I'm a conservative who believes systemic racism is real

[SummerMadness]

I'm a conservative who believes systemic racism is real

The phrase "systemic racism," like "climate change" and "gun control," has been sucked into the vortex of the culture war. The emotional reaction to these words seems to preclude reasoned debate on their meaning.

But a divisive concept can be clarifying. I know it has been for me: I don't think it's possible to be a conservative without believing that racism is, in part, structural.

Most on the American right have dug into a very different position. They tend to view racism as an individual act of immorality. And they regard the progressive imputation of racism to be an attack on their character. In a free society, they reason, the responsibility for success and failure is largely personal. They're proud of the productive life choices they've made and refuse to feel guilty for self-destructive life choices made by others.

I grew up in a middle-class neighborhood of a middle-class suburb in a Midwestern city. I went to a middle-class high school, with middle-class friends, eating middle-class fried bologna sandwiches. And for most of my upbringing, this seemed not only normal but normative. I assumed this was a typical American childhood.

Only later did I begin to see that my normality was actually a social construction. By the time I was growing up in the 1970s, St. Louis no longer had legal segregation. But my suburb, my neighborhood and my private high school were all outcomes of White flight. The systems of policing, zoning and education I grew up with had been created to ensure one result: to keep certain communities safe, orderly and pale.

Was this my fault? Not in the strictest sense. I didn't create these systems. But I wish I had realized earlier that these systems had created me.

This is what I mean by systemic racism. If, on my 13th birthday, all the country's laws had been suddenly, perfectly and equally enforced, my community would still have had a massive hangover of history. The structures and attitudes shaped during decades and centuries of oppression would still have existed. Legal equality in theory does not mean a society is justly constituted.

 

[Andy Pierce]

I don't care if it's real.
White Lives Matter
Yellow Lives Matter

 

[Larniavc]

I'm a conservative who believes systemic racism is real

I think it takes a certain kind of person to deny that systemic racism exist in society.

Being English I see things much more as class warfare but to ignore it would not be intellectually honest.

 

[Sketcher]

I'm a conservative who believes systemic racism is real

His community when he was growing up was more racist than my community, at least in the years that I was growing up. But that misses the larger point.

Systemic racism is a term often used and weaponized by the left, but it's a mistake by those on the right to leave it to those on the left to point out. In fact, there are racist structures that the left has been responsible for. Example: redlining. Redlining was part and parcel with the New Deal. It became part of the system with those reforms, and where I live, it continued into the 90's. Yet, when people talk about "systemic racism" they're usually talking about how we need to get rid of capitalism because it's racist (which is utterly ignorant when studying what it is, what it does, and what it has done in history to weaken social barriers), but I don't hear them talking about getting rid of the New Deal, or how it gave racists the power that it did.

 

[SummerMadness]

His community when he was growing up was more racist than my community, at least in the years that I was growing up. But that misses the larger point.

Systemic racism is a term often used and weaponized by the left, but it's a mistake by those on the right to leave it to those on the left to point out. In fact, there are racist structures that the left has been responsible for. Example: redlining. Redlining was part and parcel with the New Deal. It became part of the system with those reforms, and where I live, it continued into the 90's. Yet, when people talk about "systemic racism" they're usually talking about how we need to get rid of capitalism because it's racist (which is utterly ignorant when studying what it is, what it does, and what it has done in history to weaken social barriers), but I don't hear them talking about getting rid of the New Deal, or how it gave racists the power that it did.

How about instead of fighting with people who talk about getting rid of a capitalism (a small minority), you talk about structural racism? For instance, redlining as part of the New Deal was a policy rolled into the legislation to secure the Southern vote. The issue, of course, is playing into the racist demands of the Jim Crow South, not getting rid of the New Deal or getting rid of capitalism as it does not address the issue of structural racism. I guess you should not get so easily distracted by some discussing a topic.

 

[friend of]

The major problem I have with CRT is that it leaves essentially no way for me at appease its proponents

 

[Landon Caeli]

I don't care if it's real.

Surely you do a little bit, though... Right?

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

I don't care if it's real.
White Lives Matter
Yellow Lives Matter

The thing is, at least in American society, white lives seem to have always mattered more.

 

[eleos1954]

I don't care if it's real.
White Lives Matter
Yellow Lives Matter

Institutional racism, also known as systemic racism, is a form of racism that is embedded through laws and regulations within society or an organization. It can lead to such issues as discrimination in criminal justice, employment, housing, health care, political power, and education, among other issues.

Does it exist? Yes (in all societies world-wide). In regard to the US ... What laws and regulations can be removed to get rid of it?

 

[Andy Pierce]

The thing is, at least in American society, white lives seem to have always mattered more.

Yet whites are a minority now post-boomer generation, and I only hear whites being the only race demonized in public schools and universities.

 

[dqhall]

I'm a conservative who believes systemic racism is real

Blue lives matter.

 

[FireDragon76]

I'm a conservative who believes systemic racism is real

This guy has hit on something related to a larger issue, that many American conservatives have extremely myopic and limited ethics owing to how morality is constructed according to their religious tradition.

 

[FireDragon76]

The major problem I have with CRT is that it leaves essentially no way for me at appease its proponents

What makes you think that's what's at stake? Again, conservative ethics are deficient, because they frame everything as being about them.

The whole point is seeing issues like race as something beyond the individual, and understanding how racial discrimination can be embedded in institutions (and not necessarily individuals).

Yet whites are a minority now post-boomer generation, and I only hear whites being the only race demonized in public schools and universities.

You are "hearing", and that's the operative word. It's a narrative being spun by people that want to manipulate the conversation away from honest dialogue and discussion and avoid dealing with race honestly.

On the contrary, I haven't heard of widespread demonization of whites in public universities. Extraordinary proof requires extraordinary evidence, and anecdotes and one-off stories aren't sufficient evidence of systemic racism against whites.

 

[Thomas White]

Yet whites are a minority now post-boomer generation, and I only hear whites being the only race demonized in public schools and universities.

White people make up 60.3% of the U.S. population...

 

[mala]

White people make up 60.3% of the U.S. population...

that's less than a hundred percent as some people might like. so obviously you'll hear people whining about it.
or they'll just count hispanics "white" again like they did before.

 

[Gary987]

It really doesn’t matter if you believe systemic racism is real or not. The government will punish you either way for it if we continue to support government rules to reconstruct races and living conditions. That’s what harmed black people. Now our government wants to flip the script on whites although whites in government will be just fine

 

[Thomas White]

It really doesn’t matter if you believe systemic racism is real or not. The government will punish you either way for it if we continue to support government rules to reconstruct races and living conditions. That’s what harmed black people. Now our government wants to flip the script on whites although whites in government will be just fine

What?

 

[mala]

What?

too much fox news.

 

[RDKirk]

Yet whites are a minority now post-boomer generation, and I only hear whites being the only race demonized in public schools and universities.

Boomers are still the dominant policymakers for government, industry, commerce, and media.

 

[RDKirk]

It really doesn’t matter if you believe systemic racism is real or not. The government will punish you either way for it if we continue to support government rules to reconstruct races and living conditions. That’s what harmed black people. Now our government wants to flip the script on whites although whites in government will be just fine

How do you actually know what harmed black people?

That's rather like a father in the labor room telling his wife when her contractions start and end.