[omgtehblackbloc]

"When one condemns a group for the actions of a few -- i'll never believe that to be correct."

Racism in America is not an act, it's a caste system. It's not something you do, it's a form of social structuring. Black people are systematically disadvantaged, and white people receive privileges due to their race.

So you're wrong that racism is just "the actions of a few". This implies that you are a neutral white person, and shouldn't be blamed for hate crimes or whatever, which are done by a minority of bad white racists whom you don't even like.

In fact, the caste system of racism is maintained by all of us, in the same way the rest of the status quo is maintained. Mostly just by people being comfortable enough with the status quo that they don't try very hard to change it, and end up reinforcing it without even realizing. The caste system puts in place all the preconditions for the police brutality, the hate crimes, the denial of employment, etc. None of those things could happen without the caste system supporting and incentivizing them.

So we're all responsible for the existence of racism - the whole society. But in particular, consider the group of people who systematically benefits from said caste system, and who despite having drastically more power, are doing pathetically little to eliminate the caste system.

Were I looking at the situation from afar, it would seem completely reasonable to say "hey, fuck those people".

[JohnBooty]

  In fact, the caste system of racism is maintained by all
  of us, in the same way the rest of the status quo is 
  maintained. Mostly just by people being comfortable 
  enough with the status quo that they don't try very hard 
  to change it

Thank you for posting this. This is so important for people to realize.

This finally "clicked" for me a few years ago when somebody explained it to me like this:

Murder is problem, right? And each of us knows that we have to go beyond simply not murdering people. We instinctively understand that if we witness an attempted murder in progress, we must do something: help, or call for help. We know that we need to punish murderers, maintain a police force to catch murderers, and hopefully defuse situations before they get to the point of people murdering each other.

Problems like racism are similar in one way: it's not enough for each of us to simply "not be racist."

(It's not an exact analogy, I know: racism is institutional whereas murder often isn't. However, it got me to think about racism differently...)

[wisty]

What if you are wrong?

You seem to think it's important to believe there is a caste system, which is moving close to Abrahamic Religion territory - you have to believe because (sometimes irrational) faith becomes the very bedrock of your belief system.

You you don't believe, you are part of the problem, right?

[Avshalom]

Well if tehblackbloc's wrong then racism in america is the action of quite a lot of people and the inaction of many more.

"fuck those people" still aint exactly unreasonable.

Though I'm not sure where you got the idea that it was "important to believe there is a caste system" from what was pretty much a cut and paste definition of racism as used in large chunks of civil rights activism/academia.

[wisty]

From the parent:

> In fact, the caste system of racism is maintained by all of us, in the same way the rest of the status quo is maintained. Mostly just by people being comfortable enough with the status quo that they don't try very hard to change it, and end up reinforcing it without even realising.

By implication, if you're not against there caste system, you're for it. And if you don't believe in the caste system, how can you be against it?

And I don't think it's a helpful definition. It could confuse a stupid person into thinking a dumb celebrity twitting a racial slur is one of the primary causes of inequality.

The "caste system" is entrenched poverty. Visual markers (skin colour) might make it harder to fight the poverty cycle (as it speeds up white flight, and causes some profiling and other discrimination), but the fundamental problem is no longer about race.

The poverty cycle in the US was caused by racism, and is to some extent worsened by racism. But if you want to stop it, you have to fight poverty. Free community college level education to young mothers (and young fathers), remedial literacy (for the kids who need it) in K-6. A few busses, to prevent the segregation due to white flight. That's just IMO, there's probably some things I'm missing.

Fighting the caste system is more or less orthogonal to fighting racism.