A recent NBC/WSJ poll asked Americans whether or not they agreed with the statement that America is a nation where people are judged by their character, not their skin color. Fifty-four percent of Americans felt the statement was true and 52 percent of Americans said race relations are good.

However, the most insightful thing to take from the poll was that an astonishing 79 percent of black Americans did not feel that America is a nation where people are judged by their character, not their skin color. Given the recent happenings on The University of Alabama campus over the past few years, it should be obvious to many here that in many aspects of our culture we continue to judge not by character but by skin color.

Despite that, many people would attempt to claim this is an isolated incident and it should not be viewed as part of a larger discriminatory part of our society that disadvantages minorities. Many different factors in modern American society show why we should not be so quick to jump to that conclusion. Possibly one of the most famous examples recently is the policy of stop-and-risk in New York City. From 2002-11, black and Latino New Yorkers made up about 90 percent of those stopped by police and about 88 percent of stops were innocent New Yorkers. Despite the large numbers of black and Latinos stopped, white New Yorkers stopped were more likely to be holding drugs or guns. This form of institutionalized discrimination based on skin color should not be surprising to those who pay attention to our justice system, given that minority defendants tend to get harsher sentences than white defendants for the same crimes.

Even from an early age, many people of color are judged unfairly and treated differently than their white peers. Studies have found that minorities are more likely to be placed into lower tracks in their schooling than equally capable white peers, and those lower-tracked students are more likely to have less qualified teachers. Even in regards to punishment in schools, minority students face harsher punishments. A study by the Department of Education led secretary Arne Duncan to say, “The sad fact is that minority students across America face much harsher discipline than non- minorities, even within the same school.”

UA students should take the horrible incidents that have happened on the campus during the past few years and place them within the context of the greater American society. Many actions that we take in our everyday life unconsciously reinforce the negative stereotypes or support the systems that disadvantage people of color in America.

Horrible moments like these should move us to examine how we might be perpetuating the stereotypes and systems that cause this disparity and move us to fix them. If we don’t, then we’re doomed to not move forward and a few years from now another similar column will have to come out.

Matthew Bailey is a second-year law student. His column runs biweekly on Mondays.