Black Lives Matter and Systemic Racism

hithere

hithere

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I usually don't follow the news closely, but it's hard to be oblivious to what's going on now in response to the senseless murder of George Floyd. In an attempt to better educate myself, I read up on the Black Lives Matter movement.
The following statement on their website surprised me:
We are working for a world where Black lives are no longer systematically targeted for demise.

Do you think we live in a world where blacks are systemically targeted for demise?
It seems farfetched to me.
Apparently racism is alive and well in certain individuals and communities as evidenced by current events. (Although it would seem to me we have made a lot of progress.)

But systemic targeting for demise?
 
I've sat here for about 5 minutes trying to compose an answer. Normally I move on but I haven't. I think there is systematic injustice and unequal treatment. I don't think I can respond further without actual first hand experience or statistics. I have neither prepared. I think police violence, race, and low economic status mix together to form a pretty ugly issue in America. I don't want to dismiss a viewpoint I don't experience either. I will never know first hand what it's like to be a black man in America. I want the black members of my community to have safe, peaceful lives. Not feel harassed or scared because of their skin tone.
 
"Systemic" and "systematic" are two different words with two different meanings.

Systemic racism is a huge problem in America (and I would be more than willing to logically explain why), but systematic racism would be more like Nazi Germany, in which prejudice was basically commanded. The modern racism problem in America is more subconscious, but still problematic.
 
I am aware of the difference.
I think there is enough evidence to say that systemic racism still lingers in certain places and it's something that needs to be urgently addressed as a whole.
My problem is with the assertion that there is systemic targeting for demise. I feel like such an extreme claim needs to be backed up by evidence.
I am aware that many may see this as nitpicking, but in my eyes BLM loses their credibility as a spokesbody (is that a word?) for black lives.

You want to initiate change? Then you need to start with the absolute truth.


A very imperfect analogy:
A divorced parent tells their child " Daddy hates you. He wants nothing to do with you" when really the child should be told "Daddy is dysfunctional in such and such ways. Here are some tools to deal with it."

Educate me, please, if I am wrong.
 
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hithere said:
I am aware of the difference.
Click to expand...

Yes, but your original post (and thread title) concerns systemic racism, but the quote your premise relies on concerns systematic targeting, so I honestly have no idea what you're getting at...
 
noisebloom said:
Yes, but your original post (and thread title) concerns systemic racism, but the quote your premise relies on concerns systematic targeting, so I honestly have no idea what you're getting at...
Click to expand...
You're right.
I read it as systemic and didn't reread it when you made your comment.
But I think it just makes my point stronger.
 
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The criminal justice system is heavily stacked against the Black population, at least in the USA. Despite things like The Sentencing Project being out there, there doesn't appear to be many improvements:
https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/un-report-on-racial-disparities/
https://www.naacp.org/criminal-justice-fact-sheet/

There is still geographic segregation in the USA:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/segregation-us-cities/

There is discrimination in hiring practices:
https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/minorities-who-whiten-job-resumes-get-more-interviews
https://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html

Many people acknowledge that being White helps people get ahead:
https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2019/04/09/views-of-racial-inequality/

As to systemic Racism:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/grap...cism-police-evidence-criminal-justice-system/
Of particular concern to some on the right is the term “systemic racism,” often wrongly interpreted as an accusation that everyone in the system is racist. In fact, systemic racism means almost the opposite. It means that we have systems and institutions that produce racially disparate outcomes, regardless of the intentions of the people who work within them. When you consider that much of the criminal justice system was built, honed and firmly established during the Jim Crow era — an era almost everyone, conservatives included, will concede rife with racism — this is pretty intuitive. The modern criminal justice system helped preserve racial order — it kept black people in their place. For much of the early 20th century, in some parts of the country, that was its primary function. That it might retain some of those proclivities today shouldn’t be all that surprising.
Click to expand...

And here's a nice little overview with some examples of Systemic Racism with sources from an ice cream company of all places:
https://www.benjerry.com/whats-new/2016/systemic-racism-is-real

Here we have a lot of research on Systemic Racism as well:
https://www.urban.org/features/structural-racism-america

I mean this took me 5 minutes to find and there is a MOUNTAIN of examples and evidence that supports that systemic racism is a real issue. I've read some of the studies. I've listened to the podcasts. I've seen the police brutality videos. To me it seems kind of fucked up to deny it exists or to make it seem like it's "not as bad" as the BLM movement makes it seem. Oh it's as bad. It's worse. If you don't read through all of these, I don't blame you. I haven't read through everything but I try to. It's an overwhelming amount of information. But study after study has been conducted. There are multiple organizations talking about this issue. But people still want to bury their head in the sand about it and think that people should just pull themselves up by their boot straps because the American Dream is real!

In Canada we have these issues as well and we don't have to look much further than how we treat our Indigenous populations here to see that there is a MAJOR issue.
 
Also, to be clear, I am not denying systemic racism.

I am questioning the value of putting the following sentence on the organization's website:

We are working for a world where Black lives are no longer systematically targeted for demise.

It makes an ignorant person like me question their cause because I don't see any evidence of the above statement being true. Systemic racism? Yes. Systematic targeting for demise? Why do we need to go there?
(I do NOT question the cause of eradicating racism, to state what I hope is obvious, but the organization's specific agenda.)
 
Systemic racism sounds like a conspiracy theory - a lot of people believe that it exists, but no one can back it up with facts and evidence. When pressed, they come up with some vague explanation of how it is hidden from view intentionally and that I as a white person would not be able to understand it anyway. Then there are some intelligent black people who call it all bullshit and have very strong arguments: Thomas Sowell, Coleman Hughes, Larry Elder. I prefer to have an opinion that is based on facts and reason.

The death of George Floyd is now elevated as a symbol of systemic racism, but I do not consider that incident about race at all. Not when there was a black police officer at the site (one of the 4) and there was an almost identical incident against Tony Timpa (who was white) 4 years ago.

 
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hithere said:
Do you think we live in a world where blacks are systemically targeted for demise?
Click to expand...

We don't, there are enough caucasian records as well in regards to police brutality.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...tests-when-police-unjustly-kill-white-people/

https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/

But in general, it seems clear that when confronted with a story about one of their own dying at the hands of police, black people tend to internalize, while white people tend to compartmentalize. A 2019 study in the Lancet found that when police kill an unarmed black person, other black people in that state suffer tangible harm to their collective mental health. The study found no similar effect with white people. It’s also notable that the cities where we’ve seen the most social unrest following high-profile police abuse cases — Baltimore, Ferguson, Cleveland, Chicago, Milwaukee and now Minneapolis — are cities with a well-documented history of police discrimination, abuse and violence. These are the cities where black people were probably more likely to have had their own bad experiences with police and, presumably, more likely to see themselves or someone they know in the shoes of Freddie Gray or Laquan McDonald or Tamir Rice.

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It’s true that the problems with modern policing pose a risk to everyone, of every race. It’s also true that the same problems disproportionately affect black and Latino people. And that discrepancy is why we so rarely see protests for white victims of police violence. If you’re white, you can view the footage of Daniel Shaver’s death, feel some anger and move on. If you’re black, viewing the video of George Floyd’s death is a reminder that the throat under Officer Derek Chauvin’s knee could easily have been your own.
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Neither are justified. We are all equal slaves to an equal impartial system. That's something people have to understand.
 
hithere said:
Also, to be clear, I am not denying systemic racism.

I am questioning the value of putting the following sentence on the organization's website:

We are working for a world where Black lives are no longer systematically targeted for demise.

It makes an ignorant person like me question their cause because I don't see any evidence of the above statement being true. Systemic racism? Yes. Systematic targeting for demise? Why do we need to go there?
(I do NOT question the cause of eradicating racism, to state what I hope is obvious, but the organization's specific agenda.)
Click to expand...

People don't see evidence of it being true because they won't take the 5 minutes it took me to pull up all those resources by googling "systemic racism in the USA."

What this says is that people will read a statement and their FEELINGS won't want to acknowledge that this actually might be the case and they don't want to do the uncomfortable work of actually looking it up and then following through by reading it and trying to understand it. This doesn't even touch on the fact that after acknowledging that this is a real problem that those of us who benefit from this very system have to speak up and call ourselves out to help make progress where it's long overdue.

It's not up to Black people to have to prove to us that it exists. There's already a ton of organizations and research centers doing that work - all the information is there for us. We have to be willing to actually seek it out and not dismiss it because we're "ignorant" and read a sentence we don't want to face.

Don't misconstrue this as me targeting you personally - I think it's a start that you raised the question to begin with and are willing to have the conversation. But we can't see something like that and dismiss it because Black people aren't laying out the facts for us. That's just US being too lazy to do a little googling to find what Black people have been trying to tell us for CENTURIES.
 
Tamagochi said:
Systemic racism sounds like a conspiracy theory - a lot of people believe that it exists, but no one can back it up with facts and evidence. When pressed, they come up with some vague explanation of how it is hidden from view intentionally and that I as a white person would not be able to understand it anyway. Then there are some intelligent black people who call it all bullshit and have very strong arguments: Thomas Sowell, Coleman Hughes, Larry Elder. I prefer to have an opinion that is based on facts and reason.

The death of George Floyd is now elevated as a symbol of systemic racism, but I do not consider that incident about race at all. Not when there was a black police officer at the site (one of the 4) and there was an almost identical incident against Tony Timpa (who was white) 4 years ago.

Click to expand...

You can read literally any of the links that I posted above as just a very small handful of examples that showcase there is systemic racism.

The problem is that people think it has to be so in your face like Nazi's moving Jews into the Ghetto and then exterminating them by the millions. The USA is BUILT on slavery. There's 400 years of Black people being oppressed. We still have people living today that were victims of segregation which only ended what, 66 years ago? Just as there are white supremacists alive today who never wanted segregation to end. Give that a lot of the politicians in higher levels of office are in their 70's and later, I have to wonder if they were raised by parents who were outwardly racist? Has the system that was designed then transformed in any meaningful way?
 
Tamagochi said:
Systemic racism sounds like a conspiracy theory - a lot of people believe that it exists, but no one can back it up with facts and evidence.
Click to expand...

The claim that "no one can back it up with facts and evidence" is the most preposterous thing I've heard. The recurring experiential event of black people getting questioned when they are anywhere near the scene of a crime already makes it pretty obvious, but if for some reason these are merely coincidences or simply fabricated events, there is plenty other evidence (I've tried to include relatively well known examples):
  • Data released during a lawsuit against Harvard shows they admit a disproportionately low % of Asian American students, who on average were shown to have better academic performance.
  • There's a massive racial bias with arrests in the U.S. Black Americans are arrested and convicted at a much higher rate than White Americans, to the point where the Bureau of Justice indicated that there was over a 30% chance that a Black American born in 2001 would go to prison.
  • A white high-school dropout is more likely to own a home than black college graduate (I think the difference is something like five % points). There are plenty of testimonials about middle to high income Black Americans struggling to get home loans.
Even if you throw out all the facts, systemic racism can be explained by insight into human behavior and how that affects social structures... but went with an empirical approach above as that was your main complaint.
 
dragulagu said:
We don't, there are enough caucasian records as well in regards to police brutality.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...tests-when-police-unjustly-kill-white-people/

https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/



Neither are justified. We are all equal slaves to an equal impartial system. That's something people have to understand.
Click to expand...
And wow, from the same site you quoted there's evidence indicating that Black Americans are 2.5x more likely than Whites to be killed by police?

Who do I believe? Maybe I should think about what population was owned as property for hundreds of years.
https://www.statista.com/chart/21872/map-of-police-violence-against-black-americans/
 
dragulagu said:
We don't, there are enough caucasian records as well in regards to police brutality.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...tests-when-police-unjustly-kill-white-people/

https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/

Neither are justified. We are all equal slaves to an equal impartial system. That's something people have to understand.
Click to expand...

The second link is misleading when the overall populations of the different groups in the country are not the same.
 
Tamagochi said:
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This video brings up some good points, but some things need to be highlighted:
  • When the guest speaker mentions that 60% of Black Americans surveyed by Pew don't think racism affects their lives, that means 40% of them do. This is a huge population of people, compared to most likely a very small % of White Americans that personally deal with race issues on a regular basis.
  • Just because cultural factors come into play, it doesn't mean systemic racism doesn't exist. Many of the people who drive the world's economy and governmental structures (esp in the U.S.) grew up believing it was normal for people to be treated differently based on skin color alone, so one should remain skeptical that most or all of these people have someone changed these ingrained, conditioned thoughts, when it's hard for most people to do so (think about the Si dom/aux people you may know).
 
SpecialEdition said:
You can read literally any of the links that I posted above as just a very small handful of examples that showcase there is systemic racism.

The problem is that people think it has to be so in your face like Nazi's moving Jews into the Ghetto and then exterminating them by the millions. The USA is BUILT on slavery. There's 400 years of Black people being oppressed. We still have people living today that were victims of segregation which only ended what, 66 years ago? Just as there are white supremacists alive today who never wanted segregation to end. Give that a lot of the politicians in higher levels of office are in their 70's and later, I have to wonder if they were raised by parents who were outwardly racist? Has the system that was designed then transformed in any meaningful way?
Click to expand...

We can look at the same data that you have linked but come to very different conclusions. There is a useful philosophic tool called Occam's razor - which means that if there is a simpler explanation to observed phenomena, then it should be preferred one. An example could be statistics that indicates blacks are twice more likely to be killed by police than whites. You can look at it and exclaim - see here's proof for systemic racism. But when you look at it more closely, blacks also commit a disproportionate number of crimes, so cops are called to the crime scene more often, ergo more deaths. In the end it can be fully explained by a function of police calls to the scene. No need to invoke a grand conspiracy.

Larry Elder in one interview gave a reference to a study in which when accounted for the frequency of calls and the seriousness of situation encountered, cops are statistically less likely to pull a trigger on a black person.
 
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