Racism's Chokehold on Black America: a Federal Perspective

Racism's Chokehold on Black America: A Black Federal Employee's Perspective

By Tanya Ward Jordan, President and Founder- The Coalition For Change, Inc. (C4C)

The Staten Island grand jury's failure to indict Daniel Pantaleo, a white New York police officer for killing Eric Garner, a black unarmed male, draws anguish, anger and agony from many Black Americans like myself. In deciding the white officer's fate the jury blindly ignored an uncut video that showed the law enforcement officer viciously using a banned chokehold to snuff the life out of a son, a husband, a father of six, a grandfather, and a Black American repeatedly gasping -- "I can't breathe." The killing of Eric Garner and the echoing news of the grand jury's failure to indict Pantaleo played before an American audience in high definition. It demonstrated racism's merciless chokehold on Black Americans.

A study published in the Lancet Medical Journal in 1998 discussed racism as an "underlying factor in why black men in the United States have an overall death rate which is almost 50 percent higher than that of white men." The pervasive presence of racism, looms at individual, institutional and societal levels. It poses a debilitating concern for Black Americans throughout the United States cities, including Washington, DC -- our nation's capital. Research discloses that racism "acts as a classic chronic stressor, setting off the same physiological train wreck as job strain or marital conflict: higher blood pressure, elevated heart rate, increases in the stress hormone cortisol, suppressed immunity."

Within the federal government, Black Americans face suffocating abuses (i.e. assaults, racial slurs, intimidation, death threats) that adversely impact their lives daily. Serial discriminators, some with proven racial biases, actively discriminate against persons of color when deciding awards, ratings, promotions, and disciplinary actions including terminations. They freely use their civil service...