It's against the law for systemic racism to exist — Judaka

OK, you don't understand what it is either. Read up on it. Systemic racism can and does occur within the boundaries of law.

You came into a discussion you haven't fully read to pick out one (justified) rhetorical point amongst all the other substantive ones as a means to mount a misguided attack on those who of us who, in this thread, are arguing: Systemic racism exists. Because that is the reason the thread was set up:

I've started this thread for the sole reason of allowing those who want to claim it doesn't their say — Baden

So, maybe you didn't read the OP either. Anyhow, seeing as you've said you agree with my description of those who think there's no systemic racism in the US then we're actually expressing the same substantive point. If you want something to argue with, feel free to address this:

Systemic racism obtains when a system(s) function (regardless of explicit rules) to favour certain racial groups over others. It doesn't require overt individual racists (though it may protect and even reward them) nor does it necessarily require any conscious acts of racism at all (and obversely you could have conscious acts of racism in a system where no systemic racism exists, only rather than being performative of the system, they would be antithetical to it). Systems are culturally contextual, they're embedded in cultures and how they function depends on their relationship to the culture they're in. So, often it's what the system allows rather than what the system demands that's important. E.g. if you've got a justice or policing system embedded in a culture that's only recently emerged from the acceptance of explicitly institutionalised racism, you need extremely strong safeguards to avoid the continuance of implicit racism in whatever ostensibly non-racist institutions are substituted. Not having those safeguards in place means the explicit racism of before doesn't just disappear but finds footholds in the new institutions and festers there looking for opportunities to express itself.

Systemic racism occurs in all areas of social life, policing, housing, education etc. And again, it's not primarily about explicitly racist acts or explicitly racist policies or legislation but how things work in practice to disadvantage communities of color. Here's an example relating to housing.

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/reports/2019/08/07/472617/systemic-inequality-displacement-exclusion-segregation/

"For much of the 20th century households of color were systematically excluded from federal homeownership programs, and government officials largely stood by as predatory lenders stripped them of wealth and stability.

In the decades preceding the Fair Housing Act, government policies led many white Americans to believe that residents of color were a threat to local property values. For example, real estate professionals across the country who sought to maximize profits by leveraging this fear convinced white homeowners that Black families were moving in nearby and offered to buy their homes at a discount. These “blockbusters” would then sell the properties to Black families—who had limited access to FHA loans or GI Bill benefits—at marked-up prices and interest rates. Moreover, these homes were often purchased on contracts, rather than traditional mortgages, allowing real estate professionals to evict Black families if they missed even one payment and then repeat the process with other Black families.57 During this period, in Chicago alone, more than 8 in 10 Black homes were purchased on contract rather than a standard mortgage, resulting in cumulative losses of up to $4 billion. Blockbusting and contract buying were just two of several discriminatory wealth-stripping practices that lawmakers permitted in the U.S. housing system."

Most likely, as with you, objections to the existence of systemic racism turn on a misunderstanding of what it is. As if it's just the type of claim that police are racist or police departments have racist policies. That's really not it. It's usually far subtler than that and, for being so, all the more pernicious.
— Baden

Anyway, I'm sorry I made your naughty list, Santa. If I'm good for the rest of the year, I hope you'll reward me by reading the stuff I wrote. Thanks.

I did read some of the comments, — Judaka

It's a 5 page thread. Go read it all before clumsily inserting out-of-context criticisms.

We're talking about "systemic racism" being denied. The very first post:

... is there "systematic racism," absolutely not. — Sam26

So, now we've advanced to the point where what actually happened in the thread is being misrepresented and denied. Not exactly progress, is it?

It takes and should take time. I don't know exactly how they'll do it but it did work in Northern Ireland and the situation is analagous in many, if not all, ways.

But if people are saying that there's not a shred of systemic racism in the US then I'd suggest your description of them is accurate. — Judaka

If you'd read the thread, you'd see that was the case from the beginning. Have you read the thread? It's only 4 pages long...

. It just seems to me that the term is a bit vague to some people and it's hard to really confirm or deny it — Judaka

Which was why it was explained many times over to the point where it's impossible to deny it. Back to point one. My description is accurate. They don't want to hear. Which is why some are getting frustrated here.

You served the rhetoric, I returned it. Committing to disband an entire police force is a big step. It is exactly what was called for and eventually done nationwide in Northern Ireland where the RUC was replaced by the PSNI. And it worked. Maybe you're more cynical than me about these politicians' intentions. That's fine. But in principle, it's the type of thing that needs to be done. And what Bezos has to do with it is beyond me.

It's a rhetorical point aimed at those who consistently wish to deny historical and contemporary reality no matter how much it's explained to them. The equivalent of putting their hands over their ears and shouting whenever uncomfortable facts are made clear. What systemic racism actually is has been explained in detail elsewhere in the discussion and these explanations have largely been ignored or misunderstood. I guess because it's existence is incontrovertible and some here just can't handle that.

Really? You think all this involves is changing the uniform colour? That's rather silly.

Systemic racism in the US: Why is it happening and what can be done?

This:

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/501583-majority-of-minneapolis-city-council-vows-to-disband-police-department

:sparkle:

Probably the only way some folks here will understand what systemic racism is is if we make their group slaves for 400 years then when we have everything and they have fuck all, tell them they're free, offer them jobs in Target, with the other major option being prison, and if they complain, tell them the system is stacked in their favour. (And maybe we'll throw in 100 years of apartheid just for fun).

This is the way to do it.

As I already have stated, we have a system that favors blacks, — Harry Hindu

Better question for this thread is, is questioning the existence of systemic racism in the US, an act of racism itself? — Benkei

Not only questioning it but pretending it's the opposite of what it is in some cases, apparently. Anyway, I'm out. I'll leave someone else to deal with the right wing tinfoil hat brigade.

Yeah, that's a decent one. The way I tend to think of it is along these lines too:

In short, systematic is used to describe the way a process is done, while systemic is used to describe something inside a system — tim wood

Another way to put that would be doing anything predictably in response to a stimulus or following a method can be called 'systematic' and this can easily be applied to individuals, but 'systemic' (in any social context) refers to the characteristic behaviour of organizations and institutions. Anyhow, thanks, I hope everyone gets this now.

(E.g. an example of systematic racism could be someone crossing the street every time they saw a black person, in which case the 'systematic' part becomes rather superfluous. Just call it racism. 'Systemic racism' is a phrase worth hanging onto though, particularly as what it describes tends to be much more subtle. And too subtle for some apparently...)

Why are the other cops required to 'actively resist' the disproportionate effect of their institution's role on minorities in order to avoid charges of complicity? It seems an odd 'guilty by association' response. — Isaac

That wasn't really where I was going with that. In fact, the point I was making was more like depending on how you frame it, the question "where are the good cops?", is in a sense unfair. Anyhow, working now, but I'll get back with more on this later.

Well, what street said. There is systemic classism and systemic racism and they work together to propagate poverty. The more information we have about each and how about each works, the better we can deal with them. It's not about pointing the finger at some specific capitalist or racist pulling a lever somewhere (though that does happen), it's about admitting that society is not what we would want it to be re race and poverty and trying to do something about it. That should not be a threat to anyone with good intentions.

Reading that, I think we might disagree about the extent of the specific role racism plays in the problems facing black communities, but not the existence of systemic racism (and you gave a good example of it in your last paragraph). As for black cops vs white cops, I don't know, but any functionary of a systemically racist system playing their part as performative of that system has a role in propagating the racism of that system. That doesn't make them racist, just "doing their job". That's part of what's pernicious about systems. They compromise you.

This also relates to @StreetlightX's question "where are the good cops?". A cop qua functioning node in a systemically racist system can't be good by definition. Only cops actively resisting the system could be. But, in a sense, a resister is not really a cop anymore. Not from the perspective of the system at least. So, it's maybe not a fair question without qualification. There are "good cops" in the sense of good people who become cops and whose intent is benign, or even benevolent, but insofar as they follow the written and unwritten rules of cop culture (over which they don't have individual control) there's a sense in which they can't be good. Back to the problem being primarily systemic than being about "good" vs "bad" cops.

+Pretending that a social phenomenon that's been studied, documented and written about for decades doesn't exist is about as plausible as claiming the moon landings never happened.

Here are just a couple of the thousands of academic papers written on the subject. We can argue about how prevalent systemic racism is but the idea it just isn't there is a conspiracy theory. Anyone who denies that, please do present your peer reviewed academic papers supporting your position (hint: there are none).

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953613005121

https://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/unilllr2004&section=46

https://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/cpilj8&section=12

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/016059761103500304

As for the fact that these structures have the same affect on blacks but in greater numbers - or rather in disproportionate numbers - that's just what systemic racism is. — StreetlightX

Bingo.

If systematic racism were real, — Harry Hindu

You also need to look up the difference between 'systemic' and 'systematic'. They're not the same thing. As I mentioned before, the objections to the idea that systemic racism exists tend to be based on misunderstandings about what's being talked about. But the term has been explained in the thread and explanations are not exactly difficult to find online, so there's no excuse for not knowing what it means.

I'm sorry we're not racist enough for you. Try the Breitbart comment section maybe?

This discussion was merged into Systemic racism in the US: Why is it happening and what can be done?

Thanks for the explanation.

Yes, nothing racial about this I know, but seeing as police brutality is one of the specified topics of the OP... Anyway, the context is the guy is old and not a threat. Shoving him to the ground is dangerous and unnecessary. So, yes, if the police say "move" then generally speaking you should move, but that doesn't justify any response to you not doing that. Also, the cop walking on and leaving the guy on the ground unconscious and bleeding is mind-boggling. I mean if you unintentionally use excessive force at least try to help your victim.

American police are mean as shit. — Hanover

Which is why many people hate them. In most countries I've been to it's not actually the case. And it shouldn't be. Considering most protesters are otherwise generally law-abiding, stepping all over them is stupid and self-defeating. Hearts and minds and all that. Keep the gung-ho shit for hardened criminals.

Much more good stuff going on between police and protesters, all very welcome, as are @Wolfman's comments, which give us an insight into things from the police's perspective.

Stuff like this though:



Needs to stop now. Stop assaulting peaceful protesters. How hard is that? How hard is to train police to restrict themselves to a reasonable level of force appropriate to the situation?

EDIT: Just looked back and saw @StreetlightX already referenced this.

Same story as healthcare, pump more money into a shitty system and you get a worse outcome. Terrible for everyone except special interests. I didn't realize it was that bad re policing though until now.

Not a bother.

Don't know why they made it so easy. Idiots. :lol:

Anyway, re the article. The author recognizes systemic racism exists here:

"Certainly, poor blacks are hurt by racial discrimination -- mostly in biased police behavior and draconian drug-sentencing laws that result in horrendous incarceration rates for young men. "

But then points to other factors she thinks are more important. That's fine. It's not an unreasonable position to debate.

E.g. I agree that it shouldn't be the case that "Any problem associated with blacks is simply assumed to be racist in origin."

So, again, @Hanover I don't know what the precise bone of contention is.

Ooh, got it hehe. On the Washington Post all I do is turn off javascript and it works.

https://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/16/opinion/racism-is-not-the-issue.html — Hanover

Can't get through the paywall on that one. Got a hack?

Jim Crow laws no doubt played an important role in the American psyche for both blacks and whites. To call them "systemic" racism does a disservice to those oppressed, abused, and murdered. Not affording protections against blacks against such practices (and even explicitly legalizing such practices) denies human beings of their most basic human rights. — Hanover

E.g. Are you talking to me here? I already made this distinction:

E.g. if you've got a justice or policing system embedded in a culture that's only recently emerged from the acceptance of explicitly institutionalised racism, you need extremely strong safeguards to avoid the continuance of implicit racism in whatever ostensibly non-racist institutions are substituted. — Baden

So, maybe the language is tricky (and actually I was aware of that when I was writing the above) but explicitly institutionalised racism is not what we're talking about now. It's implicit in the supposedly non-racist structures that remain (or some of them at least).

Don't know why you don't just use the term that describes what's being talked about, which is systemic racism. No-one here is claiming some absolute determinative power for it (of course, multiple factors affect outcomes). In fact, the argument in this thread is simply whether it exists or not. So, we agree on that, I guess. But if there is something I said you don't agree with, just quote me. Because I can't figure out what it is or whether it's someone else you disagree with.

I wouldn't refer to your examples above as systemic racisms, but instead as institutionalized racism — Hanover

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism

"Institutional racism (also known as systemic racism)"

Why is the title referring to systemic racism in particular and not just racism in general? — Congau

Mostly for conciseness's sake. I thought about writing racism and systemic racism in the OP title but it sounded awkward so I just specified that you can talk about both afterwards:

Please put comments on racism, systemic racism, and police brutality in the US, along with the public reaction to these phenomena, here. — Baden

Not debating this here, Brett. If you really feel strongly that systemic racism doesn't exist in the US and you can reasonably demonstrate that with evidence and data etc, you can attempt an OP on that subject. I expect you won't because I expect you know as well as I do that it does exist. Anyway, right now, we're off-topic.

I would like to think so. :fire:

Baden, you’re basically saying that one can’t disagree with the OP, that if you want to participate then you must agree with the OP. Very totalitarian. — Brett

No, I'm saying stay on topic. You can start your own topic about the existence of systemic racism somewhere else. This conversation is about how to stop systemic racism (and about racism in general). It's specified in the OP.

This discussion is not intended to debate whether racism exists but why it exists and what to do about it. — Baden

The idea that it's totalitarian to ask posters to stick to the OP topic as defined doesn't hold up seeing as off-topic posts are regularly deleted in OPs.

Systemic racism obtains when a system(s) function (regardless of explicit rules) to favour certain racial groups over others. It doesn't require overt individual racists (though it may protect and even reward them) nor does it necessarily require any conscious acts of racism at all (and obversely you could have conscious acts of racism in a system where no systemic racism exists, only rather than being performative of the system, they would be antithetical to it). Systems are culturally contextual, they're embedded in cultures and how they function depends on their relationship to the culture they're in. So, often it's what the system allows rather than what the system demands that's important. E.g. if you've got a justice or policing system embedded in a culture that's only recently emerged from the acceptance of explicitly institutionalised racism, you need extremely strong safeguards to avoid the continuance of implicit racism in whatever ostensibly non-racist institutions are substituted. Not having those safeguards in place means the explicit racism of before doesn't just disappear but finds footholds in the new institutions and festers there looking for opportunities to express itself.

Systemic racism occurs in all areas of social life, policing, housing, education etc. And again, it's not primarily about explicitly racist acts or explicitly racist policies or legislation but how things work in practice to disadvantage communities of color. Here's an example relating to housing.

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/reports/2019/08/07/472617/systemic-inequality-displacement-exclusion-segregation/

"For much of the 20th century households of color were systematically excluded from federal homeownership programs, and government officials largely stood by as predatory lenders stripped them of wealth and stability.

In the decades preceding the Fair Housing Act, government policies led many white Americans to believe that residents of color were a threat to local property values. For example, real estate professionals across the country who sought to maximize profits by leveraging this fear convinced white homeowners that Black families were moving in nearby and offered to buy their homes at a discount. These “blockbusters” would then sell the properties to Black families—who had limited access to FHA loans or GI Bill benefits—at marked-up prices and interest rates. Moreover, these homes were often purchased on contracts, rather than traditional mortgages, allowing real estate professionals to evict Black families if they missed even one payment and then repeat the process with other Black families.57 During this period, in Chicago alone, more than 8 in 10 Black homes were purchased on contract rather than a standard mortgage, resulting in cumulative losses of up to $4 billion. Blockbusting and contract buying were just two of several discriminatory wealth-stripping practices that lawmakers permitted in the U.S. housing system."

Most likely, as with you, objections to the existence of systemic racism turn on a misunderstanding of what it is. As if it's just the type of claim that police are racist or police departments have racist policies. That's really not it. It's usually far subtler than that and, for being so, all the more pernicious.

In any case, I don't want to go off on a tangent on this. In asking how systemic racism can be solved (particularly in policing), the OP presumes its existence. If you want to participate you'll need to do so on that presumption (or at least not derail the discussion by making it about something it's not, i.e. stay on topic, please).

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/james-mattis-denounces-trump-protests-militarization/612640/

"When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside."

Hopefully more will come out of the woodwork to call out this human excrement for what he is.