Systemic Racism: What’s Your View? Is it As Pervasive As Some Suggest?

by minimus 157 Replies latest jw friends

  • minimus
    minimus

    “We have to do something for poor minorities in certain cities because they have Covid”. That’s what I’ve heard...It’s like the system had to be exposed because it’s purposely not taking care of the minorities and instead trying to focus on whites. That’s BS !!

    I agree that if a certain race or nationality is favored simply because of their color, it’s very wrong. The most QUALIFIED PERSON should be given a job or an admission to a school.

  • Simon
    Simon
    Racism is nowhere as prevalent as it once was say 50 years ago, not saying it doesn't exist now but in evidential fact.

    I agree. Years ago there was both racism (individuals with prejudice) and systemic racism - actual laws on the statutes that mandated different treatment based on race. Each probably perpetuated the other to some extent.

    That is no longer the case. There are undoubtedly racists in the world (of all colors, we should note) but systemic racism as it's usually claimed doesn't appear to be a thing, even when justice departments have done lengthy investigations to find it.

    Again, the trick you'll see is people pointing to individual act of racism and claiming it as evidence of systemic racism, or comparing things to the general population which is statistically incorrect and invalid.

    The reason you know they do it intentionally to misrepresent things is that the stats are clear and easy to check. The stats show more black people commit crimes and the prison population largely reflects the population of those committing crimes.

    To compare the general population would mean including more in the complete pipeline of "the system", because prison / justice is just the end part of it.

    So why then don't they include the school system, when it comes to deciding if things are "systemically racist"? There seems to be way more evidence that schools are systemically racist if you compare "what goes in / what comes out" against the general population.

    What could it possibly be? Surely not that teachers unions donate massive amounts to the democratic party? (98% of their political donations in 2020)

  • minimus
    minimus

    Is it systemic racism when cops shoot a black man?? A black man resists arrest, goes for a weapon to use against the police and is shot in the process. Is this proof of systemic racism? Some say absolutely! If he were entitled as a white man, he’d still be alive.

  • iXav
    iXav

    IMO, "Systemic Racism" is where a system treats people of a certain race differently because of their race, usually disadvantaging one group and advantaging another.

    @minimus, the above shows a different definition.

    The only documented and approved systemically racist system I can think of right now is college admissions, which favours black candidates mostly at the expense of asian candidates.

    College admission is a good example, where everyone says that admission should be based on merit and they take the issue of Asians being discriminated against because Blacks, Latinos etc get affirmative action and automatically get a place even when they don't have the same grades. There was a court case about this and the judge sided with university of Harvard. Basically Harvard said they use a holistic approach to admission and not just grades(LOL). Is this Harvard university moving the goal post?

    The problem with grade based/merit only approach to University admission is that it is not applied equally. There is something called legacy admission which benefits students whose parent went to the same university. It also benefits students whose parents have donated a nice chunk of change $$$$ to the university.

    Narrowing your comment to black students only benefiting from a systemic problem doesn't cut it.

    There are those who get admission because they are great at Football but don't have necessarily the best academic grades. What do you do with them? Are you going to put an average size Asian with excellent grades in your basketball team when you want someone like Shaquille O'neil to dunk on the opponent? That is another reason why grade/merit based admission doesn't take into account everything.

  • iXav
    iXav
    Is it systemic racism when cops shoot a black man?? A black man resists arrest, goes for a weapon to use against the police and is shot in the process. Is this proof of systemic racism? Some say absolutely! If he were entitled as a white man, he’d still be alive.

    I think that answer is obvious even if people like to spin it otherwise. When people scream racism for everything, it muddles the water for real racism. However, it doesn't deflect from the fact that System Racism is a thing.

  • minimus
    minimus

    What about a review of the criminals getting into trouble or getting killed?? Instead of just focusing on how horrible the police are why not center on why are these people always being the “victims”?

  • iXav
    iXav
    What about a review of the criminals getting into trouble or getting killed?? Instead of just focusing on how horrible the police are why not center on why are these people always being the “victims”?

    That doesn't make sense. If you want to review, you need to to check if the police followed procedure no matter how the criminal behaves. You shouldn't allow the police the hide evidence and you need to act swiftly and not wait for judges to order the police to release video evidence.

    There is a situation at the moment where an elderly lady with dementia was assaulted by the police and that happened apparently last year. It is now only making the rounds after a judge ordered the release of the evidence. That is a systemic problem when the police cannot even weed out the so called bad apples within their midst.

  • Simon
    Simon
    That is a systemic problem when the police ...

    If you take this as evidence of a "systemic problem" then each crime committed by individuals of any race is equally evidence of a "systemic problem", isn't it?

    The fact is that individual acts do not act as evidence that any systemic problem exists, only that a particular person committed a crime.

    Apply the same reasoning to other things: if I have a Toyota and it breaks down, does it mean that Toyotas are systemically problematic? Of course not - to determine that would need to look at the entirety of the cases, the system as a whole.

    The clue is in the name - systemic, applying to the system.

  • minimus
    minimus

    Simon, 🤙🤙

  • Simon
    Simon
    There is something called legacy admission which benefits students whose parent went to the same university. It also benefits students whose parents have donated a nice chunk of change $$$$ to the university.
    There are those who get admission because they are great at Football but don't have necessarily the best academic grades

    The US admissions system is pure bat-shit crazy and corrupt as hell. It's a ponzi scheme.

    And yes, it's systemically racist even if it might also be money-grabbing as well. How does "oh, they are corrupt in other ways too!" alter the fact that they judge people based on their race?

Share this

Google+
Pinterest
Reddit