Racism Is Real. But Is “Systemic Racism”? That Time I Was Published by Newsweek—For Two Hours

“Hypersensitivity about ‘systemic racism’ has many people, of every race, hesitating about being honest about what they think. But honesty and forthright argument are the only antidotes to the fear many people feel, and the only road ahead to racial justice. I expect ad hominem responses to the essay that follows, or willful misunderstandings of its argument….But only good arguments—not silent cowering—can defeat bad ones. If my arguments are bad, I expect someone may give me better ones.” - Public Discourse

Discussion

The into to the article is quite interesting. All those on SI who are skeptical of media bias should at least read that. Those of us who believe “fake news” is a thing, do not mean that we think every article in the New York Times is made up and false. We simply mean that some are and that we should not just believe all we are told by the CNN fact checker. We also believe there is a lot of bias that keeps the opposing viewpoints from being shared and thus gives a slanderously tilted view of numerous subjects as was shown by what happened with this article.

-Why are black education levels lower than white?

-Why are black average salary lower?

-Why are black incarceration rates higher?

-Why do blacks on average get severer punishment in the cj system than whites?

-Why are abortion rates higher among blacks than whites?

-Why are neonatal outcomes so different for blacks than whites?

You can go on and on. Now, surely some of the blame for this rests on each one of the individuals involved, or the “black culture” so to speak. But can all of it? Whatever “that” is we need to fix.

It seems to me that the author isn’t fully grappling with what the term “systemic racism” means. Instead, he cherry picks statements like the one by DiAngelo who grossly overstates her case. Contrary to Franck, “systemic” doesn’t mean that “the ‘system’—a college, or a profession, or the nation as a whole—is said to be suffused with racism,” but that systems tend to perpetuate racism without being intentionally designed to do so.

I like what Mohler said about this: “the consequences of sin, the legacy of sin are passed on to subsequent generations.” https://albertmohler.com/2020/06/24/briefing-6-24-20