I have tried to write something I thought might make sense to some of you.
Indeed, a fully lucid post.
You can point to evidence it existed 100, 80, even 60 years ago.
Wow. That acknowledgement is progress.
>> You also mention that Black GI's didn't get to participate fully in that in part due to systemic racism (as discussed previously on this board), which partially explains why Blacks today are worse off than Whites.
There is no evidence of systemic racism today
Look at what I wrote and then at your response. My comment is about history. I don't know how many times I have typed the word, history, in this discussion with you. Set aside for a moment the question about evidence of ongoing systemic racism today to which you jumped. Focus on the history and the impact that had on the present, the residue it has left. There is clear indication that historical systemic racism has contributed to the disadvantaged position in which Blacks find themselves today.
I know that you are familiar with the notion of the time value of money--things like compound interest and contributing to the 401K from day one on the job rather than waiting until you're near retirement. So you should understand that Black families denied opportunities to start building wealth a long time ago and even not such a long time ago will naturally have less wealth today. I mean wealth to be more than just money. IMO, that is the key message of CRT. The message is particularly important for those Whites who attribute the current condition of the Black cohort solely to their alleged shortcomings like being less intelligent or shiftless or having a lousy culture. The refusal to acknowledge that the system holding them back over time was a substantial factor in their current situation is at best willfully ignorant if not racist.
So, as for today, there are two aspects. One is the extent to which the system has over time put the Black cohort in the hole it's in today--the weight of the residue it has left. The other is the extent to which the current system remains structurally racist so the hole continues to deepen albeit at a slower pace. Even if there were, as you say, "no evidence of systemic racism today," that is, if we have stopped digging the hole deeper, the hole already dug lingers. It is critical to understand that.
You can point to various mitigation strategies that were a total failures that exacerbated the problems, dumped on the Black community that ended up deferring progress.
To the extent that such laws and programs and regulations and institutions produced externalities, however unintentional, they would be further examples of systemic racism.
There is simply no credible evidence that it exists.
The most obvious example of current systemic racism is the justice system. You may have noticed the BLM demonstrations... |
