[foxglacier]

I live in a society as toxic as that. It's New Zealand. One of the minor parties currently in government aims to undo systemic racism. However, the popular opinion is that they are the racists because of that. I don't dare tell people that I voted for them because I'll be judged as a racist by some of my family members and loose friends. If I say it on the local internet groups, others will be hostile to me for it. Anonymity helps people to speak up about these issues.

How do we solve those bigger issues when we live in an emperor's new clothes society? Wait for children who haven't learnt the rules to point them out?

[synecdoche]

I understand this view is unpopular, but nevertheless. For something to be systematic there needs to be some set of rules governing it. I have yet to see any evidence of discriminatory rules as part of any western company or government policy, except for affirmative action and equivalent policies which do have such rule sets, where some group is prioritised to the detriment of other.

[hoss1474489]

Explicit and obvious encoding in rules isn’t what makes something systemic.

[foxglacier]

I meant systematic then, sorry. It's the system of rules that's racially discriminatory. We even have different voting rights based on race.

[pseudalopex]

Systemic and systematic are different words.

[Chris2048]

> aims to undo systemic racism ... they are the racists because of that

this sounds like a suspicious characterisation - how are they trying to undo systemic racism, and what do they identify as "systemic racism"?

[foxglacier]

https://www.act.org.nz/defending-equal-rights-democracy

For example, "Ended race-based waitlists" (for healthcare).

[Chris2048]

Which race was favoured? Did labour justify the racial-basis as addressing pre-existing inequality?

[foxglacier]

Maori and possible Pacific Island. I'm not sure how it was justified but I imagine probably because of worse health outcomes for those groups.

Trying to correct an inequality with another inequality is still discrimination. People who want that should be honest and identify themselves as racists, not the ones who want to stop racism.

[Chris2048]

But I can now see there is more to the issue. Racism is classically believing one (your) race is better than another, and the implication of "race-based" X is the favour one race based one that belief.

Trying to correct historical inequalities isn't an obvious case of "racism".

[foxglacier]

There are Maori people who want to favor their own race based on the belief that they have more rights than other races due to their ancestry. They call themselves "people of the land" to distinguish themselves from "people of the treaty" - or people whose ancestors signed up for those rights instead of inheriting them. This is a widely popular belief. So even by your definition, that's racist. It doesn't just stop being racist when there are also people of other races believing the same thing.