Anyone familiar with the American criminal justice system is likely well-versed in how racially biased it is – whether you’re looking at federal prisons or local country crime rates, there’s always been a heavy bias towards incarcerating African Americans at a staggeringly higher rate than white Americans. New data shows that this trend could be narrowing, but many still have their doubts about whether we’re truly overcoming the racially biased incarceration rates that have plagued this country for so long.

Here’s the truth about our criminal justice system today, and why we’re still failing to guarantee the “liberty and justice for all” so frequently promised but so seldom delivered.

Let’s start with the good news – the gap between the number of black and white Americans in prisons around the nation is shrinking. It’s no secret that black Americans have significantly outnumbered White Americans when it comes to who is and isn’t incarcerated, and it should be of no surprise to anyone paying attention that this gross racial disparity has continued well into modern times. Recently, however, some progress has been made. According to some recent demographic figures, for instance, the gap between the amount of black and white Americans is at its narrowest since 2009, when our prison population peaked.

While that’s obviously good news that Americans everywhere should champion, it really just goes to show how much work remains to be done. That’s because our contemporary criminal justice system is still horrifically racially biased, no matter which direction you look at it from. Consider that African Americans have to worry about getting harsher sentencing guidelines than White Americans for committing the same crime, for instance. When you factor in the everyday racism that people of color still face, and realize that despite the narrowing of the gap, black Americans are still overwhelmingly imprisoned at higher rates than others, you’ll realize we’ve yet to overcome racial bias.

Countless studies have found that black Americans, and younger people of color, in particular, are going to be spending more time in a jail cell than their white counterparts. As long as this kind of stark disparity exists, can we really say we’ve overcome our racially biased incarceration rates? We all know that incarceration has been used as a tool against people of color for generations, but few seem to appreciate just how serious modern discrimination is. Black Americans who dare to speak up about our criminal justice system are still, more often than not, chided as being mere troublemakers or rabble-rousers.

If African Americans and other residents of this country want to see meaningful change, we have to start at the bottom. That’s because the racially-charged numbers we see from the American federal government’s prison statistics using an inmate lookup are nursed at the local level every day. When racism flourishes in microcosms around the nation, it’s enabled to go national on a larger scale. Thus, when we continue to see everyday injustices occur around the country, we need to make it clear that such racial bias is no longer acceptable.

Consider the fact that young black Americans still have to worry about having the police called on them when they’re doing something so innocent as mowing the lawn. When 12-year-old Reggie Fields in Ohio was cutting grass in his Cleveland suburbs, police showed up to confront the child. As long as this kind of disgusting racism endures at the local level, should we really be surprised when we see racially biased incarceration rates at the highest level in our nation?

The truth of the matter is simple – until black Americans are viewed as equals by their fellow members of the public, racially biased incarceration rates can never be overcome. Our prisons are a reflection of who we are as a people, and are incredibly instructive as to how we treat members of different classes in society. As long as racism continues to endure in contemporary American life, it will be seen in our incarceration figures.

African Americans and other people of color who are rightfully devastated by this don’t have to be helpless. We can begin seizing equality by fighting back against racism in our everyday lives, recruiting allies who are willing to use their privilege on our behalf, and by lobbying hard for a more equitable justice system that doesn’t thrive on racial injustice.

Confronting the deep legacy of racism and slavery in this country has never been an easy task. Indeed, broad swathes of the population would rather let the issue of racial injustice rest, as they mistakenly view it as a “sleeping dog” and not a real problem. Nonetheless, Americans of every background need to keep up the fight against racism, as it’s the only way we’ll ever overcome the racially charged incarceration rates we suffer from.