slaves, they had to overcome immeasurable obstacles to be able to accumulate wealth up until today.
We would love to hear your thoughts on this analogy in the comments below, pandas. Would you use the same strategy to explain systemic racism to someone in your life? Then, if you’re interested in checking out another article from Bored Panda discussing similar issues, look no further than right here.
Viewers appreciated how accurately and clearly the woman conveyed her message
