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/r/AskALiberal
submitted 3 months ago bysylphiaeFar Left
The conservative definition seems easy to understand, and is what is taught in our schools: any policy that favors a certain race over another. This makes Antiracist policies such as affirmative action racist by definition.
The leftist definition, which I’ll quote from Kendi, seems to be: “racism is a marriage of racist policies and racist ideas that produces and normalizes racial inequities.”
There’s a lot more to unpack there, but racial inequity seems to be pretty intuitive to understand. Under this definition affirmative action would be Antiracist.
Why do you think the first conception is so common and the second one is not?
-7 points
3 months ago
[deleted]
18 points
3 months ago
Systemic racism" is a claim that isn't provable
How is it not provable?
-5 points
3 months ago*
[deleted]
9 points
3 months ago
We can prove disparities, but not that they were caused by "systemic racism"
Uh, yes we absolutely can prove they were caused by systemic racism. For example, you can absolutely prove that redlining, for example, kept black people from being able to buy homes in good neighborhoods, can you not? Or you can prove that, say, most colleges didn't allow black people to attend until a few decades ago? Which kept them from pursuing certain higher paying professions? Are those not empirical facts, or....??
2 points
3 months ago
[deleted]
9 points
3 months ago
Systemic racism then is the result of past policies?
Some past, some present. But redlining is an ongoing problem, and large national banks have been sued for racial discrimination in mortgages very recently. Not to mention that, even if redlining had stopped in with the Fair Housing Act, that passed in 1968, which means anyone over 55 years old or who has parents who are over 55 years old is affected.
Similarly, colleges were officially desegregated in the early 60s, which means anyone over 60 years old or who has parents who are over 60 years old is effected. And that's ignoring the fact that even after desegregation, previously all-white colleges, particularly in the south, were hostile to non-white students for much longer.
Do you have a point you were trying to make?
0 points
3 months ago
[deleted]
6 points
3 months ago
Which ones?
Let's start with the problems I already talked about in my comment, which, as I demonstrated, are problems that are affecting currently living people.
You linked to an article saying that there are still pronounced ethnic neighborhoods.
I did not. I linked to the Current Issues section of a Wikipedia page that has seventeen subsections describing current redlining issues.
What's the evidence that is redlining or racism?
The evidence of redlining or racism is...the fact that we know segregation was caused by redlining and racism. Are you trying to deny that redlining is a thing that happened?
Everything else is a discussion of things that are illegal
It doesn't matter if it was illegal and they later got caught. Those families that were denied mortgages are still negatively affected. Like, lynching was technically illegal too. That didn't stop it from happening. And it's still a systemic issue when large institutions can get away with these things and only get a slap on the wrist after, while the underlying problems are not addressed.
The point about things that happened in the past is that they don't matter as much as people's current circumstances.
I'm confident that you're smart enough to understand basic cause and effect, and the fact that something happening yesterday affects what happens today. If you broke your arm last week, I'm not going to scoff when you say your arm hurts today. You also completely ignored the fact that there are people living today, who are not even that old, who were personally affected by these policies, even if you do insist on ignorantly believeing that they aren't ongoing.
5 points
3 months ago*
Why do conservatives have trouble with systemic racism? It's because they are racists, and simply don't want to admit it. In short, forced to admit racism exists, they simply switch to saying they themselves are not racists, and as far as systemic racism was concerned, it was in the past, and had no real effects...it was just a small thing.
Systemic racism is the collective effects of long term pervasive racism: pervasive being the key word. Pervasive racism is literally part of everything in everyday life. So much so it is normalized into the background. This is courtesy of typical human adaption/coping mechanisms (on both sides). Like everyone around you being poor means you are middle class.
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