7 ms·

> Since racism is systemic[1] > [1] If you don't believe this, you're in the minority now: https://www.vox.com/2020/6/11/21286642/george-floyd-protests.. https

> Since racism is systemic[1] > [1] If you don't believe this, you're in the minority now: https://www.vox.com/2020/6/11/21286642/george-floyd-protests.. https://www.vox.com/2020/6/11/21286642/george-floyd-protests.... This part was a little odd. It sounds like you're saying "because this belief is widely held by people, we should treat it as true"? I definitely am in the minority, but I find a much more logically consistent view than the modern definition of systemic racism to actually be "there are systems of authority/control/oppression, which by their nature can be exploited by racists (or other groups) to advance their ends". In other words - and I hope this isn't too off topic of a tangent - one of the primary goals of the BLM protest seems to be "racism is leading to excess death/imprisonment for black americans, so let's try to purge any traces of racism to eliminate these excess deaths". Which to me is missing the point: practices/systems like no-knock raids, the war on drugs, civil asset forfeiture, etc give police officers an excuse to be able to violently invade someone's home (no-knock), violate 4th amendment rights (war on drugs wrt "I smelled weed in your car"), criminalize behavior that happens to be broken along racial and class lines (non-violent drug usage/possession/distribution). In other words, the problem is not that there are racist people in the system, but that we have these systems that give racist individuals the perfect excuse to achieve their nefarious ends. That's because we've built a system that justifies and encourages oppression, and we can see that without having to introduce racee. Anyway, I'm not hear to debunk "systemic racism" since like so many of the new-speak definitions/words, as soon as you try to debunk it people claim that you're using the wrong definition. But I do think it should be noted that when it comes to looking at actual research literature on, say, likelihood of being shot by police in a given encounter broken down by race, the "systemic racism" doesn't seem to be borne out in the data. Whereas we can make incredibly important societal change without needing to introduce the idea of systemic racism, simply by addressing the actual systems of oppression we have set up that give police officers the ability to randomly pull a citizen over and harass them since at any given moment each of us is violating a nonzero number of laws.

rexpop 6y ago
> behavior that happens to be broken along racial and class lines A huge coincidence.
11thEarlOfMar 6y ago
This struck me as well. Systemic racism means (to me) that if you took the people out of the system, you'd still get biased outcomes based on race. In my view, it's a different matter to say that a system produces biased results because it is designed to do so, rather than it is systemic because the people operating it make biased choices where their discretion is called on. Are there actual, current examples of systemic racism where an entirely non-racist staff would still produce racially-based biased outcomes?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ikeyany 6y ago
  There are plenty, such as the influence of religion and customs instilled by people in the past. Many people are assigned these cultural norms from childhood. For example, the normalized Western image of something like a caucasian Jesus or a caucasian Santa Clause influences ways of thinking and who we see as our cultural betters.
- lifeformed 6y ago
  > Are there actual, current examples of systemic racism where an entirely non-racist staff would still produce racially-based biased outcomes? If you removed all racists from the economy, black people as a demographic would still be at a huge disadvantage for a very long time (or forever?). The playing field might not level on it's own. If a system starts out with biased functions and runs long enough so that the distribution of the state is biased, removing the biased functions doesn't necessarily guarantee the state will return back to an unbiased equilibrium. Removing explicitly racist laws doesn't remove the biases embedded in the system from two hundred years of slavery and terrorism. There is a complex feedback loop of education, economics, and cultural attitudes that have locked the imbalances in.
  - ihsw 6y ago
    Some kids go to school to raise hell, are you saying we should tolerate it because their skin color indicates some kind of victim status? Doesn't that put the other non-disruptive students (whom share the same skin color) at a disadvantage?
hellomyguys 6y ago
Would you agree at some point this country was systemically racist? Surely you would agree during slavery it was? I'm going to assume you agree, so then can you explain when systemic racism ended? And what caused it to end? Can you also help me understand how you are so sure that the negative impact to Black people while this country was systematically racist does not still hurt people today?
- mov_ 6y ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the person you're responding to is in opposition to you.
  - hellomyguys 6y ago
    Maybe I'm wrong but wouldn't their interpretation of chattel slavery in America be that it wasn't the beginning of systemic racism in this country, but purely oppressive system that was exploited by racists? It seems like an odd distinction to make even if I agree that there exists systematic oppression against many groups in addition to systemic racism. >In other words, the problem is not that there are racist people in the system, but that we have these systems that give racist individuals the perfect excuse to achieve their nefarious ends. Even this just doesn't fully explain away systemic oppression that impacts people on a day-to-day basic like Black people not getting job interviews due to their name sounding Black or job offers because the interviewers have unconscious bias.
    - mtrower 6y ago
      > Even this just doesn't fully explain away systemic oppression that impacts people on a day-to-day basic like Black people not getting job interviews due to their name sounding Black or job offers because the interviewers have unconscious bias. In this scenario, is it not the racist individual (the interviewer) impacting minority success, rather than the system itself? (I take no position here as to the existence of systemic racism. I'm just not certain the example you have brought supports your argument.)

rexpop 6y ago

> behavior that happens to be broken along racial and class lines A huge coincidence.

11thEarlOfMar 6y ago

This struck me as well. Systemic racism means (to me) that if you took the people out of the system, you'd still get biased outcomes based on race. In my view, it's a different matter to say that a system produces biased results because it is designed to do so, rather than it is systemic because the people operating it make biased choices where their discretion is called on. Are there actual, current examples of systemic racism where an entirely non-racist staff would still produce racially-based biased outcomes?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ikeyany 6y ago
There are plenty, such as the influence of religion and customs instilled by people in the past. Many people are assigned these cultural norms from childhood. For example, the normalized Western image of something like a caucasian Jesus or a caucasian Santa Clause influences ways of thinking and who we see as our cultural betters.
lifeformed 6y ago
> Are there actual, current examples of systemic racism where an entirely non-racist staff would still produce racially-based biased outcomes? If you removed all racists from the economy, black people as a demographic would still be at a huge disadvantage for a very long time (or forever?). The playing field might not level on it's own. If a system starts out with biased functions and runs long enough so that the distribution of the state is biased, removing the biased functions doesn't necessarily guarantee the state will return back to an unbiased equilibrium. Removing explicitly racist laws doesn't remove the biases embedded in the system from two hundred years of slavery and terrorism. There is a complex feedback loop of education, economics, and cultural attitudes that have locked the imbalances in.
- ihsw 6y ago
  Some kids go to school to raise hell, are you saying we should tolerate it because their skin color indicates some kind of victim status? Doesn't that put the other non-disruptive students (whom share the same skin color) at a disadvantage?

hellomyguys 6y ago

Would you agree at some point this country was systemically racist? Surely you would agree during slavery it was? I'm going to assume you agree, so then can you explain when systemic racism ended? And what caused it to end? Can you also help me understand how you are so sure that the negative impact to Black people while this country was systematically racist does not still hurt people today?

mov_ 6y ago
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the person you're responding to is in opposition to you.
- hellomyguys 6y ago
  Maybe I'm wrong but wouldn't their interpretation of chattel slavery in America be that it wasn't the beginning of systemic racism in this country, but purely oppressive system that was exploited by racists? It seems like an odd distinction to make even if I agree that there exists systematic oppression against many groups in addition to systemic racism. >In other words, the problem is not that there are racist people in the system, but that we have these systems that give racist individuals the perfect excuse to achieve their nefarious ends. Even this just doesn't fully explain away systemic oppression that impacts people on a day-to-day basic like Black people not getting job interviews due to their name sounding Black or job offers because the interviewers have unconscious bias.
  - mtrower 6y ago
    > Even this just doesn't fully explain away systemic oppression that impacts people on a day-to-day basic like Black people not getting job interviews due to their name sounding Black or job offers because the interviewers have unconscious bias. In this scenario, is it not the racist individual (the interviewer) impacting minority success, rather than the system itself? (I take no position here as to the existence of systemic racism. I'm just not certain the example you have brought supports your argument.)