What is Systemic Racism?

[Tech77]

Please don't associate this chump with intelligent people. He couldn't think himself out of a wet paper bag!

I am still thinking about that statement.

[Guisslapp]

Please don't associate this chump with intelligent people. He couldn't think himself out of a wet paper bag!

Can you think yourself out of one?

[johnnylightnin]

[arkansasbob]

The claim can be made that discussing the problem with no absolute solutions serves only to divide. I think the counter is that we're already divided. Admitting it is the first step toward true unity that will improve the lives of all Americans. That is, after all, what we all want.

i don't know if you're addressing me with this or not, but that is not the claim i was making. if there truly is racism, we need to discuss it and the ways to stop it. unfortunately, the evidence for this racism is based mostly on anecdotes, feelings, and deceptive statistics. we don't need absolute solutions to discuss it, but we do need specific examples.

[PawDawg]

we don't need absolute solutions to discuss it, but we do need specific examples.

Kapernick said it so it must be so.

[stodgdog]

Man, that is a depressing summation. I do believe that is what the most extreme members of BLM and similar groups believe.

I can share your friends concerns about adopted children of different races. It's a discussion my wife and I have had as we have tried to adopt. I am concerned that my children would be faced with racism and how I would handle that and I'm also concerned that they might actually believe something like the article you posted. If I believed that I don't think I could stay in this country and I don't know why any person of color would either.

"a social system that had racist economic inequality built into its foundation"
"laws and political and economic policies that work to reproduce a social system that is racist and has racist outcomes"
"a serious and well-documented problem of routine discrimination in all areas of life, and the frequent dehumanization and marginalization of POC"
"shorter life spans, limited income and wealth potential, impacted family structure as a result of mass incarceration of Blacks and Latinos, limited access to educational resources and political participation, state-sanctioned killing by police, and the psychological, emotional, and community tolls of living with less, and being seen as “less than."
"White elites, often unconsciously, work to perpetuate systemic racism via politics, law, educational institutions, the economy, and via racist representations and underrepresentation of people of color in mass media. "
"Feagin's theory, and all of the research he and many other social scientists have conducted over 100 years, illustrates that racism is in fact built into the foundation of U.S. society and that it has over time come to infuse all aspects of it. It is present in our laws, our politics, our economy; in our social institutions; and in how we think and act, whether consciously or subconsciously. It's all around us and inside of us, and for this reason, resistance to racism must also be everywhere if we are to combat it."


Why would anyone choose to live in a place like this?

I will read article later as I would like to better understand what these BLM, etc., issues are all about. Racist beliefs are a 2 way street, though maybe for different reasons. I don't know if I'm right or wrong, but my observation is that many things are incorrectly blamed on racism. It's too easy to do so and prevents honest evaluation of what causes many issues in our society.

[stodgdog]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4TZb2n-XLRU

Well, that was poorly presented and explained absolutely nothing.

[stodgdog]

We are talking about “systemic racism” and its corollary “white privilege”. These are not individualized concepts such as individually held beliefs of prejudice or (white guilt). In fact, the very act of attempting to tie the two concepts of prejudice and system racism together is dismissive to the reality of systemic racism/white privilege and perpetuates the “second tier” status that POC face here and elsewhere.

Sure, prejudice remains, but that is not even the main problem that we are talking about. It is the act of pretending that our experiences as white and black Americans that are the same that, in effect, reinforce beliefs that “black culture” are to blame for the very real struggle that POC face. Talking about black culture/breakdown of the family unit/etc sound convincing to white people (and even some black people), but such arguments actually inflict racial stereotypes that fail to account for the very real systemic racism that contributes to the black experience being different from the white privilege we enjoy.

I have had this conversation many times, and I have been on your side of the argument. It takes awhile to start to truly empathize with the plight of POC (at least it did for me). Some of this is an effort to avoid guilt - which is not what you are being asked to do - no guilt is involved. Some is also an affinity to the argument that rural or poor whites also face disadvantage. That is a discussion that we can properly have too - but when you tie it to issue of systemic racism it only serves to perpetuate systemic racism.

Btw, Trump is incapable of undertstanding systemic racism because he has no empathy. He is a psychopath. I don’t expect everyone on BBB to understand either, because there are a few that lack the capacity for true empathy - statistically that has to be true.

You are not qualified to determine that anyone has no empathy or is a psychopath. I suggest you are merely taking a position without facts to back them up. My observation is that you are just saying that your position has to be correct just because . . .

[Guisslapp]

You are not qualified to determine that anyone has no empathy or is a psychopath. I suggest you are merely taking a position without facts to back them up. My observation is that you are just saying that your position has to be correct just because . . .

You don’t know anything about my qualifications. But you can read the book that just came out “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump” which is a collection of essays of 27 mental health care experts diagnosing him of that and much worse. You should read it.

[stodgdog]

You could solve your empathy defficiency, but it would require you to seek understanding rather than judgment.

You project yourself as judgmental and with very little empathy, because you seem to lack any understanding of any opinion other than your own.

[Guisslapp]

You project yourself as judgmental and with very little empathy, because you seem to lack any understanding of any opinion other than your own.

I understand opinions I have previously held and defended. That is the best way to understand an opinion.

[DawgyNWindow]

Btw, Trump is incapable of undertstanding systemic racism because he has no empathy. He is a psychopath. I don’t expect everyone on BBB to understand either, because there are a few that lack the capacity for true empathy - statistically that has to be true.

You just fail to empathize with him. I don't expect you to understand that.

Also, empathy from the left is usually accompanied by government programs that assume the people needing the programs are in some way deficient and incapable of successful outcomes on their own, and need a bunch of socialist-leaning do-gooders to make everything better. The do gooders, naturally, think they are more capable and empathetic than everyone else, and are therefore quite narcissistic.

These programs rarely help the ones they say they support, but it does make the do-gooders feel better about themselves and feel like they need to preach to everyone else about how to properly think about things. Unfortunately the people hurt the most are the ones being used like rats in a science project.

[Guisslapp]

You just fail to empathize with him. I don't expect you to understand that.

Also, empathy from the left is usually accompanied by government programs that assume the people needing the programs are in some way deficient and incapable of successful outcomes on their own, and need a bunch of socialist-leaning do-gooders to make everything better. The do gooders, naturally, think they are more capable and empathetic than everyone else, and are therefore quite narcissistic.

These programs rarely help the ones they say they support, but it does make the do-gooders feel better about themselves and feel like they need to preach to everyone else about how to properly think about things. Unfortunately the people hurt the most are the ones being used like rats in a science project.

You should read the book, too. I empathize with Trump supporters, but I cannot put myself in the shoes of a psycopath tyrant. That is too destructive to an empathizers psyche and there is no prosocial benefit to doing so.

[PawDawg]

You should read the book, too. I empathize with Trump supporters, but I cannot put myself in the shoes of a psycopath tyrant. That is too destructive to an empathizers psyche and there is no prosocial benefit to doing so.

Translation: I am superior to every person who posts here who does not agree with me. I have an extremely high IQ even though I lack the ability to reason. My hate for Trump should be overlooked because I am superior to you and I can claim white guilt because I know when to play that particular card. Also, I don't believe in a higher power and that makes me even more intelligent that others who are "believers" because of the silly "faith" thing you depend on.

[Guisslapp]

Translation: I am superior to every person who posts here who does not agree with me. I have an extremely high IQ even though I lack the ability to reason. My hate for Trump should be overlooked because I am superior to you and I can claim white guilt because I know when to play that particular card. Also, I don't believe in a higher power and that makes me even more intelligent that others who are "believers" because of the silly "faith" thing you depend on.

Will you read the book?

I very rarely find myself as the most educated or highest IQ in any group I am in, but I do share the opinion of a very large number of people that Trump is psychologically unfit to be president.