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> Telling brown kids that society is systemically racist against them when it isn’t true does harm. Is it also harmful to tell them society isn't systematicall

by epakai 5y ago

> Telling brown kids that society is systemically racist against them when it isn’t true does harm. Is it also harmful to tell them society isn't systematically racist when it is true? I'm not sure 2nd grade is the place for this discussion, but there are lots of pre-existing divisions on race that will affect people's interactions. For me it's worth being aware of them, calling them out, and not perpetuating them. We've just been through massive unrest due to policing disparities, and I would want brown kids who are likely to interact police on their own to be aware of some aspects of it.

rayiner 5y ago
“Systemic racism” is itself a woke term that misleadingly imputes prejudice and intent onto basically economic factors. As a brown guy in America, I can expect to make more money, and my kids will have higher income mobility even if I came here in poverty, than whites. I have half the chance of being shot by the police and a third the risk of being incarcerated than white people. I can expect to live longer as a brown man than white women. What does it mean to say American society is “systemically racist” against me and my kids? It’s not just my kind of brown people either. The incarceration rate for Hispanics is now below that of whites: https://www.slowboring.com/p/hispanic-prison https://www.slowboring.com/p/hispanic-prison (even though Hispanics are much more likely to be in the 18-35 demographic where incarceration is highest). Studies show Hispanics are converging in terms of income over generations at the same pace as Italians, etc. American Hispanics live as long as white people in Denmark. What does “America is systemically racist” mean for them? This system of “white supremacy” that holds back all non-white people just doesn’t exist. It’s a myth. Like there are concrete disparities that are true that we can teach about. But the reading lists you got in your email last year had Kendi and Di Angelo, not concrete facts: https://www.epi.org/publication/the-color-of-law-a-forgotten-history-of-how-our-government-segregated-america/ https://www.epi.org/publication/the-color-of-law-a-forgotten...
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  > I have half the chance of being shot by the police and a third the risk of being incarcerated than white people. This claim completely contradicts every statistic I've seen on the topic. Can you pass along a source for this? It's a significant adjustment to my thinking on this topic if I can cite a source. If it's the book you link to the end of your comments, I'll have to have it to my reading list.
  - rayiner 5y ago
    I'm the "other" kind of brown: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1123070/police-shootings-rate-ethnicity-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1123070/police-shootings... The seemingly higher rate for hispanics disappears when you adjust for the fact that the median hispanic is 28 and the median white person is 42. (The odds of being shot by the police drop sharply after 35.) Similarly, Latino incarceration rates have dropped below white incarceration rates: https://www.slowboring.com/p/hispanic-prison https://www.slowboring.com/p/hispanic-prison > The dwindling of Hispanic-white disparities is even more remarkable in light of criminal behavior being so heavily concentrated in adolescence and young adulthood,. The median age for Hispanics is 29.8 years versus 43.7 for whites, meaning even in a system free of prejudice that punished solely on the basis of crimes committed, we would expect criminal justice disparities between the populations to be growing, not shrinking. "Systemic racism" targeted generally at non-white people isn't feature of American society. It's much narrower than that: persistent disparities for Black and indigenous people.

by epakai 5y ago

rayiner 5y ago

“Systemic racism” is itself a woke term that misleadingly imputes prejudice and intent onto basically economic factors. As a brown guy in America, I can expect to make more money, and my kids will have higher income mobility even if I came here in poverty, than whites. I have half the chance of being shot by the police and a third the risk of being incarcerated than white people. I can expect to live longer as a brown man than white women. What does it mean to say American society is “systemically racist” against me and my kids? It’s not just my kind of brown people either. The incarceration rate for Hispanics is now below that of whites: https://www.slowboring.com/p/hispanic-prison https://www.slowboring.com/p/hispanic-prison (even though Hispanics are much more likely to be in the 18-35 demographic where incarceration is highest). Studies show Hispanics are converging in terms of income over generations at the same pace as Italians, etc. American Hispanics live as long as white people in Denmark. What does “America is systemically racist” mean for them? This system of “white supremacy” that holds back all non-white people just doesn’t exist. It’s a myth. Like there are concrete disparities that are true that we can teach about. But the reading lists you got in your email last year had Kendi and Di Angelo, not concrete facts: https://www.epi.org/publication/the-color-of-law-a-forgotten-history-of-how-our-government-segregated-america/ https://www.epi.org/publication/the-color-of-law-a-forgotten...

shadowgovt 5y ago
> I have half the chance of being shot by the police and a third the risk of being incarcerated than white people. This claim completely contradicts every statistic I've seen on the topic. Can you pass along a source for this? It's a significant adjustment to my thinking on this topic if I can cite a source. If it's the book you link to the end of your comments, I'll have to have it to my reading list.
- rayiner 5y ago
  I'm the "other" kind of brown: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1123070/police-shootings-rate-ethnicity-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1123070/police-shootings... The seemingly higher rate for hispanics disappears when you adjust for the fact that the median hispanic is 28 and the median white person is 42. (The odds of being shot by the police drop sharply after 35.) Similarly, Latino incarceration rates have dropped below white incarceration rates: https://www.slowboring.com/p/hispanic-prison https://www.slowboring.com/p/hispanic-prison > The dwindling of Hispanic-white disparities is even more remarkable in light of criminal behavior being so heavily concentrated in adolescence and young adulthood,. The median age for Hispanics is 29.8 years versus 43.7 for whites, meaning even in a system free of prejudice that punished solely on the basis of crimes committed, we would expect criminal justice disparities between the populations to be growing, not shrinking. "Systemic racism" targeted generally at non-white people isn't feature of American society. It's much narrower than that: persistent disparities for Black and indigenous people.