It’s not difficult to see through to the root of so many of our problems when I look around at the nation I’m living in. Anyone pretending that White Supremacy hasn’t been the underlying substrate of America since before its founding is lying, too stupid to be trusted, or in such profound denial that I doubt there’s any recovery. Worse than that, I can’t ignore that a whole lot of the ridiculous, regressive nonsense we’ve been dealing with over the last decade, as a nation (on display for the global stage), derives from the altogether too-widespread sentiment that one particular Black man did not know his place and refused to stay in his lane.

Barack Obama seems to have made a lot of people angry by having the audacity to forget that he wasn’t supposed to be above white folks in a position of authority. I applaud Joe Biden for being an establishment white man who was willing to take a second chair to Obama. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t particularly Progressive, or that he had policies that were barely distinguishable from Conservative policies of a decade or two before he was elected President. It didn’t matter that he was cautious, measured in words and actions, and held to a higher standard than any white man in the same position. He still had to fight against his own party almost as much as he had to fight against people on the opposite side of the political divide. He observed the rule of law even as members of Congress made up new restrictions–pretending they were tradition–when he tried to appoint a Supreme Court Justice he had the right to appoint.

It was the 21st Century, so some concessions had to be made, and all but the most virulent racists needed to put on a show of embracing superficial progress made since the Civil Rights era. Black men could become superstar athletes, musicians and performers, high-ranking members of the Armed Forces, and even Senators or Representatives. But the highest office–that was just a bridge too far. Black people were acceptable, so long as there was always someone white in a position above them, keeping them in check.

Hell, until the 1990s, the only two Black men to serve as Governor did so because they stepped up from the role of Lieutenant Governor in Louisiana. The first, Oscar Dunn, died under suspicious circumstances in 1871, the same year he started serving as acting Governor after Governor Warmoth was injured. P.B.S. Pinchback assumed the role of Lieutenant Governor after that and became acting Governor for just over a month, when Governor Warmoth was facing Impeachment charges. He was acting Governor for barely more than a month.

L. Douglas Wilder was the first Black man elected Governor, and that wasn’t until 1990. He served only one term. After that, it didn’t happen again until Deval Patrick was elected Governor of Massachusetts in 2007. Wes Moore wasn’t elected in Maryland until 2023.

In almost 250 years of American history, only three Black men have been elected Governor, and one elected President. It seems clear that, even at the State level, Black people were expected to remain subservient to white leadership. They still are, for the most part.

It’s not just politics, though.

Clifton Warton Jr. was the first Black man to become CEO of a major U.S. corporation, and that didn’t happen until 1987. As of last year, there were a total of eight Black CEOs at the helm of Fortune 500 companies. Throughout the history of the Fortune 500, fewer than 30 Black people have served as CEO.

And, of course, a minuscule fraction have been Black women. Granted, only two women were in positions of CEO for Fortune 500 companies in 1998, seven in 2002, and a grand total of 55 women were CEOs of Fortune 500 companies last year, reaching an all-time high. So, naturally, the Venn Diagram including Black women was going to be small.

And, as you might suspect, it’s not just Black people and women. The first Latino CEO of a Fortune 500 company didn’t get into the position until 1981, and the first Latina wasn’t until 2017. There wasn’t an Asian American male CEO until 1986, or an East Asian woman as CEO until 1999 (and that was Avon).

The government has been just as proportionately non-selective in its racism, with only 27 total Governors of Black, Latino, Asian, or Indigenous descent (including the ones I previously mentioned). This is all a major component of Institutionalized Racism, when the institutions of our civilization are governed by racist practices.