Systemic Racism in New York City

[Trausti]

Shoulder bump in Queens deli escalates to gunshot that critically wounds college football player



White people to blame.

 

[Trausti]

Systemic Racism in Chicago.

The murder of Brittany Hill

 

[Trausti]

More Systemic Racism in Chicago.

15 people wounded in shooting at Chicago funeral home

 

[Trausti]

In a twist, mostly peaceful protesters fight against systemic racism at downtown bodega.

‘I just started to feel punches all over’: Dad and daughter afraid to leave home after caught-on-camera mob beatdown in NYC bodega

 

[Trausti]

The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.

 

[Patooka]

Look Mummy! It's the right winger who think anecdotes and systemic racism are the same thing! So edgy!

 

[ruby sparks]

Trausti, of course these are valid points. Definitely. And I agree that they are not aired enough or given enough credence or attention in the media.

All I would say is that far too many people, including on this forum, pretty much pick one cause over the other. Some some say it's predominantly black culture. Others say it's predominantly socioeconomics. Others say it's predominantly anti-black racism. The truth is it's all these things to varying degrees, and possibly others, interacting, over time. The USA did not just get to the current situation by coincidence or accident.

The 'left' overplays the causal effects of racism and the 'right' underplays it, and round and round we go, and one is as bad as the other. And anyone (a) genuinely interested in the complicated truth and (b) genuinely wanting things to improve, for everyone, for the whole country, would not be doing it. Imo those of one sort (eg you) need to concede more regarding the causal effects of anti-black racism and those on the other (eg a leftist) need to concede that it's much more than racism, and that black culture is partly to blame, and that there are other non-racial causes.

 

[ruby sparks]

Look Mummy! It's the right winger who think anecdotes and systemic racism are the same thing! So edgy!

Thinking about it, I don't think 'systemic' is necessarily the wrong word here, given the statistics. It's surely more than anecdotal, imo, because there's a pattern to it. But it would be useful to talk about the differences, on the one hand, between internal/cultural factors and an overall, national, political/economic system. The two are not the same, and should not be conflated. I suppose it's probably stretching the definition of 'system' somewhat to use it for the former.

 

[Derec]

Look Mummy! It's the right winger who think anecdotes and systemic racism are the same thing! So edgy!

"Systemic racism" is an utterly vacuous concept because as activists/pseudoschlars define it, nobody actually has to be racist for there to be "systemic racism".

 

[Trausti]

Trausti, of course these are valid points. Definitely. And I agree that they are not aired enough or given enough credence or attention in the media.

All I would say is that far too many people, including on this forum, pretty much pick one cause over the other. Some some say it's predominantly black culture. Others say it's predominantly socioeconomics. Others say it's predominantly anti-black racism. The truth is it's all these things to varying degrees, and possibly others, interacting, over time. The USA did not just get to the current situation by coincidence or accident.

The 'left' overplays the causal effects of racism and the 'right' underplays it, and round and round we go, and one is as bad as the other. And anyone (a) genuinely interested in the complicated truth and (b) genuinely wanting things to improve, for everyone, for the whole country, would not be doing it. Imo those of one sort (eg you) need to concede more regarding the causal effects of anti-black racism and those on the other (eg a leftist) need to concede that it's much more than racism, and that black culture is partly to blame, and that there are other non-racial causes.

Well, maybe. But every one of us has personal agency. Each example - and there are so many more - shows an individual choice. No systemic this or structural that made them do the things they did. And this bad behavior more than anything else is what plagues the black community. Yet, don't dare mention it. Or else.

 

[Trausti]

My Negro Problem—And Ours

Two ideas puzzled me deeply as a child growing up in Brooklyn during the 1930’s in what today would be called an integrated neighborhood. One of them was that all Jews were rich; the other was that all Negroes were persecuted. These ideas had appeared in print; therefore they must be true. My own experience and the evidence of my senses told me they were not true, but that only confirmed what a day-dreaming boy in the provinces—for the lower-class neighborhoods of New York belong as surely to the provinces as any rural town in North Dakota—discovers very early: his experience is unreal and the evidence of his senses is not to be trusted. Yet even a boy with a head full of fantasies incongruously synthesized out of Hollywood movies and English novels cannot altogether deny the reality of his own experience—especially when there is so much deprivation in that experience. Nor can he altogether gainsay the evidence of his own senses—especially such evidence of the senses as comes from being repeatedly beaten up, robbed, and in general hated, terrorized, and humiliated.

And so for a long time I was puzzled to think that Jews were supposed to be rich when the only Jews I knew were poor, and that Negroes were supposed to be persecuted when it was the Negroes who were doing the only persecuting I knew about—and doing it, moreover, to me. During the early years of the war, when my older sister joined a left-wing youth organization, I remember my astonishment at hearing her passionately denounce my father for thinking that Jews were worse off than Negroes. To me, at the age of twelve, it seemed very clear that Negroes were better off than Jews—indeed, than all whites. A city boy’s world is contained within three or four square blocks, and in my world it was the whites, the Italians and Jews, who feared the Negroes, not the other way around. The Negroes were tougher than we were, more ruthless, and on the whole they were better athletes. What could it mean, then, to say that they were badly off and that we were more fortunate? Yet my sister’s opinions, like print, were sacred, and when she told me about exploitation and economic forces I believed her. I believed her, but I was still afraid of Negroes. And I still hated them with all my heart.

 

[ruby sparks]

Trausti, of course these are valid points. Definitely. And I agree that they are not aired enough or given enough credence or attention in the media.

All I would say is that far too many people, including on this forum, pretty much pick one cause over the other. Some some say it's predominantly black culture. Others say it's predominantly socioeconomics. Others say it's predominantly anti-black racism. The truth is it's all these things to varying degrees, and possibly others, interacting, over time. The USA did not just get to the current situation by coincidence or accident.

The 'left' overplays the causal effects of racism and the 'right' underplays it, and round and round we go, and one is as bad as the other. And anyone (a) genuinely interested in the complicated truth and (b) genuinely wanting things to improve, for everyone, for the whole country, would not be doing it. Imo those of one sort (eg you) need to concede more regarding the causal effects of anti-black racism and those on the other (eg a leftist) need to concede that it's much more than racism, and that black culture is partly to blame, and that there are other non-racial causes.

Well, maybe. But every one of us has personal agency. Each example - and there are so many more - shows an individual choice. No systemic this or structural that made them do the things they did. And this bad behavior more than anything else is what plagues the black community. Yet, don't dare mention it. Or else.

I take your point about that for sure. It's slightly separate to the issue of structural racism though, because you could be right, and structural racism could still exist as a partial factor nonetheless. But the issue of structural racism aside, I take your point. There is, as far as I can see, a perceptual/media bias that tends to understate both the incidents of black violence and the extent to which it is a self-owned problem in black communities. And by the same token, there is another tendency, which I would also call a bias, to ascribe racism, almost automatically, to violence against blacks by whites (including perhaps most notably by white police against blacks).

 

[thebeave]

Trausti, of course these are valid points. Definitely. And I agree that they are not aired enough or given enough credence or attention in the media.

All I would say is that far too many people, including on this forum, pretty much pick one cause over the other. Some some say it's predominantly black culture. Others say it's predominantly socioeconomics. Others say it's predominantly anti-black racism. The truth is it's all these things to varying degrees, and possibly others, interacting, over time. The USA did not just get to the current situation by coincidence or accident.

The 'left' overplays the causal effects of racism and the 'right' underplays it, and round and round we go, and one is as bad as the other. And anyone (a) genuinely interested in the complicated truth and (b) genuinely wanting things to improve, for everyone, for the whole country, would not be doing it. Imo those of one sort (eg you) need to concede more regarding the causal effects of anti-black racism and those on the other (eg a leftist) need to concede that it's much more than racism, and that black culture is partly to blame, and that there are other non-racial causes.

Well, maybe. But every one of us has personal agency. Each example - and there are so many more - shows an individual choice. No systemic this or structural that made them do the things they did. And this bad behavior more than anything else is what plagues the black community. Yet, don't dare mention it. Or else.

I take your point about that for sure. It's slightly separate to the issue of structural racism though, because you could be right, and structural racism could still exist as a partial factor nonetheless. But the issue of structural racism aside, I take your point. There is, as far as I can see, a perceptual/media bias that tends to understate both the incidents of black violence and the extent to which it is a self-owned problem in black communities. And by the same token, there is another tendency, which I would also call a bias, to ascribe racism, almost automatically, to violence against blacks by whites (including perhaps most notably by white police against blacks).

Yep. It seems to be lost on a lot of people that sometimes a white guy is aggressive or violent towards a black guy, not because the white guy hates blacks, but because, well, the black guy is being a fucking dick. Or because the white guy is, by nature, an asshole to just about everyone.... blacks and whites. This is why I'm often skeptical about all the white Karens who are videoed picking on black people, and are therefore racist assholes, and thus America is a racist country because we see daily videos of this. No doubt some of these Karens are racist. But no one seems to ask if they are generally just bitchy, nosy busybody assholes in general...to people of all races.

 

[ruby sparks]

I take your point about that for sure. It's slightly separate to the issue of structural racism though, because you could be right, and structural racism could still exist as a partial factor nonetheless. But the issue of structural racism aside, I take your point. There is, as far as I can see, a perceptual/media bias that tends to understate both the incidents of black violence and the extent to which it is a self-owned problem in black communities. And by the same token, there is another tendency, which I would also call a bias, to ascribe racism, almost automatically, to violence against blacks by whites (including perhaps most notably by white police against blacks).

Yep. It seems to be lost on a lot of people that sometimes a white guy is aggressive or violent towards a black guy, not because the white guy hates blacks, but because, well, the black guy is being a fucking dick. Or because the white guy is, by nature, an asshole to just about everyone.... blacks and whites. This is why I'm often skeptical about all the white Karens who are videoed picking on black people, and are therefore racist assholes, and thus America is a racist country because we see daily videos of this. No doubt some of these Karens are racist. But no one seems to ask if they are generally just bitchy, nosy busybody assholes in general...to people of all races.

There is no doubt that there is currently, and for a few years now, a very heightened awareness, especially as promulgated by the media in general but also in other spheres, of certain issues, including for example anti-black racism, but also anti-female sexism (and possibly a few others) and the behaviours associated with those. Sometimes, imo, possibly often, this is overstated. I don't think it's a good thing. For one thing, it allows those who would deny or minimise the existence of such things an opportunity to focus on and object to the overstating while still not acknowledging many of the valid complaints about the discriminations.

It also strikes me as a somewhat fascinating media phenomenon in other ways. It's a kind of public tokenism, I sometimes think, on the part of the media and the general viewing public, a sort of subtle, agreed (to some extent commercial) collusion between them. 'Look, we are doing something about this awful thing we feel so bad about. No one can say we aren't. We are literally wringing our hands over it, in public'.

Other times I think some overstatement is needed, just to get change. That tends to be the way with change. Without a bit of a fuss, possibly even an overreaction, inertia impedes progress. Sometimes I think it's overstated to say the issues are overstated. My guess is that changes are being made now precisely because of the fuss. It's not entirely unlike how my wife had to go a bit unreasonably overboard about my not doing enough housework, because just asking me nicely over and over wasn't enough. Which I agree it wasn't, even though it should have been, and I should have made concessions earlier.