Wednesday, March 3, 2021

Systemic Racism - the Big Lie


So, why do we say systemic racism, and not just racism? Why systemic?

It's important to understand the words and phrases that so thoroughly penetrate our national discourse, because most people don't.

Systemic racism is not about specific instances of racism. Rather, it is the belief that racism is imbued in our national DNA, in our system. It looks to broad, racial outcomes as evidence. Any disparity in result is a priori proof of systemic racism.

Ibram X. Kendi himself, the man at the very pinnacle of the "Anti-racism" power structure, says, "Racial discrimination is the sole cause of racial disparities in this country."

The sole cause. Nothing else. Not fatherless homes. Not personal choices. Not school quality, or culture, or even luck.

As long as racial groups perform differently, there must be racism. Systemic racism.

If our system is racist, then we must ask, what does our system consist of? The answer to that is institutions, of course. The government, corporations, schools, foundations...

And this is where I have a real problem with the whole thing. But first, let's be clear, there was a time in our country where most of our institutions were racist. You don't even have to go back too far in our history; certainly within my lifetime. (Note: I'm primarily addressing racism against blacks here, because that's what Critical Race Theory and "Anti-racism" deal with. I'm perfectly aware you could make a systemic racism argument today where "white-adjacent" groups are concerned, i.e. Asians and Indian-Americans.)

But matters have changed radically in the last few decades. I am unaware of any institutions that don't give special preferences to blacks. Many significantly so. 

Everyone knows this, but it's a truth you can't speak, particularly if you rely on someone else for your paycheck.

Whether you think such preferences are the right thing to do is a discussion for a different day. But it's an unarguable fact that they exist.

The government and public schools certainly do. 

Universities certainly do. The average SAT scores for black students at places like Harvard is several hundred points lower than other students.

Corporations certainly do. In fact, they are desperate to hire more black candidates, and are often frustrated in their efforts to do so. Same goes for finding board members. The CEO of Wells Fargo, Charles Scharf, got in hot water recently when he said, "The unfortunate reality is that there is a very limited pool of black talent to recruit from."

Does he have a point, or was he being racist? Blacks are 12% of the population, but they are only 7% of the pool of college graduates. How is Scharf supposed to get to 12%? I suppose he could, but then other banks would be left woefully short in this zero-sum game. 

Here's the rub: representation of less than 12% is viewed by the Ibram X. Kendis of the world as case-closed proof of racism. Similarly, if a neighborhood is less than 12% black, it must be because of racism.

No further evidence required.

Remember, this is all about group results, not individuals.

(Aside: that blacks are underrepresented as college grads is worthy of serious discussion, even if it's not something Scharf can solve as CEO of a bank. The problem is that you can't get to the heart of the issue without discussing the absence of black fathers or the failure of teachers unions to actually teach, and those are places you are not allowed to go.)

Systemic racism is the Big Lie because our institutions are not racist. They actually have become the opposite, seeking absolution for past sins - sins committed long before anyone currently in charge was involved in any way.

But we will never get to racial nirvana if we measure everything by groups. Groups will always perform differently, and for many reasons. This is a convenient state of affairs for DEI race hustlers because as long as differential outcomes exist, systemic racism can be blamed, and you will need their blessing to function. 

The revolution becomes permanent, and unless you want it to come for you, you'd better shell out for a DEI consultant and get that seal of approval. (For as long as your checks clear, anyway.)

As a conservative, I believe that individuals have rights, not groups. If there are acts of racism against individuals, I want to know about it, because it goes against everything I believe. 

But notice I said acts

If a person is guilty of acts of racism, let's call him out, even prosecute him if laws have been broken. 

If an institution is committing acts of racism, same thing. Shame on them, and there are multiple paths for remediation.

We conservatives want to solve problems.

The DEI movement does not. That's why the very definition of racism gets ever-more-nebulous. Now we have "microaggressions" and "unconscious bias," which can be so subtle that neither the victim nor the perpetrator knows they're happening. Then there's "cultural appropriation," of course (without which we wouldn't have the Beatles - just sayin'). 

There's an endless word salad of new, ever-more-nuanced transgressions. Just yesterday, I learned the word misogynoir. (That means bias against black women, in case your Oxford English Dictionary hasn't been updated in the last 24 hours.)

But solving the problem of race means the Great Race Hustle goes away, so true solutions must always be another DEI-training-session-out-of-reach.

Thus, racism is in the air we breathe and the water we drink. It's in a look or a glance, or the food we choose to cook. It's in the Classics, and Twain, and To Kill a Mockingbird. 

Even poor Dr. Seuss. 

Oh, the things you can't do!

41 comments:

  1. Most psychiatrists would prescribe medication for the level of tension and general society-ending paranoia you seem to live with.

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    1. I suspect if you check your logs, the person who posted this inane remark will prove to be the same person who said you were trading in 'gossip' when reporting on actual policies and controversies at The Dalton School.

      (I'm also going to wager that the person is taking a salary from the Dalton School, which will tell you what kind of quality they're getting for the $100K they're paying their teachers).

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  2. Keep in mind that Kendi has been given all manner of accolades (hired-to-tenure and granted an endowed chair) even though he's a fairly young academician with a modest publication record, nearly all in journals which are in the black studies self-enclosure. He's a parody academic, and the story of the accolades given him could have been told by Hans Christian Andersen. In the course of my sorry-assed life, I've been acquainted with one black professor who after seven or eight years on multi-year contracts landed a berth in the business world, another who was denied tenure and retrained as a lawyer (he must have a mountain of debt and he had to have his dreadlocks cut off), and another who took a lifeline and left the faculty for a position in the administration. One was a computer scientist, one a tests-and-measurements psychologist, and one a criminologist. Would wager they all know how to use statistical software, which Kendi almost certainly does not. This trio is a ratchet or two above Ibram X Kendi; they must shake their heads they couldn't get on his gravy train.

    Then there's Robin diAngelo, the education professor who (by all appearances) knows nothing about teaching techniques or educational testing.


    That administrators in higher education knock about pretending these two actually know something and merit accolades and speaking fees is either a confession of stupidity or an act of brazen contempt by people who fancy they have impunity.

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    1. The depths to which you do not understand white privilege, systemic racism, and human decency are astounding.

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    2. Whether I understand any of these things or not, I do know how to put together a bibliography of someone's writing and sort their publications into an available taxonomy. You cannot point to me a scholarly / professional article Robin diAngelo has ever published on teaching techniques or educational testing or public administration because there are no such articles.

      And you'll also discover if you bother to investigate that most scholarly publications by Kendi are actually chapters in a single monograph he was able to publish in 2012. He's placed an article in New York History and another in Journal of Black Studies. All of these publications are about blacks shlepping about in higher education. In any research institution and in any teaching institutions which requires its faculty to produce peer-reviewed research, he'd have been handed his walking papers if he were someone other than Ibram X Kendi. The man's whole career is fake and gay.

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    3. Systemic racism is what you yell about when you can't find any real racism to yell about.

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  3. It’s suspicious how successful he is

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    1. He’s been challenged by other black scholars to debate but backs down. He’s being awarded grants and accolades to prop him up to advance the agenda of hidden influences..nice attempt to corner me though. Keep it up ;)

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    2. What are "hidden influences"?

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    3. He can debate or not. What he does not do is produce empirical evidence of his claims or a theoretical architecture someone else can test.

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  4. https://www.wsj.com/articles/dividing-by-race-comes-to-grade-school-11615144898

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  5. The kind of disinformation you're peddling here is incredibly damaging. The fact that you formerly taught at Yale and likely had students who didn't look like you...what a disservice was done to them. Cool that you completely ignored the many white people who have received acclaim for middling work. And your assessment of systemic racism is offensive--saying that "lowering the standards" for Blacks is enough? Why aren't they receiving the same education as many white (and hey, private school!) children? Why do many whites get to choose the quality of education their children receive? Because the system has set it up for them for decades--they've been able to reap the same benefits because of their race, putting them in positions of power and wealth to continue that cycle for their children.

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    1. I gather no one has ever told you to put up or shut up.

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    2. Abbey, those off-the-rack mass paranoias look so CUTE on you!

      Note that 'Henry Rogers' wasn't doing so hot until he changed his name to something people would have trouble spelling, i.e. more authentic. Then his career as extortionist took off.

      If this comment hasn't offended you, I've failed. If it has offended you, go to the Sheol you don't believe in.

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    3. Disagree. No one's being extorted. The institutional misrulers are quite happy to be suckers for the nonsense he's vending.

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    4. Black people get to choose what education their children receive.
      They make that decision when they decide to have children out of wedlock and raise them without fathers.

      Check your own feminist/left data: Children of single parent families fail at a rate far higher than children of two parent families. Skin color has nothing to do with that stat.
      Look it up, fool.

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    5. Oh, poor, poor Abbey! I am not a racist, I don't support racism of any kind. Perhaps that's why I would call you a racist! People keep screaming that they are being marginalized (or whatever word may be used on any given day) because of the color of their skin! Jobs, positions, opportunities need to be given to those most qualified to do the job, not because the employer, school, government, etc need to make sure they have the right number of representatives from each race or sex! In the meantime, the most racially oppressed people in our country are white males. Please, grow up, make the most of yourself, don't believe that your race or sex is to blame for your not getting that epic school admission or employment opportunity! I don't deny that racism has, at times, prevented opportunities for some; BUT... reverse discrimination is still descrimination!

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    6. you seriously believe this to be true? i'm conservative to my core and have a little more self-awareness than to agree with that statement

      And you're indubitably making a category error. The one segment of the population which might qualify as 'oppressed' in this country are those subject to state lawfare. Often they're sketchy characters who are nonetheless being treated badly. If you're looking for an obtrusive example, Gen. Michael Flynn's your man.

      There are no oppressed communal segments in this country, though there are those who are in distress and subject to suboptimal social policy (reservation Indians might be the best example).


      Apart from oppression, there is official harassment. The harassment is undertaken by the Democratic Party and social segments who use the Democratic Party as their electoral vehicle. And, yes, the subjects of the harassment are white people (with some knock-on effects on Orientals). Another subject of harassment would be certain cultural minorities, especially evangelicals. There is also some cross-cutting harassment of men-in-general. The flip side of the harassment is the extension of privileges (quite explicitly) to various client groups.

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  6. The world “system” issues from European hegemony. You are right about that. This is the world system from 1492 to 1945. We are dealing with the aftermath of its collapse. It’s disingenuous however to deny that the societies responsible for European hegemony ( Eurocentric bias /racism) are not ALSO the ones the offer/bring/gift the western curriculum to the people’s of the third world

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    1. I can't think of a more arrogant and yes, racist position, than to assert that African-Americans, and other minorities, should actually be grateful for how they've been treated for several centuries now because you've decided eurocentrism to be an objective "gift" to the world.

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    2. I can't think of a more arrogant and yes, racist position, than to assert that African-Americans, and other minorities, should actually be grateful for how they've been treated for several centuries now because you've decided eurocentrism to be an objective "gift" to the world.

      You're a vulgarian who is not doing much thinking. Intellectual , institutional, and technical accomplishment are to be found in the Occident. They are to some degree in the Far East, India, and the Near East and points adjacent. You don't begin on the ground level, whether you appreciate that or not.


      The black population can contemplate counter-factual histories. Here's one:

      https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0030H7UN0/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

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    3. You know who never gets blamed in the slavery sweepstakes? The Africans who kidnapped their neighbors and SOLD them into slavery.

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  7. I have work boot privilege.
    I put it on every morning and take it off 12 hours later.

    When liberals ask you about your unconscious racism ask them about their unconscious pedophilia.
    Do it loudly.

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  8. I just have a fundamental disagreement with the premise of institutional anything. Any institution is made up of the people occupying. People can be racist. In the past most were, so your acceptance of systemic racism in the past sort of makes sense. But as Kendi-esque moron remind us that we are inherently racist, so the institutions are logically so — even now. QED

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    1. Life is lived socially and that can structure your options. That having been said, I see very little indication that is happening naturally in the realm of race relations, except to a modest degree in housing markets. (It can happen unnatrually, courtesy public agencies and the GC and HR departments where you work).

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  9. If the European powers/societies are at the center of world hegemony then by definition anything/ anyone on its periphery is by definition on /in the margins

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  10. OH MY GOD we have destroyed ourselves. Now we can't even say "mom" and "dad" in school because that's somehow offensive according to the woke left . . . . https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/mar/11/grace-church-school-in-nyc-urges-kids-to-stop-usin/
    This is not a joke, it is for real....

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    1. https://www.heavenlyrest.org/clergyandstaff

      The perpetrator of this inanity has a punchable face. I think this sort of thing is the issue of twits who are putting some effort into not acknowledging their insignificance.

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  11. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/private-school-says-phrases-like-mom-and-dad-should-be-avoided/ar-BB1euqbe?ocid=BingNewsSearch

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  12. So...Here's a hypothetical (that has many many real life examples).

    Who has more privilege? A white kid living in a trailer park in the deep south with his single parent mother? Or a black kid born to two professionals - let's say doctor/lawyer -in the same city?

    Who is more likely to succeed?

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  13. This is one of the best articles I have ever read on racism/systemic racism. I can not, and will not, apologize for being born of two married WASP parents. It's not like ANY of us really had any choice who we were born to, but I DO have a problem with being labeled a "racist" simply BECAUSE I WAS born white. For someone to accuse me of having privilege because of that is beyond ludicrous! Do I really have privilege because my parents married at 19 and 17 and CHOSE to STAY married for 55 years, until my Mom died of breast cancer? Am I privileged because my Dad CHOSE to work, mostly nights, five to six days a week, eight to ten hours a week, to keep his wife and four children fed, clothed, and a roof over our heads? Am I privileged because, after my younger brother started school, my Mom CHOSE to go to work also, to help with the expenses of raising four children? Am I privileged because my parents taught their four children the values of hard work, the difference between right and wrong, to do unto others as you would want done unto you, honesty, fairness, trust, sharing, caring for others, a belief in God, charity, helping others in need, kindness, gratitude, humility, the importance of manners, speaking up for yourself and others, that to have a friend you must first BE a friend, that nothing in life is free and if you want something bad enough you must work hard to achieve it, whether it be good grades in school, a new doll, or whatever? Am I privileged because my two "white" "married" parent's DIDN'T have college funds for ANY of their four children, and yet their four children ALL found a way to attend and graduate anyway? I really DON'T think so.

    IF, I have ANY "privilege" AT ALL, it was by the CHOICES my parent's made, and later by the CHOICES I made... but is THAT REALLY "privilege? Or is that "perseverance"? We don't get to CHOOSE what color we are born as, but we DO get to choose what TYPE of person we become. That's the ONLY privilege any of us have!

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  14. I'm only human, so mistakes I do make...

    I wrote that "my Dad CHOSE to work, mostly nights, five to six days a week, eight to ten hours a "WEEK"... that should have been, "eight to ten hours a "DAY".

    Mybad!

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  15. And just like that... the left (woke) disappear.. like roach's to light

    Truth prevails above all.

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