What is systemic racism?
1. One definition is that institutions are racist. There's racial discrimination in housing, healthcare, education, employment, the justice system, politics, and so on. If this definition is the case, then I presume most conservatives would have no problem fighting against it. Show us where there's racial discrimination in this or that policy or law, and we'll fight against racism. For example, take the Asian-American Harvard law suit. It seems arguable there is institutionalized racial discrimination against Asian-Americans at Harvard in terms of their admissions policy (and likely other Ivy League institutions too). Why isn't this getting as much coverage as BLM?
2. Another definition is social inequalities are primarily or solely due to racial discrimination. If this definition is the case, then does that really explain most or all our social inequalities? For instance, is it the case that black students aren't admitted to prestigious institutions primarily or solely because there's racial discrimination against blacks? Is it the case that blacks are incarcerated at higher rates primarily or solely because there's racial discrimination against blacks? What about other factors such as the fact that a majority of blacks come from broken homes (e.g. single mothers, absentee fathers)? What about the fact that there's a culture of black students shaming other black students if they want to focus on academic achievement (and interestingly Asian culture is kind of the opposite where there's shaming of Asians by other Asians if they don't wish to focus on academic achievement)?
3. There's a third definition regarding systemic racism: unconscious or implicit bias. People unconsciously having attitudes or stereotypes toward others based on their race. If this definition is the case, can one fight against implicit bias? How so? Fundamentally speaking I presume it would have to be by changing people's minds or attitudes. And there are various ways to change people's minds or attitudes toward others. Some may be licit, while others illicit (e.g. coercion, brainwashing). Yet the problem is it's usually white people who are expected to change their minds about their attitudes towards black people. Why shouldn't it be the case that blacks need to change their attitudes about whites too? And what about other races/ethnicities? Should Italians seek to change people's minds about their people due to how they're depicted in mafia movies by rioting, demanding mafia shows are canceled, Scorsese to issue a public apology for his movies, and so on? Another issue is it usually takes time to change people's minds, but leftists don't seem very patient. They don't want to play the long game. This makes it more tempting for them to coerce change in people's minds and attitudes if they have the ability to do so. And this in turn threatens to spill over into Orwellian machinations and designs.
4. Of course, these definitions aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, and there may be other definitions. Indeed, a significant problem is leftists often use two or more of these definitions in the very same conversation or debate. Moreover, it seems leftists engage in this behavior because it suits them to move back and forth between one definition or the other (equivocation). Rather than because it's what's factually accurate. The mainstream media is rife with examples.
Hawk--
ReplyDeleteOne of the types of racism conservatives are going to have to be willing to fight is that engendered by black leadership and by progressive lobbies and by anti-racial legislation itself.
Boston has a severe housing shortage because of all the regulations making it unprofitable for anything but luxury apartments to be built. Minimum wage laws often make minority employment opportunities scarce. Affirmative-action admission policies frequently match black students with schools they're not prepared for. So they flunk out at a prestigious school rather than complete a useful degree at a lesser institution. The NEA locks poor students into failing public schools rather than let them thrive at a competent charter school. Medicaid doesn't pay out enough, leaving minorities to scramble to pick from among those physicians willing to accept the pittance.
And then there is the "soft bigotry of low expectations" which, in practice, is pretty rock solid discrimination.
Thanks, Eric. I didn't know about that. That's informative. Good points too.
DeleteUnfortunately the leftists and critical theorists (but I repeat myself) are now pushing a fourth definition: Any social advantage or inequality that tends statistically to be matched with race that has, however long ago, been even partially caused by racism in history.
ReplyDeleteHence: Allegedly there were racist rules about neighborhoods and home selling and so forth back in the 30s, and allegedly the federal government somehow went along with these when it came to a federal home loan program. I don't know all the ins and outs, and maybe it's even true. It's obviously been over for a long time. But from there you can tell a big convoluted story wherein someone's grandfather owned a home from a federal housing loan that a black person would have found harder to get so the grandson lived in a better neighborhood than he otherwise would have lived in, etc., etc., and now he has a pretty good life, and this was all partially caused by his grandfather's housing loan in the 30s which his grandfather got under a "racist" program. So the grandson is now the beneficiary of institutional racism. Which is allegedly still to be characterized as systemic racism.
This gets pretty ridiculous pretty fast, but I gather that this is now part of the definition of "racism," and the leftists will try to say that they aren't making *any* moral judgement when they ask whites to "repent of racism" but rather just asking whites to acknowledge and then do something to change whatever current disparities in outcome are partially the result of long-ago racist policies that have been ended for a long time.
"Unfortunately the leftists and critical theorists (but I repeat myself)"
DeleteLol, that's so good. :)
Thanks for this fourth definition, Lydia. It sounds like this definition might be alluding to the practice of redlining. At least from what I've read, redlining has been illegal since the 1960s. That's over half a century ago.
Of course, it's true we can be influenced by past policies. Yet that's true for everyone. For instance, there's reverse redlining where more affluent and presumably "white" neighborhoods were targeted in order to charge them higher rates than other neighborhoods. If this was done by black politicians or black bank managers or the like, then should we require the black community as a whole to repay these white communities in some way?
Also, to what extent (if any) are the ramifications of redlining still relevant today? I mean, it's like this definition of systemic racism has amnesia, because it's evidently forgotten about significant policies since the 1960s which have attempted to remedy these disparities. In fact, if anything, I think it's arguable there's been a course correction which today favors once-redlined blacks. For example, take affirmative action in education which has allowed generations of blacks to enter colleges including our most prestigious univerisites with lower academic scores than whites and others. Of course, education is one of the main ways for a person to increase their chances for better socioeconomic prospects in life, though it's obviously not going to help if someone majors in (say) LGBTQ+ studies rather than computer science.
And perhaps ironically it seems the neighborhoods where blacks are most "kept down" by age-old policies like redlining are neighborhoods in major urban cities. Yet it's likewise these major urban cities which have been governed by Demoracts and liberal policies for generations. And it's likewise the Democrats who refuse to let blacks change neighborhoods such as by letting black students use school vouchers to attend a school in a better neighborhood.
Anyway, much more could be said, but like you pointed out, it all becomes pretty ridiculous pretty fast!
Right, when I saw this I wondered explicitly if someone whose parent was a recipient of affirmative action would be required to confess his black privilege and say that he was part of systemic racism against whites.
ReplyDeleteBut this kind of definition is pretty useful, because it allows for a kind of gaslighting to take place where the critical theorists will insist (I've just been watching it on social media) that the word "racism" as they are using it has *no* negative moral connotations about anything that the person they are talking to could possibly be doing, no connotation of *blame* (not even that he has implicit bias), but he's still supposed to confess it somehow and make a statement about it. So it's basically something you can't be redeemed from. You can only hope for some measure of redemption by holding yourself hostage to whatever current demands the left is making from you, which are on-going. It's really quite terrifying.
As a religion, it reminds me of what Hebrews says about the sacrifices of the old covenant--that they could never take away sin.
That's a great point. One that can't be underscored more. I don't know what it is with leftists who want to trap people like this (cf. identity politics).
DeleteOn the one hand, they say it has no connotations of blame, but on the other hand, why are they seeking to place people in perpetual hostage like this if there's not some degree of blame involved? Perhaps assigned blame (by leftists), i.e. fake blame, even if not actual blame.
At least, it seems to be a kind of emotional manipulation. It might be a way for leftists to keep fanning the flames of racial discord for generations, which they presumably hope will net them more votes and thus victories in politics. They don't really want to help black people take ownership of their own lives, make good decisions, and better themselves. Ironically, it may even be a kind of enslavement.
I think what Lydia is referring to in her first comment are New Deal policies that addressed the housing shortage brought on by a slowdown in home construction during the Depression. The WPA and the FHA subsidized both inner city housing developments, as well as whole subdivisions in the suburbs. There were rules in place that prohibited sale or even resale of single-family homes in the suburbs to blacks. As a result, there was, in large part, a government-sponsored segregation going on rather than the simple narrative of white-flight we usually hear. As these lines of demarcation became fixed, redlining came into existence, with banks denying loans to those living in minority neighborhoods.
ReplyDeleteThe argument is that whites were allowed to build up wealth through home equity in the suburbs, whereas blacks in the inner cities steadily lost jobs and income and investment and wealth. Before LBJ's Great Society, the Democratic Party was a pretty doggone racist institution. Blacks voted for FDR because he instituted welfare for them, but he and his administration did so in a fairly racist, segregated manner.
I do not believe that that is the whole story, however. I've lived in the South for quite a while now. Housing tends not to be segregated by entire neighborhood. Small clumps of white homes are side by side with black clumps or are even interspersed with black homes. But the huge majority of decent homes are white owned or rented and the huge majority of substandard housing and trailer homes are occupied by blacks. Integration doesn't necessarily change wealth distribution. It also doesn't necessarily change educational outcomes. My high school was fully integrated. But, being in college-prep courses, I seldom had more than a couple of minorities in my classes. When I took summer classes to get requirements out of the way, they were overwhelmingly black. The few white students were relegated to one end or corner of the room, and we were taught separately and at a quicker pace, with different assignments. Integration didn't change anything.
Thomas Sowell and others have theorized that blacks are at a disadvantage now not because of income disparity but because of cultural dysfunction brought on by governmental dependency: Much higher illegitimacy rates and thus single-parent homes. A loss of a sense of individual responsibility and work ethic. A victimhood mentality. Increased illicit drug dependency and criminality. A decreased value given to educational attainment. And on and on. Reparations would be squandered and do no good whatsoever. Any remedy would somehow have to incentivize cultural rehabilitation. Sounds like a difficult undertaking!
It may well be true that past systemic racism has ramifications extending into the present. But it will take a rebellious black "grass roots" effort to turn things around...or black leadership deciding to do the right thing rather than simply clinging to power and shouting "racism" at passing phantoms.
Thanks for this, Eric. Interesting perspective growing up in the South like you said. I'm a native Californian so I don't fully understand a lot of the history and culture and so forth between white and black in the South. And Thomas Sowell is almost always on point. Good stuff.
DeleteThanks, Hawk. One slight correction: I grew up in the Midwest but went south for grad school and could never quite pull away.
ReplyDeleteNot every town in the South is as I described. Some are one color on one side of the tracks and the other color on the other side. In a fair number of them, blacks all go to the public school and whites find themselves in private academies. Even where this isn't true, tennis, baseball, and golf are lily white whereas basketball has no whites on the team. Only football is integrated. I don't know the history behind the differences.
I actually think racial tension is more palpable in the North. Especially if someone of color dares to venture into rural areas after dark. Conversely, there's kind of an uneasy but not uncomfortable truce south of the Mason-Dixon. A place for everybody and everybody in his place (except, of course, in large urban districts).