Racism is a major problem in the US and has been for a long time. It's become tied with immigration in the last couple decades. If you are black in the US you are many times more likely to go to prison for the same crimes as a white person. The same is true for other races of Americans but not as bad as for blacks. Something like 1/3 black men will be in prison in their lives. We currently have 1/100 men in prison in the US. 3% of the total population is incarcerated or on restriction (probation/parole). It's just crazy.
Jo is a racist- Categorizing actions taken against individuals BASED UPON RACE is without respect to each individual case in which crimes are committed and sentences made. If it turns out that black people just happen to commit more crimes, THEN IT'S OKAY. THE SYSTEM IS FINE. It may also be that white people just happen to be innocent more often than blacks.
The hilarious thing is that MOST of the crimes black people commit are against OTHER BLACK people. The FBI publishes (on their website) yearly statistics of crimes that result in murders- the last time I was doing research on it (2003), 80% of ALL crimes involving murder (since the 70's) were black people killing black people (in most cases involving theft of some kind). The statistics DO NOT FAVOR black people!
That said- If you submit two job applications where the only thing different is the name and one person is named "James" and the other is named "Shiquandaniqua," it's shamefully racist who is going to get the job. Statistics show that "James" will find a job significantly faster- unless the hiring agency needs to satisfy race/gender hiring requirements for tax breaks.
Companies look at statistics and see that black people, historically, commit more crimes. The fact that the former is true results in the latter. I was working in retail on Manhattan right in Union Square. Our store raked in 100k of sales each Saturday. Probably 80% of the shoplifting that took place- split evenly between Blacks and Latinos. We can call this racism, but the reality of it is that these conceptions developed organically.
The days of senseless lynching racism has been over (at least in places where it matters) for a long time. Now it seems to be predicated on the body of behavior that they have provided.