Some friends and I were engaged in a conversation about police shootings of unarmed black males that were leading to protests and in some cases, riots. I brought up a scenario I had read about where the police officer who fired the fatal shot was black, the police chief of that city was black, the mayor of the city was also black as were a high percentage of the city council. I asked how the rioters could blame this incident on racism? One of my friends, an attorney and strong supporter of Democratic politics, stated that this was a clear example of systemic racism. I tried to challenge the conclusion by pressing him to define systemic racism, but he just looked at me like I was an idiot. For those who believe in the 21st century construct of systemic racism, it is apparently easy to spot, even if illogical.
When I think of systemic racism, I think about America before the civil rights movement. As late as 1964, segregated “white only” bathrooms, hotels and restaurants were common and not illegal. Since these types of discrimination were allowed by law, they were truly “systemic.”
When I think of systemic racism, I think of sentencing guidelines such as the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse act which created much stiffer penalties for possession of crack cocaine (preferred by the poor, with blacks over-represented) than powdered cocaine (associated with wealthier whites). This was adjusted in a 2010 law, but certainly qualified as “systemic” prior to the correction as the guidelines were baked into federal sentencing rules.
When I think of systemic racism, I think of the process of redlining neighborhoods that began in the 1930s. The Federal Home Loan Bank Board started the process of identifying neighborhoods as A, B, C or D in terms of their attractiveness for investment and home loans. The D neighborhoods were outlined in red and considered the most risky for mortgage support, and of course, populated largely by African Americans. One legacy of this practice is that it was difficult for African Americans in those neighborhoods to acquire mortgages, denying them access to an important source of family wealth accumulation commonly enjoyed by those in A and B neighborhoods. While the formal practice of redlining began being outlawed in the mid 1970s, the legacy persists. And even though “reverse redlining” and other programs designed to encourage investment in those same neighborhoods has helped, it is logical to consider this practice an example of systemic racism that hasn’t been fully addressed.
So what is racism and systemic racism? Well, the definitions have changed in recent years. For most of my life, racism was defined as “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.” One was racist if one perceived a race to be superior (or inferior) to other races. Certainly many whites in America believed in the inferiority of blacks at one time, however, this belief has certainly waned in recent decades. The number of true believers of white supremacy based on the old definition (KKK, various neo-nazi groups, etc) is statistically quite low.
With the waning of true white supremacy constructs in the U.S., black activists have redefined these terms to benefit their political agenda. Merriam Webster recently added the current language to its definition of racism, “the systemic oppression of a racial group to the social, economic, and political advantage of another.” NAACP President Derrick Johnson recently echoed this definition in a USA Today article: “systems and structures that have procedures or processes that disadvantages African Americans.”
The dangers associated with these expanded definitions are pretty obvious. Start with my conversation with my attorney friend. A black cop shoots a black man in a city with a black police chief, black mayor and majority black city council still falls under the definition of systemic racism? Activists can also attack various systems and institutions that are on their face, neutral, but the results have been uneven. For example, capitalism in its purest form is simply an economic system in which banks lend money to entrepreneurs who leverage the loans into business enterprises that generate enough return to pay back the bank and financially support the borrower. This system creates wealth for the bank and the borrower. Nothing racist about that in concept. However, access to those loans have historically been more difficult for blacks than whites. As a result of formerly systemic issues like redlining, whites have benefited more than blacks from American capitalism. However, those that prefer a Marxist economy with a centralized government that controls the means of production and distributes rewards more equitably (theoretically), this new definition makes it easy to attack the concept of capitalism as racist on its face.
Finally, the changing definition of white supremacy means pretty much any connection to systems considered racist is fair game. It’s like the six degrees of separation game. Skilled activist orators are easily able to connect whatever institution they disapprove of to racism. Since the Republican Party tends to defend systems like capitalism, then it becomes easy to advocate for a single party system such as we find in communist and Marxist countries. Since activists are pretty much saying that if you are white, you are a white supremacist by DNA, so white people must repent or they are criminals whose rights should be limited. Sounds like history might be repeating itself.
Capitalism has a much stronger resume when it comes to building wealth than Marxism. The revised definitions of systemic racism might actually work against African Americans in the long run. It seems more logical to improve capitalism and access to capital than to follow the lead of countries like Cuba, Russia and Venezuela which struggle to create wealth due to the limitations of their economic systems.
I once heard about a college student who would eat only citrus – nothing else. We all know that there are health benefits to including citrus in one’s diet, but a diet exclusively of citrus would not provide the balance of nutrients any human needs. The student had bought-in to an unhealthy construct. Likewise, the constructs voiced by black activists and other American Marxists are based on a kernel of historic truth, but are essentially unhealthy in their application. Their cure is likely worse than the disease. We should be careful about accepting their constructs unchallenged.