“Racism acts as a systemic serial killer of Black people increasing their mortality rate.” John Johnson II 11/04/25
By John Johnson II
Racism is not merely prejudice or bias; it is a systemic serial killer that stalks Black lives across generations. It weaponizes institutions, social policies, and cultural norms to inflict harm, shorten lifespans, and deny dignity. Unlike a lone assailant acting in the shadows, racism is a coordinated structure—visible, persistent, and lethal.
Systemic inequities are its first weapon. Housing discrimination, underfunded schools, and exclusion from wealth-building pipelines did not occur by accident. Redlining, segregation, and employment discrimination created a racial caste system to trap Black Americans in economic precarity. When opportunity is intentionally withheld for centuries, poverty becomes state-engineered, not self-inflicted. This inequality fuels every other deadly outcome.
Health disparities and chronic stress are the next wounds. The body keeps score when confronted with relentless bias. Chronic stress elevates cortisol, triggers cardiovascular disease, and shortens life expectancy. Black women, regardless of income or education, face disproportionately high maternal mortality rates because the health-care system often ignores their pain, misdiagnoses symptoms, or treats them as less credible. Racism is literally internalized—in blood pressure, immune responses, and premature death.
Environmental and economic injustices serve as additional tools. Black communities are routinely placed near toxic waste facilities, industrial zones, and highways, exposing residents to polluted air and contaminated water. From Cancer Alley in Louisiana to Flint, Michigan, environmental racism is not accidental geography—it is policy-driven harm. Simultaneously, exploitation in the labor market, wage suppression, and discriminatory lending suffocate Black economic mobility. When breath, water, and wages are manipulated, survival itself becomes conditional.
Highways themselves became weapons. In Miami, the construction of I-95 bulldozed Overtown—once known as the “Harlem of the South”—destroying Black churches, clubs, businesses, and displacing thousands, shattering a thriving cultural and economic hub. I-95 was intentionally planned to disrupt the once striving Black community.
Similar devastation occurred across Florida: Tampa’s Black Central Avenue corridor was gutted by I-275; Orlando’s Parramore community was severed by I-4; Jacksonville’s LaVilla and Brooklyn were splintered by highway expansion; and St. Petersburg’s Gas Plant district was razed for redevelopment. These were not engineering coincidences, but deliberate routes chosen through Black prosperity, echoing the same intent that
fueled the 1921 Tulsa Greenwood massacre—targeting and erasing Black success to preserve white dominance.
Violence and the justice system compound the threat. From slave patrols to modern police departments, punitive force against Black bodies has been codified. Extrajudicial killings, racial profiling, and militarized policing communicate a chilling truth: in America, Black life remains negotiable. Courtrooms then reinforce this hierarchy through unequal sentencing, prosecutorial bias, and judicial indifference. Justice is not blind—it sees color and punishes accordingly.
Homicide remains one of the most visible scars. Black Americans are disproportionately victims of homicide, a reality driven by concentrated poverty, lack of state investment, and the circulation of weapons in communities long deprived of economic opportunity. Violence is not innate; it grows where government abandons and destabilizes. Racism creates the conditions, then blames the victims.
Mass incarceration is racism’s longest-running trap. The prison industrial complex siphons away Black men at staggering rates, fracturing families, stripping voting rights, and transforming punishment into profit. The Thirteenth Amendment may have abolished slavery, but the clause permitting forced labor for those “duly convicted” birthed a new plantation—one made of steel bars and legal loopholes. Incarceration becomes not a response to crime, but a strategy of racial control.
Racism’s serial killings occur quietly and loudly, through policy, neglect, bullets, polluted lungs, and stolen potential. America cannot heal until it admits what history makes plain. Black death is not incidental—it has been structured, normalized, and defended.
To dismantle this lethal system, the nation must confront truth without defense, reform institutions without delay, and treat Black life as sacred—not expendable. Until then, racism remains the most prolific serial killer in American history.
YOU BE THE JUDGE!
