or more than a year, the Black Lives Matter movement has gripped the United States. The movement’s central slogan is a simple, declarative recognition of black humanity in a society that is wracked by economic and social inequality disproportionately experienced by African Americans.

The movement is relatively new, but the racism that spawned it is not. By every barometer in American society — health care, education, employment, poverty — African Americans are worse off.

Elected officials from across the political spectrum often blame these disparities on an absence of “personal responsibility” or view them as a cultural phenomenon particular to African Americans.