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> As an ideology you have correctly identified an inequity in treatment by law enforcement based on race, but the lack of systems theory and postmodern understa

> As an ideology you have correctly identified an inequity in treatment by law enforcement based on race, but the lack of systems theory and postmodern understanding leads you (as an ideology) to ascribe this to human perpetrators who actually want this to happen. I'm sure there are racist police out there, but systemic racism is not caused by racist individuals; its caused by the behaviour of systems (the justice system, systems around poverty, long term effects of previous explicitly racist policy). Until progressivism fully discards modernism and embraces postmodernism and systems theory, I don't believe it will be able to solve any of the problems it has identified. Weren't all of those systems designed, implemented and enforced by individuals? Racist policy makers, racist voters... from a systems perspective, systemic racism is the function of individual racism aggregated over time. If anything, it seems modern and not post-modern to extract racist individuals from systemic racism as they are part of and the origination of the systems themselves. It's treating humans as something outside of the system, which is a view I'd align more with modernism.

beaconstudios 6y ago
> Weren't all of those systems designed, implemented and enforced by individuals? Racist policy makers, racist voters... from a systems perspective, systemic racism is the function of individual racism aggregated over time. No, that's not always the case. Take for instance, the racially biased outcome that webcams more easily recognise white than black faces. That probably happened because the webcam was built and tested primarily by white people. Is it an encoding of racist intent? No, but the outcome was racially biased. The intervention, instead of firing all the developers for being racist, would be to simply include more people of different ethnic backgrounds in testing. The same can be true of more complex systems. A classic not-related-to-inequality case of backfiring being the Cobra effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect). Obviously some factors in modern day racial inequality are caused by racist individuals, but that does not make a system of racial inequality - it makes bad people causing hostile interactions on an individual scale. There are clearly instances where policy is wilfully racist - slavery, redlining, and so on. But even once the system is gone, the repercussions continue until corrective systems are put in place. > If anything, it seems modern and not post-modern to extract racist individuals from systemic racism as they are part of and the origination of the systems themselves. It's treating humans as something outside of the system, which is a view I'd align more with modernism. A large piece of the modernist narrative is that we are masters over reality - if I'm a governor and I want to stop burglary, I implement a "no burglary, burglary will be punished" rule and sit back, satisfied that I've done all that I can. Modernism ignores complex causality, which is the field of study of systems theory. A systems-aware governor would be asking "why does the burglary occur in the first place?" and seek the root cause of the problem in order to redress the outcome. Of course this tends to cross jurisdictions, but the idea that we can draw jurisdictional distinctions and have the justice person fix crime while the economy person makes jobs is also a failure to act systemically and no real systems change will occur in that setup. > It's treating humans as something outside of the system, which is a view I'd align more with modernism. To this specifically I will point out that humans exist inside overlapping systems, not apart from them. You are a citizen, a family member, a human being, your job, a member of your communities. We serve many functions inside many systems, but changing systems happens from within them, ie grassroots politics.
- solosoyokaze 6y ago
  > There are clearly instances where policy is wilfully racist - slavery, redlining, and so on. But even once the system is gone, the repercussions continue until corrective systems are put in place. I’d argue this has far more impact than poorly trained AI.
  - beaconstudios 6y ago
    obviously. The point being, the effects last even when the racist policy makers aren't there any more and the policies have been removed. You can't just oust all the racists and expect things to start getting better. It's a good start, but you're not going to solve systemic racism that way. You have to look at the system itself, not the people who exist within it.
    - solosoyokaze 6y ago
      The systems only exists because people continue to prop them up though, which often does require explicit racist intent. This is why I say that your point is more modern than post-modern. It’s placing humans external to the systems they create and maintain. I agree that systems can have a racist effect without the participants realizing it. Progressivism is in large part creating awareness of these systems so people can actively realize their own role in perpetuating them. I don’t think we’re actually disagreeing on much other than degree of implicit vs explicit participation in systems.

beaconstudios 6y ago

> Weren't all of those systems designed, implemented and enforced by individuals? Racist policy makers, racist voters... from a systems perspective, systemic racism is the function of individual racism aggregated over time. No, that's not always the case. Take for instance, the racially biased outcome that webcams more easily recognise white than black faces. That probably happened because the webcam was built and tested primarily by white people. Is it an encoding of racist intent? No, but the outcome was racially biased. The intervention, instead of firing all the developers for being racist, would be to simply include more people of different ethnic backgrounds in testing. The same can be true of more complex systems. A classic not-related-to-inequality case of backfiring being the Cobra effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect). Obviously some factors in modern day racial inequality are caused by racist individuals, but that does not make a system of racial inequality - it makes bad people causing hostile interactions on an individual scale. There are clearly instances where policy is wilfully racist - slavery, redlining, and so on. But even once the system is gone, the repercussions continue until corrective systems are put in place. > If anything, it seems modern and not post-modern to extract racist individuals from systemic racism as they are part of and the origination of the systems themselves. It's treating humans as something outside of the system, which is a view I'd align more with modernism. A large piece of the modernist narrative is that we are masters over reality - if I'm a governor and I want to stop burglary, I implement a "no burglary, burglary will be punished" rule and sit back, satisfied that I've done all that I can. Modernism ignores complex causality, which is the field of study of systems theory. A systems-aware governor would be asking "why does the burglary occur in the first place?" and seek the root cause of the problem in order to redress the outcome. Of course this tends to cross jurisdictions, but the idea that we can draw jurisdictional distinctions and have the justice person fix crime while the economy person makes jobs is also a failure to act systemically and no real systems change will occur in that setup. > It's treating humans as something outside of the system, which is a view I'd align more with modernism. To this specifically I will point out that humans exist inside overlapping systems, not apart from them. You are a citizen, a family member, a human being, your job, a member of your communities. We serve many functions inside many systems, but changing systems happens from within them, ie grassroots politics.

solosoyokaze 6y ago
> There are clearly instances where policy is wilfully racist - slavery, redlining, and so on. But even once the system is gone, the repercussions continue until corrective systems are put in place. I’d argue this has far more impact than poorly trained AI.
- beaconstudios 6y ago
  obviously. The point being, the effects last even when the racist policy makers aren't there any more and the policies have been removed. You can't just oust all the racists and expect things to start getting better. It's a good start, but you're not going to solve systemic racism that way. You have to look at the system itself, not the people who exist within it.
  - solosoyokaze 6y ago
    The systems only exists because people continue to prop them up though, which often does require explicit racist intent. This is why I say that your point is more modern than post-modern. It’s placing humans external to the systems they create and maintain. I agree that systems can have a racist effect without the participants realizing it. Progressivism is in large part creating awareness of these systems so people can actively realize their own role in perpetuating them. I don’t think we’re actually disagreeing on much other than degree of implicit vs explicit participation in systems.