Walrus wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 12:23 pm
Nothing in what you wrote defines what "systemic racism" is.
Because it's not important.
I didn't use systemic racism in my argument.
I would define systemic racism as racism that is accepted as normal within a culture or society or is codified by law.
Even if I were to accept that there is no systemic racism in 2020, that doesn't change the fact that we are a country built upon decades and decades of cultural racism and that we're still seeing the impact of it. That's undeniable. Slavery was legal until the civil war, segregation was codified law in much of the country until the 1960s. There are tons of examples of unfair housing practices, etc. that were in place even up to very recent years. These things are not up for debate, they're facts.
So, do a thought experiment. you have a town that you started in 1950 that was half white and half black. For the first several decades you have segregation and unfair housing practices, so that by the end of the 1990s you have 90% of the white people living in the east side of town, 85% of whom are home owners, and you ahve 90% of the black people living in the west side of town and 85% of them rent apartments as a result of unfair housing practices. Don't you think you're going to continue to see the negative effects that would have on the black population into the 2020s?
You are going on and on and on and on about the importance of buying a house. So you understand that a great deal of wealth can be obtained by being a home owner, you have equity in your home, you can borrow against if you need to, you can get a starter home and upgrade to a larger home after a few years, it provides stability, etc. and as a result it makes it easier to send kids to college, etc. On the other side you have those renting, have no equity, by definition are paying more than they should because they're landlord is inevitably going to want to make a profit, etc. etc.
So over time the children in the black families are less likely to go to college, never inherit a house to live in or to sell to start a small business, etc. As a result you see the negative impacts of systemic racism for generations even if you take the racism away.
And I think it's appalling that you don't think that historical racism is at least partly to blame for problems within black families. I mean, shit, for centuries black families were broken up because of the acts of slavery. How could you not think that would have a carry over effect?
I won't pretend to have the answers for how to solve all race-associated problems in our country, but I know that the exact wrong thing to do is to deny that they exist or pretend racism didn't exist or that it doesn't continue to exist.
I only came to kick some ass...
Rock the fucking house and kick some ass.