Systemic Racism

The term “systemic racism” has caused a lot of controversy as of late, and honestly I was not sure what to do with it for a while. However, after much research and conversations with my incredible wife, this is the understanding I have come to hold. I want to share it as a point of discussion. Perhaps it is flawed or can be improved. So please feel free to contribute to the conversation. 

There are two kinds of systemic racism in my opinion. 

There are systems produced by racists to target people of color. For example, red lining, a system built to intentionally target black people to prevent them from being able to get home loans and government subsidies. I think that most people can agree that this is a racist system.

However there is another type of systemic racism. One that Is less understood and thus is causing the conflict. The best way my wife and I can describe it is using an analogy she came up with. Namely, just as a system which produces hamburgers is a hamburger system, so too is a system which produces racism a racist system. 

The United States has done a good job removing the fist kind of systemic racism; red lining among other things is now illegal. However the effects of those systems have made black people disproportionately susceptible to impoverished situations, which brings them up against other systems that are rigged against poor people; systems which hurt movement between income brackets. 

These systems may not have been built to target black people, however, combined with the aftermath of past systemic racism, they have helped to make the face of poverty a black face. 

Someone near and dear to me once said that they are more wary of black people, not because they are racist, but because it is just factual that black people are more proportionately impoverished and thus more likely to do something desperate. 

Though this person does not consider themselves to be racist, because they don’t believe black people are inferior racially, just more financially unfortunate, they still exhibit racist tendencies. Others will look at the disproportionate amount of people of color in poverty and draw implicit or explicit racist conclusions of superiority. 

These tendencies manifest in implicit bias’, people with ethnic sounding names not getting job call backs, people of color not being trusted, people of color being assumed to be unsafe, (feel free to add to the list in the comments) and so on. 

Therefore, because past systemic racism has made people of color disproportionately affected by other systems of inequity, making the face of poverty a black face, thereby producing racism in the population at large. These systems are systemically racist and we need to acknowledge our bias’, and work together to dismantle them, eliminating the racism that has infected our world.

So let's discuss solutions to these issues in the comments.