Black lives matter

Richie B.

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Just for you guys.

Crack v powder Cocaine

Crack cocaine used mostly by blacks

Powder cocaine used mostly by whites

Crack cocaine has a larger penalty than powder cocaine, despite both being a dangerous substance.

Kind of weird if you think about it. But it might just be a fluke, I mean I am sure that happens a lot when your dealing with a large judicial system. I shall return to the shadows to watch, please continue discussing this topic.
 

Mr.BossMan

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To say one drug is used more by one race than the other is dumb. (No offense to you Benny, I just don't think that's reasonable)

Then to say "The drug used mainly by whites has a lesser prison sentence.......BECAUSE OF RACISM!!!" Also seems a bit unreasonable.

I find that a bit dull.
 

Cainhurst Crow

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Oh no. Anti-fraud laws are still around, and are very prominent.

Like, for example, the case of a Georgia man who was on the ground attempting to help a mental patient who posed no threat that was shot twice?

You mean, for example, government census showing that over 40% of inmates are African American?

Outlander, you're my friend, so I'm gonna assume you're coming from a good meaning place on this one. Anti-Fraud laws aren't racist. Asking a person to present a form of identification for voting isn't racist. In a country in which voter fraud is a problem, and it is when you have people using other peoples ID's and casting votes for the deceased, it is good to have some sort of law that makes that not legal. If you think its racist, you fell for a talking point, and a stereotype that all minorities are too poor and irresponsible enough to get identifications, which is ludicrous since every person has at least 2, birth certificate and social security card. The laws make everyone present id, not just minorities, so if it doesn;t differentiate anyone by their race, nor have different requirements for people based on their race, how is it racist?

The case you cite is, again, a single instance. The Dallas shooter was a member of the BLM, and multiple chants have called for the deaths of police officers, specifically white officers. You would claim it absurd if I cited these as indicative of the entire movement, or even a large portion of the movement. Yet you are here, claiming a single case, involving a single individual, means the entire georgia police department is actively trying to attack black people, using an organized effort that's fully backed by the state government and federal government, and thus the nations entire governing body. That's what it means to have systematic racism, to have an organized and fully legal effort to discriminate thats approved and can be done without repercussion. It does not mean 1 trigger happy cop, for which you can find countless examples of people who are white, and been unjustifiably killed by cops, that will dwarf the number of black people who are killed by cops.

Now onto how there are a lot of black people in prison, well, I'm a man who values individuality, and a persons individual choice. Rather then looking at the numbers, and just being shocked, maybe a person should look at the cases, and see these people kinda deserved to be in prison, because they broke the law. Like, as individual people, they broke the law often times, and then often tried to be like "I didn't break the law" or "I was set up" or "I deserve a slap on the wrist for murdering that one guy", thus making the justice system come down harsher on them. The majority of these cases were overseen by a judge, and a jury of their peers right, and both sides had lawyers, right? Its not like black people go to black court where a military tribunal decides their guilty verdict without any evidence being overseen. Mistrials and wrongful convictions aren't something only black people go through, and a majority of prison populations are white. Even accounting for that, you still have a majority of these trails being fair trails, in which the person would be convicted no matter their race.

I never understood how the prison argument was supposed to be persuasive, when it doesn't do anything to show how the people being arrested didn't break the law, and were arrested solely for their race.
 

Richie B.

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To say one drug is used more by one race than the other is dumb. (No offense to you Benny, I just don't think that's reasonable)

Then to say "The drug used mainly by whites has a lesser prison sentence.......BECAUSE OF RACISM!!!" Also seems a bit unreasonable.

I find that a bit dull.

Well when they are the same drug and have different penalties that's stupid, because they are the same drug and its unreasonable that one may have a large penalty than the other. Now I am not just saying one demographic uses it more than another, I am stating what the numbers show who uses more of the same drug but literally just a slight difference, affects two groups kind of differently.

Now like I said this can simply be nothing.

Now of course the case where the police officers choked a black man to death but didn't even get any criminal charges against him, when the one person who did have some charges against them, was the man who recorded the video of the event. Look up I can't breathe and you will see what I am talking about. That is kind of something also, but that's only one instance.
 

Mr.BossMan

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-ruling-proving-voter-fraud-is-mostly-a-myth/


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Washington Post, a left leaning news source, but I'll bite.

"Republican state legislatures have been busy devising all manner of creative ways to make voting more difficult for traditionally Democratic-leaning groups."

That's in the first paragraph, instantly this article tries to make Republicans look like a bunch of racist. All because they'd like you to bring an ID for when you vote. As if you don't have an ID on you when you drive a car, or get a job, or show a police officer.

I just thought I'd point this out, as I thought it was humorous.



Now back to business:

"Overwhelming scholarly and legal consensus that voter fraud is vanishingly rare."

"Usually, only a tiny portion of the claimed illegality is substantiated"

"Minnite concludes that voter fraud is exceedingly rare."

"The notion that voter impersonation is a widespread behavior is totally contradicted by these data."

"Washington University in St. Louis. Bailey unearthed only nine federal election fraud cases."

'Evidence of 117 possible fraudulent votes and led to just six - six! - criminal convictions."

"20 people with fraudulent voting in the 2008 elections."

"In the end 14 cases were referred for prosecution."

"A grand total of 50 instances in which a vote may have been attributed to a deceased person."

"Turned up only 26 convictions of fraud by individual voters."

"Found a total of 10 cases of alleged voter impersonation."



All of the above are snipits from paragraphs in that article. Each and every one of them claim to have some case of voter fraud. However a crime has been committed has it not? Voter fraud is illegal isn't it? Sure it may not be wide spread but it does happen.

So to make a set of laws, that help prevent this from happening, is that not acceptable? Are you really going to say the System is racist just because they are trying to prevent a crime?

I'd ask you this, would you legalize murder if only a couple people did it? Would you abandon speed limits if only a few people drove fast?

It's basic logic. It's common sense. It's reasonable.

It is not racist.


Edit: I honestly don't know what happened lol, it wouldn't let me quote you @Outlander
 
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Outlander

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I'm gonna withdraw from this. It seems apparent that we're all gonna keep believing what we believe. And frankly arguing about it is giving me a migraine.
 

Mr.BossMan

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Well when they are the same drug and have different penalties that's stupid, because they are the same drug and its unreasonable that one may have a large penalty than the other. Now I am not just saying one demographic uses it more than another, I am stating what the numbers show who uses more of the same drug but literally just a slight difference, affects two groups kind of differently.

Now like I said this can simply be nothing.

Now of course the case where the police officers choked a black man to death but didn't even get any criminal charges against him, when the one person who did have some charges against them, was the man who recorded the video of the event. Look up I can't breathe and you will see what I am talking about. That is kind of something also, but that's only one instance.

Benny again, your gonna have to prove to me that white people smoke powdered crack (A majority of the time) and black people smoke crack cocaine (a majority of the time). Otherwise that argument holds no water and seems to be based only on assumption. As for why they have less or more of a prison sentence, I don't know. But I can damn sure guarantee it isn't because white's are trying to make blacks go to prison longer. To me drugs are drugs, you shouldn't have them. Period. If it's against the law, then you, as a citizen shouldn't do it.

As for the black killed by the white officer. I'm not to sure, I haven't seen the footage. That being said the surest way to remain safe when interacting with Law-Enforcement is compliance. Did this man comply with the police officer? If he did, I'm almost certain the events would have been drastically different.

That being said though, choking a man out, and to death, seems to be a crime.

Was it racism though? Did the white cop feel like being a jerk to the black man simply because he was black?

I doubt it.
 

dblue095

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If you didn't know. The government put drugs in the black community. They even gave Freeway Rick Ross drugs which started his way crack industry. So it's the government's fault black people took drugs which messed us up for generations
 

Carthage

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So, personally, and I understand it's not this easy, we should be able to all get along. And even though there is a lot of blatant racism, we've come pretty far from the 1960s, and to be able to have people that remember the era of segregation is incredible, and it speaks a great deal on how much we've advanced. Now, again, I know we've still got a long way to go until actual equality, but the progress of the last few decades has given me hope that even though we're in a rough patch right now, we will continue along a positive road.


But what do I know, I'm just an idealistic 16 year old.
 

Mr.BossMan

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If you didn't know. The government put drugs in the black community. They even gave Freeway Rick Ross drugs which started his way crack industry. So it's the government's fault black people took drugs which messed us up for generations

Blaming the government for the faults of black people does not solve anything. If anything it is pretty degrading not only to the black community but to the government as well.
 

Jakalar

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Sorry for the essay…


Firstly, to try and take a step back. I recognize that knowledge you have gained or opinions that you hold/have encountered can be extremely ingrained in how you approach a topic such as this. I implore you to do your best to consider this subject as objectively as you can and to open yourself to evidence that may not fit the narrative that you have come to understand.



I find this difficult as well, and I will do my best to take every opinion or citation seriously. Please do not interpret what I say here as condemnatory in any sense. While I certainly disagree with a lot that has been said over the course of this conversation, I do not mean to be disrespectful or dismissive of any of the opinions that any of you hold. There is an underlying truth behind most claims; but that does not necessarily mean that that the claims, themselves, are true.



Racism is real. I don’t think anyone is arguing that fact, but it is something I think must be stated nonetheless. What seems to be a primary focus of this discussion is the extent to which racism permeates our political system – the legislative and judicial elements, particularly – and our society.



That said, measuring racism – institutionally or in an individual person – is really difficult. I am quite positive that I have never heard anyone genuinely and seriously claim “I am racist.” But one’s lack of acceptance, acknowledgement, or awareness of his/her own racism does not mean that they are not racist.



But even further, I don’t think racism is an all-or-nothing sort of thing. And so, I honestly don’t know what the value of labeling individuals or groups of people as ‘racist’ is – it seems to only trigger defensive responses and incite arguments and disagreements. However, it is similarly wrong to shy away from the conversation entirely to avoid the term.



This thread has covered a lot of ground and has edged on being somewhat vicious at times.



When @Benvenu7 started this thread, he was asking about opinions on a particular act of vandalism and, more broadly, opinions about the Black Lives Matter movement. It then spiraled into an argument that largely revolved around (1) the influence of history and historical figures so far as they affected racism/civil rights in the USA and (2) the nature, goals, and methods of the Black Lives Matter movement. And now it seems to be centered on institutional racism.



I only summarize so that it is easier for me to develop (and hopefully for you to follow) my commentary on these subjects.



Claim 1: The United States is institutionally racist.




This is a large claim and honestly it’s an extremely difficult one to explore because it is so rooted in history and engrained in our society that it can be difficult to recognize. Stating that the country is institutionally – or systemically – racist does not necessarily mean that the people living in the country are racist themselves.



The first clarification we need to make is here:



Systematic racism? Which simply doesn't exist.



here:



Here's the thing, the evidence for "systematic racism" existing in the modern united states appears to fall into 3 circumstances. Circumstantial, Tangential, and Minimal.



and here:



Systemic Racism doesn't exist?



You guys aren’t talking about the same thing. At least you’re not using the same words. There is a huge difference between ‘systematic’ and ‘systemic.’



‘Systematic’ racism implies a deliberate effort – probably on the government’s end, in some form – to perpetuate racist ideals or racist practices. ‘Systematic’ racism suggests that the racism that we see in our society today is actively being carried out and intentionally targeting people of color for the purposes of subjugation.



‘Systemic’ racism is completely different. ‘Systemic’ racism refers to the social and political and enforcement structures in place that passively perpetuate racist ideals. ‘Systemic racism’ suggests that racism is ingrained in our society to the point where – even though individuals might not, themselves, contribute to the racism – the institutions are structured such that (1) a huge proportion of the United States’ minority populations live in urban ghetto settings*** and (2) it is extremely difficult for individuals to extricate themselves from this environment.





***See:


[LINK] – Particularly the ‘Race and Uneven Development’ subsection; this is a segment from a book, so surely the authors have citations for these statistics.


[LINK] – This is actually a summary of a very relevant documentary; I’m quite positive that you could cross-check the RACE: The Power of an Illusion sources if you so desire.


[LINK] – This is a very poor source, I know, but I think the content is solid (though they don’t tend to provide their sources…).



I can look some more for more and better source material if anyone so desires.





So the first thing is to make sure that we are all talking about the same things. I don’t think most people argue that the racism we see is ‘systematic.’ But I agree with @Outlander that we do see ‘systemic’ racism.



To explore how the US became this way, we need to look at history – sort of back to slavery, and the years following emancipation (post-civil war), but mostly to the “Great Migration” of African Americans from southern US to northern and western US (IE: to LA, Chicago, New York, etc.).



The slavery bit is self-explanatory. Back before the civil war, slavery was institutionalized (it was literally legal in parts of the country) and racism was a mechanism through which slavery was enforced.



Fast-forward to the end of the civil war: slavery isn’t legal anymore. But racism still exists because, since it was such a core component of the social structure before slavery was abolished, the populations of those regions still maintained the same ideas about people of color. Sharecropping*** in former-slavery-heavy regions became a form of forced labor for African Americans after they were technically freed from their former masters; they were free, but they were still financially dependent on the white landowners. And the white landowners were still dependent on their labor. Thus, racism was still institutionalized.





***See:



[LINK] – Watch the 2 minute video at the bottom of the page.


[LINK] – See the ‘Labor Struggles in the Reconstruction Era’ and ‘Rise of the Sharecropping System’ sections.





Fast-forward again to the early 1900’s and the start of the Great Migration. The Great Migration refers to “the movement of 6 million African-Americans out of the rural Southern United States to the urban Northeast, Midwest, and West that occurred between 1910 and 1970.” (Wikipedia)



The population of blacks outside of the American South rose from about 10% to about 47% over the course of the Great Migration (Wilkerson, pg. 10). The black population in Chicago rose from 44,103 (just under 3% of the city population) to over 1 million by the end (Wilkerson, pg. 11). The 1970 census numbers the total Chicago population at 3,366,957, placing the black population at about 30-35% of the city. In 60 years, the population of African Americans in Chicago rose by 30%.





Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns is a book that explores this migration. She interviewed hundreds of African Americans that migrated from the south and told three of their stories that best represented the overarching narrative she heard.





But the most important thing about the Great Migration, for the purposes of our discussion, is how these African Americans were received. How did their destination locations react to the influx of black peoples?



The populations living in these cities prior to the Great Migration were predominantly white***. But over the course of the Great Migration, “White Flight” took place as white Americans relocated to suburbs in the attempt to preserve the homogeneity of their neighborhoods***.





***I’ll try and pull census data later.


UPDATE (8.25.2016):

So this is a little hard to find, because census data wasn't as great back in 1910. But, I did find a book on Google Books titled Negro Population: 1790-1915, which provides some statistics on pg. 91 that state that 78.4% of blacks (48,425 total) living in Illinois lived in urban areas, compared with 61.3% of whites (3,388,881 total). So that's about 38,000 blacks and about 2,077,000 whites in urban areas of Illinois (IE: Chicago).

Similar numbers for New York: 87.6% of blacks (117,483 total) were urban, relative to 78.7% of whites (7,061,043 total). About 103,000 blacks and about 5,557,000 whites in urban New York (so, mostly NYC).







***See:


[LINK] – Wikipedia. Yeah, yeah. I know, but wiki actually tends to be pretty solid.


[LINK] – The summary of someone’s dissertation on this particular phenomenon.


[LINK] – A journal article published in the winter of 1978/1979.



Wilkerson (in The Warmth of Other Suns) explores this very well too, though it is presented as a series of narratives and personal accounts.





All of this is to say that black populations moved from an American South where (1) segregation was formalized and (2) they were often forced to work for the same families that had held theirs as slaves years before. And they moved to the country’s urban centers further north where they were not integrated into society, but were instead ostracized, isolated, and forced to develop entirely new communities. These tended to be based around race because of the circumstances of their arrival. (Cities’ cultural neighborhoods tended to form along similar lines, though at a smaller scale than the Great Migration.)



We saw institutionalized racism in the South before and after slavery was abolished. And this “white flight” is an early example of the institutionalization of racism in the North. This is not to say that the white individuals that departed the Chicago were necessarily racist; but the effect of their migration was a consolidation of black individuals in dense, low-income, urban neighborhoods. This is why we see minorities – particularly African Americans – in urban ghettos today.



Several times, I’ve heard that it is individuals’ own fault for not pulling themselves out of this environment. But this argument ignores the immense difficulty they have in removing themselves from it. They are disadvantaged all around*** – less access to quality education, less access to high-paying jobs, higher levels of gang activity, less access to family planning, (often) less stable familial structures. All of these things compound on one another.




***I can find evidence/support for some of this stuff if you guys want, but all of that seems straightforward to me.




We could bring in the topic of drugs, yes. And it’s actually a very relevant one. The ‘War on Drugs’ effectively targets African-Americans at considerably higher than white Americans.

”And there are many more racial dimensions of the drug war. African-Americans do not use drugs more than white people; whites and blacks use drugs at almost exactly the same rates.13 And since there are five times as many whites as blacks in the United States, it follows that the overwhelming majority of drug users are white. Nevertheless, African-Americans are admitted to state prisons at a rate that is 13.4 times greater than whites, a disparity driven largely by the grossly racial targeting of drug laws. In some states, even those outside the Old Confederacy, blacks make up 90% of drug prisoners and are up to 57 times more likely than whites to be incarcerated for drug crimes.”




Just for you guys.


Crack v powder Cocaine


Crack cocaine used mostly by blacks


Powder cocaine used mostly by whites


Crack cocaine has a larger penalty than powder cocaine, despite both being a dangerous substance.


Kind of weird if you think about it. But it might just be a fluke, I mean I am sure that happens a lot when your dealing with a large judicial system. I shall return to the shadows to watch, please continue discussing this topic.


@Benvenu7, I have also heard this. And for @Mr.BossMan, here and here are articles that discuss this.



Regarding violence, it isn’t as self-explanatory as the numbers you cited make it out to be, @Mr.BossMan.



Actually, they're 3.5 times more likely.


Blacks only represent 12-13 percent of the American population. While white's represent 63 percent (I'm pretty sure) of the population. So at first glance it seems pretty unfair that a minority group is 3.5 times more likely to go to jail than a majority group. However according to the DOJ (Department of Justice) blacks commit a disproportionate amount of crime. Here's the quote:


"Despite making up just 13% of the population, blacks committed half of homicides in the United States for nearly 30 years. DOJ statistics show that between 1980 and 2008, black people committed 52% of homicides. In 2013, black criminals committed 38% of the murders. Whites accounted for just 31 percent."


@Mr.BossMan, look at this. There is definitely some truth behind those stats, but it’s not as straightforward as just looking at the numbers.



All this is to say: institutional/systemic racism does exist in the US. It doesn’t mean that the world is conspiring against black Americans. It does mean that the system, as it currently stands, sets black Americans at a huge disadvantage and makes it extremely difficult for them to access the same opportunities as white Americans. It doesn’t mean that Americans are racist. Systemic racism means that the system is racist.



Claim 2: The Black Lives Matter movement is legitimate.



(Sorry if it seems like I’m targeting you, @Mr.BossMan. You’ve just been very vocal on this.)


When something constantly shows signs of extremism, over time that's what it becomes. Much like what we see with BLM, as it is slowly becoming more and more aggressive.


What are they even protesting? Black people being shot by police? More whites have been shot by police officers than blacks. You do not see whites rioting in the streets because of this.


"White Privilege?" Which is a complete joke.


Systematic racism? Which simply doesn't exist.


Black Lives Matter is simply trying to make a problem out of nothing.



If you’re not going to entertain the notion that systemic racism is a real thing, you’re not going to understand the Black Lives Matter movement. But if you can accept the idea that systemic racism is legitimate – that black Americans are more disadvantaged than white Americans – then it’s fairly straightforward.



BLM is a response to this systemic racism. Black Lives Matter is not a call to extremism. It’s not a call to violence. It is a call for solidarity amongst black Americans and it is a call for reform.



I am not – in any way – trying to suggest that cops are actively trying to murder black Americans. But African-Americans watch as police officers – rightly or wrongly – shoot down other African-Americans; and in many many cases, those police officers are just let off. Black Americans feel that justice is not being served in cases where it should be served. And while I actually supported the decision in the Ferguson case a year or so ago – if only due to reasonable doubt – I certainly sympathize with the pain in that community and the anger they felt because of it all. Does that warrant the vandalism that followed? No. I don’t think so. But you can’t simply point to the extremist offshoots and argue that the central message is irrelevant. Claiming that BLM is “a joke,” “wrong,” and “disgusting” is feeding into the problem they are trying to highlight and combat.



“Black Lives Matter” does not mean that All Lives don’t Matter or that Blue Lives don’t Matter. Black Lives Matter is trying to bring focus to the fact that black lives aren’t treated the same way that white lives are.



Back to the original post, I certainly don’t approve of the vandalism of the confederate memorials. But at the same time, I do recognize where the anger comes from. While it might be reminiscent of more to white, Southern Americans, the confederacy stands as a symbol of slavery for black Americans. It is a reminder of the tragic history of black America. While I certainly don’t condone or support the vandalism or the violence, I can hardly blame African-Americans for being upset about it all.



Again, sorry for the essay, but this sort of topic demands it.
 
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Outlander

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Sorry for the essay…


Firstly, to try and take a step back. I recognize that knowledge you have gained or opinions that you hold/have encountered can be extremely ingrained in how you approach a topic such as this. I implore you to do your best to consider this subject as objectively as you can and to open yourself to evidence that may not fit the narrative that you have come to understand.



I find this difficult as well, and I will do my best to take every opinion or citation seriously. Please do not interpret what I say here as condemnatory in any sense. While I certainly disagree with a lot that has been said over the course of this conversation, I do not mean to be disrespectful or dismissive of any of the opinions that any of you hold. There is an underlying truth behind most claims; but that does not necessarily mean that that the claims, themselves, are true.



Racism is real. I don’t think anyone is arguing that fact, but it is something I think must be stated nonetheless. What seems to be a primary focus of this discussion is the extent to which racism permeates our political system – the legislative and judicial elements, particularly – and our society.



That said, measuring racism – institutionally or in an individual person – is really difficult. I am quite positive that I have never heard anyone genuinely and seriously claim “I am racist.” But one’s lack of acceptance, acknowledgement, or awareness of his/her own racism does not mean that they are not racist.



But even further, I don’t think racism is an all-or-nothing sort of thing. And so, I honestly don’t know what the value of labeling individuals or groups of people as ‘racist’ is – it seems to only trigger defensive responses and incite arguments and disagreements. However, it is similarly wrong to shy away from the conversation entirely to avoid the term.



This thread has covered a lot of ground and has edged on being somewhat vicious at times.



When @Benvenu7 started this thread, he was asking about opinions on a particular act of vandalism and, more broadly, opinions about the Black Lives Matter movement. It then spiraled into an argument that largely revolved around (1) the influence of history and historical figures so far as they affected racism/civil rights in the USA and (2) the nature, goals, and methods of the Black Lives Matter movement. And now it seems to be centered on institutional racism.



I only summarize so that it is easier for me to develop (and hopefully for you to follow) my commentary on these subjects.



Claim 1: The United States is institutionally racist.




This is a large claim and honestly it’s an extremely difficult one to explore because it is so rooted in history and engrained in our society that it can be difficult to recognize. Stating that the country is institutionally – or systemically – racist does not necessarily mean that the people living in the country are racist themselves.



The first clarification we need to make is here:







here:







and here:







You guys aren’t talking about the same thing. At least you’re not using the same words. There is a huge difference between ‘systematic’ and ‘systemic.’



‘Systematic’ racism implies a deliberate effort – probably on the government’s end, in some form – to perpetuate racist ideals or racist practices. ‘Systematic’ racism suggests that the racism that we see in our society today is actively being carried out and intentionally targeting people of color for the purposes of subjugation.



‘Systemic’ racism is completely different. ‘Systemic’ racism refers to the social and political and enforcement structures in place that passively perpetuate racist ideals. ‘Systemic racism’ suggests that racism is ingrained in our society to the point where – even though individuals might not, themselves, contribute to the racism – the institutions are structured such that (1) a huge proportion of the United States’ minority populations live in urban ghetto settings*** and (2) it is extremely difficult for individuals to extricate themselves from this environment.





***See:


[LINK] – Particularly the ‘Race and Uneven Development’ subsection; this is a segment from a book, so surely the authors have citations for these statistics.


[LINK] – This is actually a summary of a very relevant documentary; I’m quite positive that you could cross-check the RACE: The Power of an Illusion sources if you so desire.


[LINK] – This is a very poor source, I know, but I think the content is solid (though they don’t tend to provide their sources…).



I can look some more for more and better source material if anyone so desires.





So the first thing is to make sure that we are all talking about the same things. I don’t think most people argue that the racism we see is ‘systematic.’ But I agree with @Outlander that we do see ‘systemic’ racism.



To explore how the US became this way, we need to look at history – sort of back to slavery, and the years following emancipation (post-civil war), but mostly to the “Great Migration” of African Americans from southern US to northern and western US (IE: to LA, Chicago, New York, etc.).



The slavery bit is self-explanatory. Back before the civil war, slavery was institutionalized (it was literally legal in parts of the country) and racism was a mechanism through which slavery was enforced.



Fast-forward to the end of the civil war: slavery isn’t legal anymore. But racism still exists because, since it was such a core component of the social structure before slavery was abolished, the populations of those regions still maintained the same ideas about people of color. Sharecropping*** in former-slavery-heavy regions became a form of forced labor for African Americans after they were technically freed from their former masters; they were free, but they were still financially dependent on the white landowners. And the white landowners were still dependent on their labor. Thus, racism was still institutionalized.





***See:



[LINK] – Watch the 2 minute video at the bottom of the page.


[LINK] – See the ‘Labor Struggles in the Reconstruction Era’ and ‘Rise of the Sharecropping System’ sections.





Fast-forward again to the early 1900’s and the start of the Great Migration. The Great Migration refers to “the movement of 6 million African-Americans out of the rural Southern United States to the urban Northeast, Midwest, and West that occurred between 1910 and 1970.” (Wikipedia)



The population of blacks outside of the American South rose from about 10% to about 47% over the course of the Great Migration (Wilkerson, pg. 10). The black population in Chicago rose from 44,103 (just under 3% of the city population) to over 1 million by the end (Wilkerson, pg. 11). The 1970 census numbers the total Chicago population at 3,366,957, placing the black population at about 30-35% of the city. In 60 years, the population of African Americans in Chicago rose by 30%.





Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns is a book that explores this migration. She interviewed hundreds of African Americans that migrated from the south and told three of their stories that best represented the overarching narrative she heard.





But the most important thing about the Great Migration, for the purposes of our discussion, is how these African Americans were received. How did their destination locations react to the influx of black peoples?



The populations living in these cities prior to the Great Migration were predominantly white***. But over the course of the Great Migration, “White Flight” took place as white Americans relocated to suburbs in the attempt to preserve the homogeneity of their neighborhoods***.





***I’ll try and pull census data later.







***See:


[LINK] – Wikipedia. Yeah, yeah. I know, but wiki actually tends to be pretty solid.


[LINK] – The summary of someone’s dissertation on this particular phenomenon.


[LINK] – A journal article published in the winter of 1978/1979.



Wilkerson (in The Warmth of Other Suns) explores this very well too, though it is presented as a series of narratives and personal accounts.





All of this is to say that black populations moved from an American South where (1) segregation was formalized and (2) they were often forced to work for the same families that had held theirs as slaves years before. And they moved to the country’s urban centers further north where they were not integrated into society, but were instead ostracized, isolated, and forced to develop entirely new communities. These tended to be based around race because of the circumstances of their arrival. (Cities’ cultural neighborhoods tended to form along similar lines, though at a smaller scale than the Great Migration.)



We saw institutionalized racism in the South before and after slavery was abolished. And this “white flight” is an early example of the institutionalization of racism in the North. This is not to say that the white individuals that departed the Chicago were necessarily racist; but the effect of their migration was a consolidation of black individuals in dense, low-income, urban neighborhoods. This is why we see minorities – particularly African Americans – in urban ghettos today.



Several times, I’ve heard that it is individuals’ own fault for not pulling themselves out of this environment. But this argument ignores the immense difficulty they have in removing themselves from it. They are disadvantaged all around*** – less access to quality education, less access to high-paying jobs, higher levels of gang activity, less access to family planning, (often) less stable familial structures. All of these things compound on one another.




***I can find evidence/support for some of this stuff if you guys want, but all of that seems straightforward to me.




We could bring in the topic of drugs, yes. And it’s actually a very relevant one. The ‘War on Drugs’ effectively targets African-Americans at considerably higher than white Americans.

”And there are many more racial dimensions of the drug war. African-Americans do not use drugs more than white people; whites and blacks use drugs at almost exactly the same rates.13 And since there are five times as many whites as blacks in the United States, it follows that the overwhelming majority of drug users are white. Nevertheless, African-Americans are admitted to state prisons at a rate that is 13.4 times greater than whites, a disparity driven largely by the grossly racial targeting of drug laws. In some states, even those outside the Old Confederacy, blacks make up 90% of drug prisoners and are up to 57 times more likely than whites to be incarcerated for drug crimes.”







@Benvenu7, I have also heard this. And for @Mr.BossMan, here and here are articles that discuss this.



Regarding violence, it isn’t as self-explanatory as the numbers you cited make it out to be, @Mr.BossMan.






@Mr.BossMan, look at this. There is definitely some truth behind those stats, but it’s not as straightforward as just looking at the numbers.



All this is to say: institutional/systemic racism does exist in the US. It doesn’t mean that the world is conspiring against black Americans. It does mean that the system, as it currently stands, sets black Americans at a huge disadvantage and makes it extremely difficult for them to access the same opportunities as white Americans. It doesn’t mean that Americans are racist. Systemic racism means that the system is racist.



Claim 2: The Black Lives Matter movement is legitimate.



(Sorry if it seems like I’m targeting you, @Mr.BossMan. You’ve just been very vocal on this.)






If you’re not going to entertain the notion that systemic racism is a real thing, you’re not going to understand the Black Lives Matter movement. But if you can accept the idea that systemic racism is legitimate – that black Americans are more disadvantaged than white Americans – then it’s fairly straightforward.



BLM is a response to this systemic racism. Black Lives Matter is not a call to extremism. It’s not a call to violence. It is a call for solidarity amongst black Americans and it is a call for reform.



I am not – in any way – trying to suggest that cops are actively trying to murder black Americans. But African-Americans watch as police officers – rightly or wrongly – shoot down other African-Americans; and in many many cases, those police officers are just let off. Black Americans feel that justice is not being served in cases where it should be served. And while I actually supported the decision in the Ferguson case a year or so ago – if only due to reasonable doubt – I certainly sympathize with the pain in that community and the anger they felt because of it all. Does that warrant the vandalism that followed? No. I don’t think so. But you can’t simply point to the extremist offshoots and argue that the central message is irrelevant. Claiming that BLM is “a joke,” “wrong,” and “disgusting” is feeding into the problem they are trying to highlight and combat.



“Black Lives Matter” does not mean that All Lives don’t Matter or that Blue Lives don’t Matter. Black Lives Matter is trying to bring focus to the fact that black lives aren’t treated the same way that white lives are.



Back to the original post, I certainly don’t approve of the vandalism of the confederate memorials. But at the same time, I do recognize that those memorials – in large part – do recognize where the anger comes from. For many black Americans, the confederacy stands for slavery. It is a reminder of the tragic history of black America. While I certainly don’t condone or support the vandalism or the violence, I can hardly blame African-Americans for being upset about it all.



Again, sorry for the essay.

Huh.

That was a damn good read.

Good job!
 

Mr.BossMan

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First off I'd like to say that was a good read. Secondly, there is no need to apologize for calling me out specifically. I understand I've been pretty vocal about this topic and I know it is a "Hot" topic which separates people into two camps. This can lead to heated arguments and disputes with long lasting opinions towards people. I just want to start off by saying I respect your opinion, I just simply disagree with it. That being said, I don't mean any personal offense towards you. That'd be insane for me to judge you as a person simply because I disagree with you. So, I hope you understand this as you read the following.


Sorry for the essay…


Firstly, to try and take a step back. I recognize that knowledge you have gained or opinions that you hold/have encountered can be extremely ingrained in how you approach a topic such as this. I implore you to do your best to consider this subject as objectively as you can and to open yourself to evidence that may not fit the narrative that you have come to understand.



I find this difficult as well, and I will do my best to take every opinion or citation seriously. Please do not interpret what I say here as condemnatory in any sense. While I certainly disagree with a lot that has been said over the course of this conversation, I do not mean to be disrespectful or dismissive of any of the opinions that any of you hold. There is an underlying truth behind most claims; but that does not necessarily mean that that the claims, themselves, are true.


Fair enough, I shall try. In turn, you try as well.


Racism is real. I don’t think anyone is arguing that fact, but it is something I think must be stated nonetheless. What seems to be a primary focus of this discussion is the extent to which racism permeates our political system – the legislative and judicial elements, particularly – and our society.



That said, measuring racism – institutionally or in an individual person – is really difficult. I am quite positive that I have never heard anyone genuinely and seriously claim “I am racist.” But one’s lack of acceptance, acknowledgement, or awareness of his/her own racism does not mean that they are not racist.



But even further, I don’t think racism is an all-or-nothing sort of thing. And so, I honestly don’t know what the value of labeling individuals or groups of people as ‘racist’ is – it seems to only trigger defensive responses and incite arguments and disagreements. However, it is similarly wrong to shy away from the conversation entirely to avoid the term.



This thread has covered a lot of ground and has edged on being somewhat vicious at times.



When @Benvenu7 started this thread, he was asking about opinions on a particular act of vandalism and, more broadly, opinions about the Black Lives Matter movement. It then spiraled into an argument that largely revolved around (1) the influence of history and historical figures so far as they affected racism/civil rights in the USA and (2) the nature, goals, and methods of the Black Lives Matter movement. And now it seems to be centered on institutional racism.



I only summarize so that it is easier for me to develop (and hopefully for you to follow) my commentary on these subjects.

Fair enough. good summery.

Also apologies in advance for my lack of neatness of this post. I'm a bit ignorant when it comes to inserting all of these boxes and tables. Fortunately you are not, as you seem to be pretty well organized. My mind wanders fast, but I'll try and slow it down for you. Just for simplicity sake. ;)


Claim 1: The United States is institutionally racist.


Okay so this is what you believe I take it. For the record I'm going to officially state my "Claim" so to speak. This is what I've been saying the entire time.

The United States is not systematically racist, today.




There is a huge difference between ‘systematic’ and ‘systemic.’



‘Systematic’ racism implies a deliberate effort – probably on the government’s end, in some form – to perpetuate racist ideals or racist practices. ‘Systematic’ racism suggests that the racism that we see in our society today is actively being carried out and intentionally targeting people of color for the purposes of subjugation.



‘Systemic’ racism is completely different. ‘Systemic’ racism refers to the social and political and enforcement structures in place that passively perpetuate racist ideals. ‘Systemic racism’ suggests that racism is ingrained in our society to the point where – even though individuals might not, themselves, contribute to the racism – the institutions are structured such that (1) a huge proportion of the United States’ minority populations live in urban ghetto settings*** and (2) it is extremely difficult for individuals to extricate themselves from this environment.
***See:
[LINK] – Particularly the ‘Race and Uneven Development’ subsection; this is a segment from a book, so surely the authors have citations for these statistics.
[LINK] – This is actually a summary of a very relevant documentary; I’m quite positive that you could cross-check the RACE: The Power of an Illusion sources if you so desire.[LINK] – This is a very poor source, I know, but I think the content is solid (though they don’t tend to provide their sources…).
I can look some more for more and better source material if anyone so desires.

Okay thanks for clearing up the definitions for us. (For some reason I can't get these quotes to merge, so please pardon the error)




So the first thing is to make sure that we are all talking about the same things. I don’t think most people argue that the racism we see is ‘systematic.’ But I agree with @Outlander that we do see ‘systemic’ racism.

Okay, so two things just happened. One, you just said most people won't argue that racism is 'Systematic.' I think this may be because most people agree that The United States government does not
actively target minorities to discriminate against them. Why? Because that would be non-sense and I believe that if that were happening the American people would have to do something about it. For the record I'd like to clarify, systematic racism was what I was arguing against this entire time.

So, no, The United States is not systematically racist.


Now onto the second thing that just happened. We just changed our claims, or well, I did. Now we are arguing that systemic racism is real. Systemic and Systematic, like you so awesomely defined for us, are different. You claim to say systemic racism is real in our society today. I'm saying it is not real, it is fictional, it does not exist in our society today. So now that we have that cleared up let's move on.


To explore
how the US became this way, we need to look at history – sort of back to slavery, and the years following emancipation (post-civil war), but mostly to the “Great Migration” of African Americans from southern US to northern and western US (IE: to LA, Chicago, New York, etc.).



The slavery bit is self-explanatory. Back before the civil war, slavery was institutionalized (it was literally legal in parts of the country) and racism was a mechanism through which slavery was enforced.



Fast-forward to the end of the civil war: slavery isn’t legal anymore. But racism still exists because, since it was such a core component of the social structure before slavery was abolished, the populations of those regions still maintained the same ideas about people of color. Sharecropping*** in former-slavery-heavy regions became a form of forced labor for African Americans after they were technically freed from their former masters; they were free, but they were still financially dependent on the white landowners. And the white landowners were still dependent on their labor. Thus, racism was still institutionalized.





***See:



[LINK] – Watch the 2 minute video at the bottom of the page.


[LINK] – See the ‘Labor Struggles in the Reconstruction Era’ and ‘Rise of the Sharecropping System’ sections.





Fast-forward again to the early 1900’s and the start of the Great Migration. The Great Migration refers to “the movement of 6 million African-Americans out of the rural Southern United States to the urban Northeast, Midwest, and West that occurred between 1910 and 1970.” (Wikipedia)



The population of blacks outside of the American South rose from about 10% to about 47% over the course of the Great Migration (Wilkerson, pg. 10). The black population in Chicago rose from 44,103 (just under 3% of the city population) to over 1 million by the end (Wilkerson, pg. 11). The 1970 census numbers the total Chicago population at 3,366,957, placing the black population at about 30-35% of the city. In 60 years, the population of African Americans in Chicago rose by 30%.





Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns is a book that explores this migration. She interviewed hundreds of African Americans that migrated from the south and told three of their stories that best represented the overarching narrative she heard.





But the most important thing about the Great Migration, for the purposes of our discussion, is how these African Americans were received. How did their destination locations react to the influx of black peoples?



The populations living in these cities prior to the Great Migration were predominantly white***. But over the course of the Great Migration, “White Flight” took place as white Americans relocated to suburbs in the attempt to preserve the homogeneity of their neighborhoods***.





***I’ll try and pull census data later.


UPDATE (8.25.2016):

So this is a little hard to find, because census data wasn't as great back in 1910. But, I did find a book on Google Books titled Negro Population: 1790-1915, which provides some statistics on pg. 91 that state that 78.4% of blacks (48,425 total) living in Illinois lived in urban areas, compared with 61.3% of whites (3,388,881 total). So that's about 38,000 blacks and about 2,077,000 whites in urban areas of Illinois (IE: Chicago).

Similar numbers for New York: 87.6% of blacks (117,483 total) were urban, relative to 78.7% of whites (7,061,043 total). About 103,000 blacks and about 5,557,000 whites in urban New York (so, mostly NYC).







***See:


[LINK] – Wikipedia. Yeah, yeah. I know, but wiki actually tends to be pretty solid.


[LINK] – The summary of someone’s dissertation on this particular phenomenon.


[LINK] – A journal article published in the winter of 1978/1979.



Wilkerson (in The Warmth of Other Suns) explores this very well too, though it is presented as a series of narratives and personal accounts.





All of this is to say that black populations moved from an American South where (1) segregation was formalized and (2) they were often forced to work for the same families that had held theirs as slaves years before. And they moved to the country’s urban centers further north where they were not integrated into society, but were instead ostracized, isolated, and forced to develop entirely new communities. These tended to be based around race because of the circumstances of their arrival. (Cities’ cultural neighborhoods tended to form along similar lines, though at a smaller scale than the Great Migration.

We saw institutionalized racism in the South before and after slavery was abolished. And this “white flight” is an early example of the institutionalization of racism in the North. This is not to say that the white individuals that departed the Chicago were necessarily racist; but the effect of their migration was a consolidation of black individuals in dense, low-income, urban neighborhoods. This is why we see minorities – particularly African Americans – in urban ghettos today.


(Again pardon the quoting error, I can't seem to merge them. I told you i was no good with technology!)

Thanks for that summary of American history. I agree with you on damn near all of it, it's accurate and factual. So good job to you my man (or woman). That being said I'm not going to argue that America was
never systematically- or systemically - racist. Every American should know that this was real and it did happen. It is a black stain on American history, although it is American history. HISTORY is the key word here though. History is in the past, it is something we can read about, but never get back. That doesn't justify the past but even if it wasn't justified, it can't be changed. I appreciate how you are trying to explain how the nation became systemically racist, but it is unnecessary.

We should all know of slavery in The United States, the forced relocation of Native Americans, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the forced encampment of Japanese Americans during WW2, from segregation in the 1900's. These are all forms of Institutional racism perpetrated by the United States government. However this only proves that America was systemically racist in the past.

Also I'd like you to note something. There pretty important to
my argument, the Civil Rights Movement, the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Japanese American release from their camps, the sovereign soil given by America to the Native Americans, the abolishment of slavery. These are all things that the American people, and the government which serves them, did. Does it justify the things they did? No. Is it a good step forward? Yes. Does it show that america has grown in a positive way? Yes.[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]





Several times, I’ve heard that it is individuals’ own fault for not pulling themselves out of this environment. But this argument ignores the immense difficulty they have in removing themselves from it. They are disadvantaged all around*** – less access to quality education, less access to high-paying jobs, higher levels of gang activity, less access to family planning, (often) less stable familial structures. All of these things compound on one another.

I have to respond to this quote, as I find it very important. To me this thought process is part of the problem and more specifically the flaws in BLM. What I'm about to say I'm sure you've already heard before, but none the less it needs to be said again.

Black people and black communities face a problem. The Black Lives Matter movement would like you to believe that this problem is because of the United States government, white people, the police and pretty much every single thing except blacks and their communities, their culture.

Here are some facts for you:

Quoting you above "Less stable familial structures." Most black kids grow up in single parent households (More often than not it is single mother households). The percentage is rough and accounts vary but the overwhelming number is 72%. I visited many sites and read multiple articles and damn near all of them agreed that black children grow up in single mother homes around 72% of the time. Here is your quote, you can google it for yourself and do your own research. I feel you'll come to the same conclusion as I.

"The 72 percent figure refers to children who are born to women who are not married; it would, however, include unmarried couples in which the father is present. That said, the rate of African-American children living in single-parent homes is almost as high as the rate for non-marital births."




Moving on now, you say blacks have "Less access to quality education" but you'd be wrong my friend. Blacks are actually graduating high school at increasing rates. The drop out rate for black youth has actually gone down. Black youth are almost at the verge of surpassing their white counterparts. Here is some evidence for you:

http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2015/03/16/federal-data-show-racial-gap-in-high-school-graduation-rates-is-closing

http://nces.ed.gov/ccd/tables/ACGR_RE_and_characteristics_2013-14.asp

https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=16

Those bottom two links are from the NCES (National Center for Education Statistics) and it doesn't get any more real than that right there. So if blacks are actually doing better in high school than they've previously done. In some cases better than their white counter parts, and in others they are actually catching up with whites. Then how is it that the government is being systemically racist towards them?

I'm not done with education though so hear me out.

Again quoting you above "Less access to quality education" this just ain't true. If the government and it's institutions are systemically racist then why do minorities get free scholarships? Simply for being a minority? Black kids can get FREE college scholarships and grants, just for being black. Something a white kid, such as myself and others, do not have access to. Then again you won't hear me complain about this absurdly unfair and discriminatory rule.

Here is your link:

https://www.scholarships.com/financial-aid/college-scholarships/scholarships-by-type/minority-scholarships/african-american-scholarships/

Now quoting from the above link "African American scholarships are abundant, as are African American grants." This is literally the first sentence of the first paragraph. So in a way I think it's fair to assume that the government, and it's institutions, actually help minorities and people of color. Does that seem fair to you? Imagine all those white kid's that could have used this money but they can't get it, why? Because they're white and not black.

But then again we're just privileged white people.

Now moving on.



Quoting you above "Less access to high paying jobs" I'm going to disagree with this as well. Look up "Affirmative action" or don't here is a link to the Wikipedia page

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action

Affirmative Action is basically a requirement from the government to make sure companies hire minorities and there is not discrimination in the hiring process. This is the government that you claim is systemically racist, making it mandatory to hire minorities. I'd like you to read this, It's from Wikipedia but it speaks the truth none the less. It'd s bit long, hence the spoiler tag. Forgive me.

The concept of affirmative action was introduced in the early 1960s in the United States, as a way to combat racial discrimination in the hiring process, with the concept later expanded to address gender discrimination.[18] Affirmative action was first created from Executive Order 10925, which was signed by President John F. Kennedy on 6 March 1961 and required that government employers "not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, creed, color, or national origin" and "take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin".[75][76]

On 24 September 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Executive Order 11246, thereby replacing Executive Order 10925 and affirming Federal Government's commitment "to promote the full realization of equal employment opportunity through a positive, continuing program in each executive department and agency".[3] Affirmative action was extended to women by Executive Order 11375 which amended Executive Order 11246 on 13 October 1967, by adding "sex" to the list of protected categories. In the U.S. affirmative action's original purpose was to pressure institutions into compliance with the nondiscrimination mandate of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.[22][77] The Civil Rights Acts do not cover veterans, people with disabilities, or people over 40. These groups are protected from discrimination under different laws.[78]

Affirmative action has been the subject of numerous court cases,[79] and has been questioned upon its constitutional legitimacy. In 2003, a Supreme Court decision regarding affirmative action in higher education (Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 US 244 – Supreme Court 2003) permitted educational institutions to consider race as a factor when admitting students.[7] Alternatively, some colleges use financial criteria to attract racial groups that have typically been under-represented and typically have lower living conditions. Some states such as California (California Civil Rights Initiative), Michigan (Michigan Civil Rights Initiative), and Washington (Initiative 200) have passed constitutional amendments banning public institutions, including public schools, from practicing affirmative action within their respective states. Conservative activists have alleged that colleges quietly use illegal quotas to increase the number of minorities and have launched numerous lawsuits to stop them.[80]

Racial quotas in the United States began to be implemented with government approval already in the 18th century with the Naturalization Act of 1790, which limited naturalization to immigrants who were free White persons of good character.

The National Origins Formula was an American system of immigration quotas, between 1921 and 1965, which restricted immigration on the basis of existing proportions of the population. The goal was to maintain the existing ethnic composition of the United States. It had the effect of giving low quotas to Eastern and Southern Europe.

Such racial quotas were restored after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, especially during the 1970s.[5] Richard Nixon's Labor Secretary George P. Schultz demanded that anti-black construction unions allow a certain number of black people into the unions.[5] The Department of Labor began enforcing these quotas across the country.[5] After a Supreme Court case, Griggs v. Duke Power Company, found that neutral application tests and procedures that still resulted in de factosegregation of employees (if previous discrimination had existed) were illegal, more companies began implementing quotas on their own.[5]

In a 1973 court case, a federal judge created one of the first mandated quotas when he ruled that half of the Bridgeport, Connecticut Police Department's new employees must be either black or Puerto Rican.[5] In 1974, the Department of Justice and the United Steelworkers of America came to an agreement on the largest-to-then quota program, for steel unions.[5]

In 1978, the Supreme Court ruled in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke that public universities (and other government institutions) could not set specific numerical targets based on race for admissions or employment.[5] The Court said that "goals" and "timetables" for diversity could be set instead.[5] A 1979 Supreme Court case, United Steelworkers v. Weber, found that private employers could set rigid numerical quotas, if they chose to do so.[5] In 1980, the Supreme Court found that a 10% racial quota for federal contractors was permitted.[5]

I think this kinda de-bunks your claim that the government is systemically racist towards minorities when it comes to jobs. This actually helps minorities get a job, putting them at an unfair advantage against their white counterparts.


Quoting you again "Higher levels of gang activity" I agree. Gangs in black communities run rampant and it is a problem. Thankfully we have a police force that is tasked with the responsibility to bring these criminals in. Unfortunately though, it seems Black Lives Matter is targeting the police force which is there to help protect them from these gangs. It's sad, it really is, that a police officers job is to help, but they are being shunned by the people they are tasked with protecting.

Who's fault is that? Not the police departments, instead the blame rest on the black communities themselves. Their unwillingness to talk to police and their misguided hatred for law-enforcement. This is not systemic racism. Although here is your source.

Here, I'll link you to the first hand account of a black police officer. I feel like his words can better explain this than mine own. So, make sure you read the whole thing as he explains it quite well. I feel like he is a reliable source, he is a police officer, who police's a majority black community. He goes on to tell that he himself lived in the 'ghetto' and has personal experience with gangs.

Link to a hero: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/07/11/black-cop-explodes-black-lives-matter-racist-police-myths-in-viral-facebook-post/


We could bring in the topic of drugs, yes. And it’s actually a very relevant one. The ‘War on Drugs’ effectively targets African-Americans at considerably higher than white Americans.

”And there are many more racial dimensions of the drug war. African-Americans do not use drugs more than white people; whites and blacks use drugs at almost exactly the same rates.13 And since there are five times as many whites as blacks in the United States, it follows that the overwhelming majority of drug users are white. Nevertheless, African-Americans are admitted to state prisons at a rate that is 13.4 times greater than whites, a disparity driven largely by the grossly racial targeting of drug laws. In some states, even those outside the Old Confederacy, blacks make up 90% of drug prisoners and are up to 57 times more likely than whites to be incarcerated for drug crimes.”




@Benvenu7, I have also heard this. And for @Mr.BossMan,
here and here are articles that discuss this.


Regarding violence, it isn’t as self-explanatory as the numbers you cited make it out to be, @Mr.BossMan.


@Mr.BossMan, look at
this. There is definitely some truth behind those stats, but it’s not as straightforward as just looking at the numbers.


I'd like to first point out that the link you provided me with, simply agreed with the stats. The only thing it did was try to make
excuses for the crime rate. It boiled down to "Most blacks live in poverty, so crime is a given, as crime rates seem to rise in areas of poverty. Regardless of race." I'm not going to argue that crime is influenced by Income. But I will argue this, just because you are poor does not excuse you from the rule of law. We are all Americans, more importantly we are all human, we and we alone affect our destiny. If you let the streets beat you than that is a shame. But, that is of your own choosing.

Be better than that, Even if it is hard, be harder. It's as simple as that.

I like this quote it's a bit inspirational and gooey but it is true: "You are defined by your actions, not by your circumstances."


If you become a criminal, that is of your own doing.
There is no excuse.



All this is to say: institutional/systemic racism does exist in the US. It doesn’t mean that the world is conspiring against black Americans. It does mean that the system, as it currently stands, sets black Americans at a huge disadvantage and makes it extremely difficult for them to access the same opportunities as white Americans. It doesn’t mean that Americans are racist. Systemic racism means that the system is racist.

Again I disagree. The American system is not racist it is proven in a multitude of ways.

Blacks graduating at higher and higher rates. Affirmative action which effectively eliminates prejudices in the hiring process. Racial quotas for companies help minorities too. Police departments and officers patrol black communities, trying to keep them safe from harm. Whether that harm be gangs, drugs, murders or simple traffic violations. We have a black president, black senators, black congress men and women, black attorney general, black supreme court justice.

Our government is not systemically racist.

All of what i listed above is evidence of my conclusion.

Claim 2: The Black Lives Matter movement is legitimate.



(Sorry if it seems like I’m targeting you, @Mr.BossMan. You’ve just been very vocal on this.)






If you’re not going to entertain the notion that systemic racism is a real thing, you’re not going to understand the Black Lives Matter movement. But if you can accept the idea that systemic racism is legitimate – that black Americans are more disadvantaged than white Americans – then it’s fairly straightforward.



BLM is a response to this systemic racism. Black Lives Matter is not a call to extremism. It’s not a call to violence. It is a call for solidarity amongst black Americans and it is a call for reform.



I am not – in any way – trying to suggest that cops are actively trying to murder black Americans. But African-Americans watch as police officers – rightly or wrongly – shoot down other African-Americans; and in many many cases, those police officers are just let off. Black Americans feel that justice is not being served in cases where it should be served. And while I actually supported the decision in the Ferguson case a year or so ago – if only due to reasonable doubt – I certainly sympathize with the pain in that community and the anger they felt because of it all. Does that warrant the vandalism that followed? No. I don’t think so. But you can’t simply point to the extremist offshoots and argue that the central message is irrelevant. Claiming that BLM is “a joke,” “wrong,” and “disgusting” is feeding into the problem they are trying to highlight and combat.



“Black Lives Matter” does not mean that All Lives don’t Matter or that Blue Lives don’t Matter. Black Lives Matter is trying to bring focus to the fact that black lives aren’t treated the same way that white lives are.



Back to the original post, I certainly don’t approve of the vandalism of the confederate memorials. But at the same time, I do recognize where the anger comes from. While it might be reminiscent of more to white, Southern Americans, the confederacy stands as a symbol of slavery for black Americans. It is a reminder of the tragic history of black America. While I certainly don’t condone or support the vandalism or the violence, I can hardly blame African-Americans for being upset about it all.



Again, sorry for the essay, but this sort of topic demands it.

Systemic racism does not exist. Thus the BLM movement is illegitimate.

The problem with the BLM movement is simple, accountability.

I'm going to quote what I said above "Black people and black communities face a problem. The Black Lives Matter movement would like you to believe that this problem is because of the United States government, white people, the police and pretty much every single thing except blacks and their communities, their culture."

This is what BLM boils down to. They want to blame other for the problems in their communities instead of fixing the problem. Do white people create the 72% single mother rate? No. Do police officers target young black men because they're racist bastards? No. Every police shooting can boil down to this, the victim didn't comply. More whites have been shot by police officers, you do not see whites rioting in the streets because they are mad at a verdict.

Black kids are graduating high school at amazing rates given the circumstances of their communities. There is no reason a black kid can't find a job just like a white kid. They have scholarships for college, as well as any other things they must work for to better their chances in the application process. Is what it boils down to is simple, we are all American.

Regardless of race nothing can take that away from you. Creating imaginary problems to lash out your built up anger, is unnecessary. It is not useful for a movement. Violence is not an effective means to solve any problem.

Instead simply fix the problems in black communities.

Stay with the woman you knock up. Graduate high school, attend college or go to work. Make a family, teach your kids the right way to live. Cooperate with Law-Enforcement, snitch on the people that do wrong. Don't glorify the life of a gangster, shun that life. Don't do drugs, don't go to prison, don't riot and don't kill cops.

I think that's about all I have to say about that.
 

Jakalar

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Of course I’m not going to judge you as a person for not seeing things the same way as I.

As much as I think you’re entirely wrong, these sorts of conversations are helpful to have. Too many people shut down the instant that people formulated arguments against what they say. It’s… refreshing… to actually talk through this stuff with someone on the other side of the fence.

Also, my apologies for taking so long to respond. These sorts of things take time and I haven’t been able to carve much out until now.


First, I need to say this:

Never in my original post did I say that the government was systemically racist. Never.

It isn’t the government. It isn’t the people. It’s the country.

You can’t point to a singular source and claim that it’s the heart of this problem. Countries and societies are built over long spans of time, so you can’t trace the source of an issue to a single causal factor. There are tons of different elements. And the way the United States is structured, currently, reinforces racial divisions.

I am not trying to say that the government is at fault for that.



Alright. Now, I’m going to jump back to that link I sent you in the last post. Here’s what you said about it:

”I'd like to first point out that the link you provided me with, simply agreed with the stats. The only thing it did was try to make excuses for the crime rate. It boiled down to "Most blacks live in poverty, so crime is a given, as crime rates seem to rise in areas of poverty. Regardless of race." I'm not going to argue that crime is influenced by Income. But I will argue this, just because you are poor does not excuse you from the rule of law. We are all Americans, more importantly we are all human, we and we alone affect our destiny. If you let the streets beat you than that is a shame. But, that is of your own choosing.

Be better than that, Even if it is hard, be harder. It's as simple as that.”


I am not contesting the stats that you presented. I didn’t present the link to counter your statistics, I presented it to counter your conclusions. Near the end of the article, Worrall (the author) states:

Some criminologists think we could be simply confusing race for poverty or inequality: black people tend to offend more because they tend to be more disadvantaged, living in poorer urban areas with less access to public services, and so on.

If you control for deprivation, people of different races ought to be similarly predisposed to commit crime. Or that’s the theory, at least.

There is a lot of research in this area, but a lot of it is contradictory.

This study (the link is faulty, unfortunately) of violent crime in deprived neighbourhoods in Cleveland, Ohio, found that reductions in poverty led to reductions in the crime rate in exactly the same way in predominantly black and white areas, suggesting poverty, not race, is the biggest factor.

Other studies get different results.

All sociologists have suffered from the same basic problem: finding urban white communities that are as disadvantaged as the poorest black neighbourhoods, so that you can get a fair comparison.

Some thinkers play down the importance of poverty in favour of the “violent subculture theory”.

This is the idea that some black communities, for some reason, have developed cultural values that are more tolerant of crime and violence.

Some commentators on the unrest in Ferguson – mostly right-wing, though not all white – seem to favour this idea, but naturally it remains highly controversial.



The link I provided suggests that your narrative is not the only one. You are clearly arguing in favor of this “violent subculture theory.” I am arguing for the ‘poverty/inequality theory.’


You said:

"Black people and black communities face a problem. The Black Lives Matter movement would like you to believe that this problem is because of the United States government, white people, the police and pretty much every single thing except blacks and their communities, their culture."


Here – and throughout your post - you insinuate that black culture is where the violence stems from. I think it stems from their circumstances – from the poverty and inequality.

Maybe our conversation needs to shift to this topic.

Are black individuals more violent than white individuals because of their culture or because of their circumstances?


If you want to shift focus and address this question, I will as well. But my point is to note that your conclusions aren’t the only ones you can reach given the information you present. I challenge you to look at both theories – the “violent subculture theory” and the ‘poverty/inequality theory’ – and the evidence behind them. If you’re going to stand by the conclusions you have already reached, make sure that it is based in evidence.

The article I presented earlier notes that there is evidence for both sides and that there really aren’t any definitive conclusions.



Also, revisiting the same passage of yours I quoted before:

”I'm not going to argue that crime is influenced by Income. But I will argue this, just because you are poor does not excuse you from the rule of law. We are all Americans, more importantly we are all human, we and we alone affect our destiny. If you let the streets beat you than that is a shame. But, that is of your own choosing.

Be better than that, Even if it is hard, be harder. It's as simple as that.”

But it’s not as simple as that.

Believe it or not, this is a somewhat privileged perspective to hold. Personally, I do agree that there isn’t an excuse for illegal or criminal activity. But I do think there is an explanation other than “blacks have developed a culture of violence” (I’m not quoting anyone in particular here, by the way).

I’m not going to argue that violence is not more prevalent in black communities than in white ones. But the things you cite as the source of the problem can also be viewed as the effects of circumstantial/environmental factors.

I’m going to quote my original statement on the subject and then your responses:

“Several times, I’ve heard that it is individuals’ own fault for not pulling themselves out of this environment. But this argument ignores the immense difficulty they have in removing themselves from it. They are disadvantaged all around*** – less access to quality education, less access to high-paying jobs, higher levels of gang activity, less access to family planning, (often) less stable familial structures. All of these things compound on one another.”

I have to respond to this quote, as I find it very important. To me this thought process is part of the problem and more specifically the flaws in BLM. What I'm about to say I'm sure you've already heard before, but none the less it needs to be said again.

Black people and black communities face a problem. The Black Lives Matter movement would like you to believe that this problem is because of the United States government, white people, the police and pretty much every single thingexcept blacks and their communities, their culture.

Here are some facts for you:

Quoting you above "Less stable familial structures." Most black kids grow up in single parent households (More often than not it is single mother households). The percentage is rough and accounts vary but the overwhelming number is 72%. I visited many sites and read multiple articles and damn near all of them agreed that black children grow up in single mother homes around 72% of the time. Here is your quote, you can google it for yourself and do your own research. I feel you'll come to the same conclusion as I.

"The 72 percent figure refers to children who are born to women who are not married; it would, however, includeunmarried couples in which the father is present. That said, the rate of African-American children living in single-parent homes is almost as high as the rate for non-marital births."




Moving on now, you say blacks have "Less access to quality education" but you'd be wrong my friend. Blacks are actually graduating high school at increasing rates. The drop out rate for black youth has actually gone down. Black youth are almost at the verge of surpassing their white counterparts. Here is some evidence for you:

http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2015/03/16/federal-data-show-racial-gap-in-high-school-graduation-rates-is-closing

http://nces.ed.gov/ccd/tables/ACGR_RE_and_characteristics_2013-14.asp

https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=16

Those bottom two links are from the NCES (National Center for Education Statistics) and it doesn't get any more real than that right there. So if blacks are actually doing better in high school than they've previously done. In some cases better than their white counter parts, and in others they are actually catching up with whites. Then how is it that the government is being systemically racist towards them?

I'm not done with education though so hear me out.

Again quoting you above "Less access to quality education" this just ain't true. If the government and it's institutions are systemically racist then why do minorities get free scholarships? Simply for being a minority? Black kids can get FREE college scholarships and grants, just for being black. Something a white kid, such as myself and others, do not have access to. Then again you won't hear me complain about this absurdly unfair and discriminatory rule.

Here is your link:

https://www.scholarships.com/financial-aid/college-scholarships/scholarships-by-type/minority-scholarships/african-american-scholarships/

Now quoting from the above link "African American scholarships are abundant, as are African American grants." This is literally the first sentence of the first paragraph. So in a way I think it's fair to assume that the government, and it's institutions, actually help minorities and people of color. Does that seem fair to you? Imagine all those white kid's that could have used this money but they can't get it, why? Because they're white and not black.

But then again we're just privileged white people.

Now moving on.



Quoting you above "Less access to high paying jobs" I'm going to disagree with this as well. Look up "Affirmative action" or don't here is a link to the Wikipedia page

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action

Affirmative Action is basically a requirement from the government to make sure companies hire minorities and there is not discrimination in the hiring process. This is the government that you claim is systemically racist, making it mandatory to hire minorities. I'd like you to read this, It's from Wikipedia but it speaks the truth none the less. It'd s bit long, hence the spoiler tag. Forgive me.

[FONT=#FFFFFF][AA SPOILER][/COLOR]

I think this kinda de-bunks your claim that the government is systemically racist towards minorities when it comes to jobs. This actually helps minorities get a job, putting them at an unfair advantage against their white counterparts.


Quoting you again "Higher levels of gang activity" I agree. Gangs in black communities run rampant and it is a problem. Thankfully we have a police force that is tasked with the responsibility to bring these criminals in. Unfortunately though, it seems Black Lives Matter is targeting the police force which is there to help protect them from these gangs. It's sad, it really is, that a police officers job is to help, but they are being shunned by the people they are tasked with protecting.

Who's fault is that? Not the police departments, instead the blame rest on the black communities themselves. Their unwillingness to talk to police and their misguided hatred for law-enforcement. This is not systemic racism. Although here is your source.

Here, I'll link you to the first hand account of a black police officer. I feel like his words can better explain this than mine own. So, make sure you read the whole thing as he explains it quite well. I feel like he is a reliable source, he is a police officer, who police's a majority black community. He goes on to tell that he himself lived in the 'ghetto' and has personal experience with gangs.

Link to a hero: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/07/11/black-cop-explodes-black-lives-matter-racist-police-myths-in-viral-facebook-post/

Okay. So you address:

  1. Less stable familial structures
  2. Less access to quality education
  3. Less access to high paying jobs
  4. Higher levels of gang activity

Alright.

1. Less stable familial structures


Most black kids grow up in single parent households (More often than not it is single mother households). The percentage is rough and accounts vary but the overwhelming number is 72%. I visited many sites and read multiple articles and damn near all of them agreed that black children grow up in single mother homes around 72% of the time. Here is your quote, you can google it for yourself and do your own research. I feel you'll come to the same conclusion as I.


"The 72 percent figure refers to children who are born to women who are not married; it would, however, includeunmarried couples in which the father is present. That said, the rate of African-American children living in single-parent homes is almost as high as the rate for non-marital births."

Yeah. I agree. That’s why I stated it was a factor by which they are disadvantaged.

But you can’t just look at those numbers and conclude that black people don’t love their children as much as white people. You can’t look at those numbers and conclude that black people don’t love their spouses as much as white people. You have to look deeper than that.

Intuitively, if you grow up in a fatherless household, you aren’t going to value a stable family as much as someone who grew up with a very present father. And if most of your friends grow up without a father, then you’re going to think its normal. When you grow up, you’re not going to have as much a problem with walking out because ‘it’s just what men do.’

Thus, a noteworthy reason why black kids grow up in single-parent households is because their parents also grew up in single-parent households. It’s circular.

2. Less access to quality education


Okay, no. Graduation rates are a terrible metric for measuring the quality of education. It is actually really difficult to work out a good measure of quality though because standardized testing is also a pretty poor metric***.

***See:

[LINK] – Not an outstanding source on this subject, but it does talk briefly about measuring the quality of education.
[LINK] – Read this whole presentation. They’ve got lots of sources at the end, too, to support what they say.

My point is that a kid in the suburbs has access to schools (1) with more resources and (2) that place a larger focus on students. A kid in the inner city doesn’t.

I’m from the Chicago area, so Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is what comes to mind the most. Black households tend to be more poverty-stricken than white households and, thus, less emphasis is placed on student academic progress. The way that schooling works in city is test-based***.

***See:

[LINK] – Students compete like crazy for CPS high school placement, at least in the best schools. Students from poorer families are less able/less encouraged to focus on education.

[LINK] – But most schools in Chicago are far worse.

[LINK] – These are Chicago’s three top-ranked schools (according to the first article I cited here). Look at the proportion of these schools that is black and the total enrollment numbers. Less than 20% at the lowest

[LINK] – Now, look at these three. They are randomly selected level 2 and 3 CPS schools (see here for all CPS schools & ratings), rather than level 1 schools. They are almost entirely black. Their total enrollment numbers are here.

[LINK] – Also, this.

[LINK] – Chicago was 32.9% black, according to the 2010 census. If race were not an issue in schooling, then we would see numbers much closer to this percentage in schools. Instead, we see FAR HIGHER numbers in the Tier 1 schools and FAR LOWER in the Tier 2 and 3 schools.

Black students do not get into the good schools. Just because graduation rates are acceptable, doesn’t mean that they have access to quality education. But the rates are still 15% lower among blacks, on average (according to the source you provided) which is a pretty huge margin.

And this source that you provided states: “Although the nation's overall graduation rate reached an all-time high of 81 percent in the 2012-13 school year, white students still graduate at a much higher rate than most other subgroups, at 86.6 percent.” I’m not suggesting improvements haven’t been made. I’m saying that African-Americans are still notably worse-off than white individuals.

I’ll touch on scholarships in the next section at the same time I touch on Affirmative Action, because they’re motivated by the same sort of thing.

3. Less access to high paying jobs


First, there is a clear link between education and income later in life. I can find sources for that if you need, but I can say that matter-of-factly. If you go to college, you have better access to a job that pays a higher salary. I just laid out how inner-city people have less access to better education, I can point to intuition here in saying that inner-city individuals have less access to good jobs.

But you talked about affirmative action here, so I’m going to talk about that and scholarships.

From what you quoted from Wikipedia on affirmative action:

The concept of affirmative action was introduced in the early 1960s in the United States, as a way to combat racial discrimination in the hiring process, with the concept later expanded to address gender discrimination.


The first sentence states that the whole point is to combat racial discrimination. Executive Order 10925 required that government employers “not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, creed, color, or national origin” and “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.”

Affirmative action is a step to address the existent disparity between blacks and whites. The fact that it exists at all suggests that the government recognizes the existing systemic racism.

Racial quotas are arguably unfair. I can accept that. Rather than removing race from the equation, they essentially force employers to hire based on race. But at the heart of it, racial quotas are designed to pursue equal employment which also recognizes an issue in hiring practices.

The point is that affirmative action is an effort to reduce the degree to which African-Americans are disadvantaged. The fact that affirmative action exists is a sign that systemic racism exists.

And affirmative action’s existence doesn’t mean that systemic racism has been done away with.

Scholarships are based in the same logic. They recognize the fact that African-Americans are vastly disadvantaged when it comes to educational opportunities and try to mitigate this disadvantage. Scholarships allow for poor, but intelligent and motivated blacks to attend college. They increase tertiary educational attainment among blacks and chip away at some of their systemically-induced socioeconomic disadvantages.

4. Higher levels of gang activity


Alright, so we agree that gangs are an issue in impoverished black communities.

But it’s oversimplistic to just say: “Who's fault is that? Not the police departments, instead the blame rest on the black communities themselves.” It doesn’t help.

I’m not trying to argue that they should hate cops. While I think there are plenty of cases recently where cops have displayed extremely poor judgement, in no way do I think that is indicative of all cops. I think the majority of cops are worthy of our respect.

But the fact that many African-Americans do hold an animosity for the police is part of the narrative. It is extremely important to understand how that plays into the circularity of their disadvantage, because it feeds and is fed by all of the other disadvantages (and, I’m sure, more) I’ve mentioned here.

Putting it all together


“Instead simply fix the problems in black communities.”

It is not as simple as you seem to think it is.

All four of these things I just discussed impact and reinforce one another.

Single-parent families have only one breadwinner. In impoverished neighborhoods, chances are low that that individual has a high-paying job. So the family has a low income and, often, that breadwinner works long hours at more than one job. So not only is there only one parent, but that parent is not home all that much.

Since income is low and the parents aren’t present, the children don’t have (1) access to quality schools/school supplies or (2) a supportive, academically-motivating family. And so, kids tend not to place as large an emphasis on education.

Since they aren’t focusing on school and their family structures are unstable, they find that stability with the other people in their neighborhood: gangs. And since their stability is built around the gang community, they develop anti-police sentiments.

Gangs don’t value education and they feed off of the weak familial structures. And, I think, gang membership often offers monetary benefits too. So – in many respects – joining a gang solves a lot of these kids’ problems. It’s illegal, yes. And it causes a ton of other problems down the line – for them, personally, and for their communities – yes. But it gives them stability, it gives them a purpose, it validates their existence, it gives them something to strive for (hierarchical structures and whatnot), it fixes their monetary troubles.

Your entire life, this has been going on around you. Your entire life, just about everyone you know has failed in school and failed to extricate themselves from this environment. When you’re fifteen, you’re not going to understand how much an impact an education can have on your life. Police violence – whether justified or not – incites discontent. And when you believe that the world is out to get you and your community, you’re going to get closer to the people you know to defend yourself. And so this fear pushes more people into gangs.

The Crips and Bloods gangs in Chicago are actually acronyms that highlight this sense of community.

Crips: Community Restoration in Progress

Bloods: Brotherly Love Overrides Oppression and Destruction

And all this feeds itself again. High gang membership causes weak family structures – a parent gets killed or the father walks out or whatever. High gang membership causes schools to get less funding, since they’re in more dangerous parts of the city and because they tend to have lower enrollment.

You have to look at the entire picture. Yeah, the fact that black communities have a hatred for cops is bad. But while we see cops as defending these communities, in a lot of ways they see cops as pulling them apart. As unfortunate as it is, gangs are a fundamental backbone of minority, inner-city communities – be it African-American or Latino or Chinese or whatever. Yes, it would be better if the gangs were not in the equation, but the gangs, alone, are not the problem.



When I say there is systemic racism, I am pointing to this entire picture. Even this is grossly oversimplistic. And White Americans tend not to have to deal with a lot of this.

“We have a black president, black senators, black congress men and women, black attorney general, black supreme court justice.”

Yeah, and this is progress. It does not mean that systemic racism doesn’t still exist.

Yes, black Americans can succeed. It happens. But (1) with far more difficulty than white Americans and (2) and disproportionately lower rates. There are currently three black senators***. That is 3% of the senate.

***See:

[LINK] – A list of all minorities to ever be in the senate. It is disturbingly short.

[LINK] – An article that highlights that, in some respects, that list is actually shorter (if we look at individuals elected to Senate.

[LINK] – The House is better than the Senate, but it’s still pretty bad.


Yes, African-Americans can succeed, but they do so at exceptionally lower rates than white Americans.



This is systemic racism.
 

Nor'baal

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I just wish people could be nice to each other.

Regardless of Colour or Race.

That would be nice.
 
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