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It’s especially egregious in this case with 1/3 of examples being extremely politically oriented (the so-called systemic racism). One of the big issue is when p

It’s especially egregious in this case with 1/3 of examples being extremely politically oriented (the so-called systemic racism). One of the big issue is when people start thinking their fantasies are reality and will distort every fact to fit in, instead of critically think that they may, in fact, be wrong.

rtkwe 6y ago
This is a fine example of what I mean. To me, from the left, there's very little room to question the existence of systematic racism. [0] From my perspective it flows pretty cleanly from several pretty solid facts. Black people were literally property for several hundred years. Once that ended there were explicitly racist laws and actions to keep black people out of any kind of economic or political power. [1] Maybe most importantly redlining kept black people out of home loans during one of the greatest periods of wealth growth in the US during the postwar boom. Combine this with the fact that poor neighborhoods are more polluted, [2] have worse schools, poor parents have less time to devote to tutoring their kids, etc and we get a self reinforcing system. This system shits on all poor people but history has put a thumb on the scale of who wound up starting where. Given a much longer time span this may sort itself out naturally but with the way wealth compounds in capitalism there are also countervailing forces. [0] The definition gets muddied a lot so I'll define myself here. Systematic racism is the concept that the interlocking /system/ of the government and economy have a racially biased outcome, ie it's racist, hence systematic racism. Importantly it's not that this system is necessarily currently intentional, though personally for me, not addressing the problem does feel like you get some blame for it's continued existence. [1] Jim Crow laws, the Tulsa Race Massacre, the Wilmington insurrection of 1898 (look this one up in particular), the list is long and quite consistent. [2] Which studies show has deleterious effects on educational performance. Pulling one random study out: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6140474/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6140474/
- AlexTWithBeard 6y ago
  I think noone in their sane mind will deny that racism does exist. This is a fact and there are scientific ways to check it. The questions are: how much does racism contributes to poverty among black people? Is it the only reason? Is it the main reason? Are there any other reasons? If these reasons are unpleasant (pick your favorite here) will we still be able to freely discuss them? If racism is not the reason (let's imagine for a moment), how do we find it out? If racism is the reason, then which policies are effective in fighting it and which are not? Why white-to-black unemployment ratio in conservative Alabama is the same as in progressive New Jersey? Why both New York and Texas do better? Why? Why? Why?
  - vixen99 6y ago
    Other reasons? http://www.tsowell.com/Discrimination2.html http://www.tsowell.com/Discrimination2.html '...challenges the very foundation of assumptions on which the prevailing “social justice” vision is based. The first two chapters of Discrimination and Disparities present a new framework of analysis, and back it up with empirical evidence from around the world, before proceeding to demonstrate why and how so much of the "social justice" vision is a house of cards.'
- luckylion 6y ago
  An issue I see with that line of thinking is that Turks in Germany are also a lot poorer than native Germans, get lower education and rely on welfare a lot more, commit more crimes etc. Yet they immigrated barely 60 years ago and were immigrating as workers, not refugees. Turks have never been enslaved (quite the contrary, they've been slave-owners for much of their history), there were no racist laws against Turks, yet they still ended up in a very similar place. That suggests that there might be different reasons why groups are less successful, and might suggest that it's not racism. That the results in different African American groups are very different also makes the simple narrative of "it's because of racism" hard to follow, I think.
  - notahacker 6y ago
    I don't think many Germans would argue that Turkish immigrants and their descendants have not been subject to significant degrees of racism and discrimination. It's particularly hard to claim with a straight face that the cultural similarities between between Turkish Germans and African Americans are much more obvious...
    - luckylion 6y ago
      > I don't think many Germans would argue that Turkish immigrants and their descendants have not been subject to significant degrees of racism and discrimination. I'd like to see that argument, if you put it next to racism in the US. Racism towards Turks in Germany might be a slur on the school yard (which, I can assure you, was much more commonly used by Turkish kids), not slavery, Jim Crow and segregation. > It's particularly hard to claim with a straight face that the cultural similarities between between Turkish Germans and African Americans are much more obvious... That's not what I wrote. If racism isn't the great explanation, other explanations need to be looked at. You chose to neglect the fact that African Americans are not at all similar in the outcomes, even though they're all experiencing racism in the US, and were, by and large, always treated as a singular group.
      - notahacker 6y ago
        > I'd like to see that argument, if you put it next to racism in the US. Racism towards Turks in Germany might be a slur on the school yard (which, I can assure you, was much more commonly used by Turkish kids), not slavery, Jim Crow and segregation. Sure, I haven't pretended the two countries had exactly the same social and political environments. The respective outcomes for the different minorities aren't exactly the same either. I'm not even sure what your argument is now: you appeared to be questioning the existence of systematic racism in the US, and yet are now insisting it was extremely bad. If your claim is instead that systematic racism was extremely bad but actually had no discernible effect, that's pretty extraordinary. Though perhaps not as extraordinary as you choosing to support that with the claim that ---checks notes--- mid twentieth century Germany is a good counter example of a society where migrants didn't encounter any adult racists. Surely you're just trolling for Godwin's Law there. > If racism isn't the great explanation, other explanations need to be looked at. You chose to neglect the fact that African Americans are not at all similar in the outcomes, even though they're all experiencing racism in the US, and were, by and large, always treated as a singular group. I'm not sure the fact some African Americans do better than others in any way detracts from the argument that systematic racism is a thing which negatively affects the group. Not all outcomes of shootings are the same; this is not evidence bullets cause no harm. We can look at as many complementary explanations for ethnic minority underperformance as you like, and it's not going to remotely undermine the OP's claim that racism has an effect.

rtkwe 6y ago

This is a fine example of what I mean. To me, from the left, there's very little room to question the existence of systematic racism. [0] From my perspective it flows pretty cleanly from several pretty solid facts. Black people were literally property for several hundred years. Once that ended there were explicitly racist laws and actions to keep black people out of any kind of economic or political power. [1] Maybe most importantly redlining kept black people out of home loans during one of the greatest periods of wealth growth in the US during the postwar boom. Combine this with the fact that poor neighborhoods are more polluted, [2] have worse schools, poor parents have less time to devote to tutoring their kids, etc and we get a self reinforcing system. This system shits on all poor people but history has put a thumb on the scale of who wound up starting where. Given a much longer time span this may sort itself out naturally but with the way wealth compounds in capitalism there are also countervailing forces. [0] The definition gets muddied a lot so I'll define myself here. Systematic racism is the concept that the interlocking /system/ of the government and economy have a racially biased outcome, ie it's racist, hence systematic racism. Importantly it's not that this system is necessarily currently intentional, though personally for me, not addressing the problem does feel like you get some blame for it's continued existence. [1] Jim Crow laws, the Tulsa Race Massacre, the Wilmington insurrection of 1898 (look this one up in particular), the list is long and quite consistent. [2] Which studies show has deleterious effects on educational performance. Pulling one random study out: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6140474/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6140474/

AlexTWithBeard 6y ago
I think noone in their sane mind will deny that racism does exist. This is a fact and there are scientific ways to check it. The questions are: how much does racism contributes to poverty among black people? Is it the only reason? Is it the main reason? Are there any other reasons? If these reasons are unpleasant (pick your favorite here) will we still be able to freely discuss them? If racism is not the reason (let's imagine for a moment), how do we find it out? If racism is the reason, then which policies are effective in fighting it and which are not? Why white-to-black unemployment ratio in conservative Alabama is the same as in progressive New Jersey? Why both New York and Texas do better? Why? Why? Why?
- vixen99 6y ago
  Other reasons? http://www.tsowell.com/Discrimination2.html http://www.tsowell.com/Discrimination2.html '...challenges the very foundation of assumptions on which the prevailing “social justice” vision is based. The first two chapters of Discrimination and Disparities present a new framework of analysis, and back it up with empirical evidence from around the world, before proceeding to demonstrate why and how so much of the "social justice" vision is a house of cards.'
luckylion 6y ago
An issue I see with that line of thinking is that Turks in Germany are also a lot poorer than native Germans, get lower education and rely on welfare a lot more, commit more crimes etc. Yet they immigrated barely 60 years ago and were immigrating as workers, not refugees. Turks have never been enslaved (quite the contrary, they've been slave-owners for much of their history), there were no racist laws against Turks, yet they still ended up in a very similar place. That suggests that there might be different reasons why groups are less successful, and might suggest that it's not racism. That the results in different African American groups are very different also makes the simple narrative of "it's because of racism" hard to follow, I think.
- notahacker 6y ago
  I don't think many Germans would argue that Turkish immigrants and their descendants have not been subject to significant degrees of racism and discrimination. It's particularly hard to claim with a straight face that the cultural similarities between between Turkish Germans and African Americans are much more obvious...
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > I don't think many Germans would argue that Turkish immigrants and their descendants have not been subject to significant degrees of racism and discrimination. I'd like to see that argument, if you put it next to racism in the US. Racism towards Turks in Germany might be a slur on the school yard (which, I can assure you, was much more commonly used by Turkish kids), not slavery, Jim Crow and segregation. > It's particularly hard to claim with a straight face that the cultural similarities between between Turkish Germans and African Americans are much more obvious... That's not what I wrote. If racism isn't the great explanation, other explanations need to be looked at. You chose to neglect the fact that African Americans are not at all similar in the outcomes, even though they're all experiencing racism in the US, and were, by and large, always treated as a singular group.
    - notahacker 6y ago
      > I'd like to see that argument, if you put it next to racism in the US. Racism towards Turks in Germany might be a slur on the school yard (which, I can assure you, was much more commonly used by Turkish kids), not slavery, Jim Crow and segregation. Sure, I haven't pretended the two countries had exactly the same social and political environments. The respective outcomes for the different minorities aren't exactly the same either. I'm not even sure what your argument is now: you appeared to be questioning the existence of systematic racism in the US, and yet are now insisting it was extremely bad. If your claim is instead that systematic racism was extremely bad but actually had no discernible effect, that's pretty extraordinary. Though perhaps not as extraordinary as you choosing to support that with the claim that ---checks notes--- mid twentieth century Germany is a good counter example of a society where migrants didn't encounter any adult racists. Surely you're just trolling for Godwin's Law there. > If racism isn't the great explanation, other explanations need to be looked at. You chose to neglect the fact that African Americans are not at all similar in the outcomes, even though they're all experiencing racism in the US, and were, by and large, always treated as a singular group. I'm not sure the fact some African Americans do better than others in any way detracts from the argument that systematic racism is a thing which negatively affects the group. Not all outcomes of shootings are the same; this is not evidence bullets cause no harm. We can look at as many complementary explanations for ethnic minority underperformance as you like, and it's not going to remotely undermine the OP's claim that racism has an effect.