i’m kind of confused
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Here’s a wiki link on institutional racism: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism
A simple google search turns up much more.
“Systematic racism” refers to racism at a “system” level, rather than an individual level. It looks at the bigger picture of how society operates.
For example, an Asian family moves into your street and people throw bricks through their window and set their garden on fire. These are overt acts of individual racism.
Banks not lending money to live in a nice area, estate agents not showing them properties in the areas, these sorts of things that stop the from moving there in the first place are acts of systematic racism.
The often unconscious/refusal to accept systematic racism is what makes it so dangerous.
Not being able to excel in your career because of your race
Watching other people less qualified get promotions you deserve but won’t get because of your race
In Malaysia the types of social help you receive depends on your ethnicity.
Scored straight A’s in your finals but you’re indian or chinese? Sorry buddy the scholarship quota for indians and chinese has already been filled up, good luck rethinking your life.
It’s a made-up term to confuse the subject and allow race-baiters to arbitrarily accuse anybody they want of racism, for political and personal gain.
For example, banks statistically give less credit to blacks. A race-baiter will call it “systemic racism”. A reasonable person will notice that blacks earn less statistically, therefore they are less eligible for credit statistically. It isn’t the bank’s fault and the computer that does the initial screening doesn’t even know what race the applicant is. (now there may or may not be racism as a cause to reduce blacks’ income, but that’s irrelevant as far as credit eligibility is concerned).
The same is done by feminists as “systemic sexism” and socialists as “income inequality”. They are looking at disparities of outcome and assert they are the result of foul play without any evidence.
Short video to elaborate on the point [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phPXTWJhnYM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phPXTWJhnYM)
The notion that the system(s) are racist in structure. Law, government, etc.
It’s not really a given though. It shouldnt just be accepted. Race is left out of legislature for this reason.
The “systemic” racism is more so racist acts of individuals within these systems. Not the system itself.
It’s more or less a buzzword for PC leftists to pretend they’re revolutionists and demand change in the system.
Just dont ask what about the system needs changing. They wont know.
The way people use the word racism usually just refers to personal prejudice. Systematic race is about how society is made in such a way that disadvantages racial minorities. Racial minority status varies from place to place.
Below is an example from a fictional society of white and black people.
Systematic racism: only children who do well on test ABC can get scholarship Z from the government. The test requires intensive study. Because of a long history of denying black residents the right to education and right to live in nice neighborhoods (e.g., see red lining and protective covenants) or get good jobs, black families are disproportionately unable to help their children do well on this test (by helping directly or by paying for tutoring and study aids). The result is 98% of recipients are white students despite white students only being 75% of this hypothetical society. The next generation of black adults are disproportionately less educated and less able to get good jobs. Just like their parents.
The outcome is called fair and just because of “merit” and no programs to help black students at all are made. Or better yet, low income programs are made but because of another set of factors, the beneficiaries of the low income programs are predominantly white again. For example, maybe the program requires a lot of parental support (often called engagement, like mandatory volunteer hours; my school was like that), but being in bad neighborhoods makes black families more likely to suffer from violence or crime or overall family instability, making the parents less able to support their child.
At no point did any one person need to be racist (harbor personal prejudices) for this to happen. The system itself is racist because it refuses to acknowledge or address the circumstances racial minorities were put into on purpose (literal white supremacists did it all on purpose). So the current non-prejudiced generation is not only benefitting from the effects of white supremacy, they’re tacitly okay with it being around by letting the system perpetuate the cycle.
As MLK said, “What good is having the right to sit at a lunch counter if you can’t afford to buy a hamburger?” Face value legal equality and the absence of personal prejudice isn’t enough. That’s why there are phrases and ideas like restorative justice.
MLK was fairly revolutionary. At around the time he was killed, he was moving toward what he called a poor people’s campaign to fight for a better life for all disadvantaged people. Because he realized the limitations of legal equality.
It’s when the system as a whole tends towards negative treatment of certain racial/ethnic groups.
Take drug policing – in NYC surveys have found black and white people use pot at more or less the same rate, yet during “stop and frisk” the vast majority of people frisked, arrested and convicted for possession of pot were Black. Now there were some white folks who got frisked, and some white folks were convicted, and it was also technically the act of individual cops deciding who to frisk, but the entire system as a whole took a nominally even set of policies and applied them against certain racial and ethnic groups.
Or more recently – there have been protests where a large group of armed people turn up to force their way into government buildings and get right up in the faces of police officers while yelling at/disrupting the state governments and the police were extremely restrained, stoically stood there while armed protestors got within inches of them and didn’t deploy the riot squad with tear gas to disperse protesters. This is in stark contrast to the police response to protestors upset a cop murdered a dude while a bunch of other cops prevented bystanders from stopping him – the “step 1”response was to deploy the riot police and heavily armed cops against unarmed protesters, with a somewhat lower tolerance for protesters getting up in police faces and airing their grievances. At some level the difference is due to a series of individuals making decisions, but they’re doing so collectively as part of a system.
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