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I have a serious issue with the idea of "systemic racism" or "racist outcomes". I have yet to receive a coherent and convincing explanation of what it is. I can understand what "institutional racism" means when we speak of things like legal slavery and Jim Crow. Racism is right there, in black and white, in the law. It is legally instituted and thus institutional. However, when we speak of "systemic racism" and claim that disparity in outcomes is racist, then we're starting to go off the deep end. Statistical disparity is no proof of racism. You must be able to explain the disparity and not simply claim that disparity is identical with racism or assume that there must be a racist, sinister cause behind it. By definition, racism is something only individuals can do and so racist laws are the product of racist people. The best examples I can come up with are case where policies and programs exploit incidental facts to conceal true motives. For example, if you know the location of black neighborhoods, and you know that they tend to be poor, and your aim is to reduce the black population of Americans (i.e., a racist motive), you might plant more abortion clinics within walking distance of black neighborhoods[0] under the bogus claim that you're trying to alleviate poverty. Given the statistics, non-Hispanic black women had the highest abortion rates. About 80% of Planned Parenthood's surgical abortion facilities are within walking distance of black or Latino neighborhoods. Black women are three times more likely to have an abortion than white women. Now couple that with Margaret Sanger's overt racism and eugenics/population control fanaticism and you could begin to suspect racist motives even if the majority of employees, supporters, and those involved are not necessarily racist (though I expect a certain unacknowledged patronizing attitude toward blacks and the poor among many supporters). Or consider the extremely high rates of black children born out of wedlock (comparable to rates among poor whites, IIRC). We know that the absence of the father from the home is a strong statistical indicator for future delinquency and the perpetuation of poverty. So are the perverse welfare incentives that work against marriage and stable families racist? You would have to show that the intent was racist, but in the absence of such proof, it is more reasonable to assume that well-meaning Great Society-type policies were poorly considered in much the same way well-meaning NGOs aid programs actually hurt those they seek to help by, e.g., wrecking local economies by flooding the market with free goods even during times where there is no crisis (examples are Haitain agriculture, Nigerian textiles, cobblers in Africa). The murkiness of the idea is extremely dangerous because it begins to resemble a conspiracy theory. Sinister forces are vaguely assigned to myriad realities which means that various injustices, including accusations of racism, become permissible in the name of "justice". Furthermore, such things can distract from the real problems facing a particular group, minority or otherwise, and thus stifle solutions and consequently prevent such groups from truly flourishing. [0] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6208a1.htm |
Well here's your problem buddy. You decided that racism is something that by definition can't be systemic. There's no way to argue a definition but one can evaluate what it's useful for. Your definition is really convenient for someone who doesn't want to reckon with systemic injustice against Black people, huh?
There's plenty of intellectual heavyweights who will explain in great detail what systemic racism looks like. Go read James Baldwin or Angela Davis or something.