Does systemic racism exist in the US?

[chilon]

Plenty of evidence for systemic racism in the US:
The disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine
The disparity between drug arrests despite equivalent percentages of drug use
Redlining policies
The legacy of Jim Crow laws
Disparity in hiring for equal applicants of different racism but equivalent qualifications
Legacy of sundown towns


And tons more over the years:
https://www.businessinsider.com/us-s...-paying-jobs-3
https://cph.osu.edu/news/2020/06/racism-public-health

[Lord Thesaurian]

Plenty of evidence for systemic racism in the US:
The disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine
The disparity between drug arrests despite equivalent percentages of drug use
Redlining policies
The legacy of Jim Crow laws
Disparity in hiring for equal applicants of different racism but equivalent qualifications
Legacy of sundown towns


And tons more over the years:
https://www.businessinsider.com/us-s...-paying-jobs-3
https://cph.osu.edu/news/2020/06/racism-public-health



[]

As discussed in the other thread,
1. The observation of disparate outcomes does not prove systemic racism.
2. Historical examples of discrimination do not prove current systemic racism.

The idea that you would submit a youtube video with some racist people in it as evidence of systemic racism suggests you don’t know what it is. Furthermore, your suggestion that the entire right-of-center in US politics is predicated on some kind of racist conspiracy merely evidences your unfalsifiable ideological premises.

[chilon]

As discussed in the other thread,
1. The observation of disparate outcomes does not prove systemic racism.
2. Historical examples of discrimination do not prove current systemic racism.

The idea that you would submit a youtube video with some racist people in it as evidence of systemic racism suggests you don’t know what it is. Furthermore, your suggestion that the entire right-of-center in US politics is predicated on some kind of racist conspiracy merely evidences your unfalsifiable ideological premises.

It's obvious you didn't read any of the linked articles. The entire first list is about current systemic racism.

And this bit is a clearly a strawman that I never said "right-of-center in US politics is predicated on some kind of racist conspiracy".

If your only response is to ignore all the cumulative evidence linked and make strawmen, then you clearly aren't looking to engage in good faith. The cumulative evidence clearly points to systemic racism currently existing in the US. You haven't debunked that nor have you provided any evidence to the contrary.

But go ahead and cherry pick and ignore evidence since it suits your imaginary world where there is no systemic racism in the US.

[Lord Thesaurian]

It's obvious you didn't read any of the linked articles. The entire first list is about current systemic racism.

And this bit is a clearly a strawman that I never said "right-of-center in US politics is predicated on some kind of racist conspiracy".

If you're only response is to ignore all the cumulative evidence linked and make strawmen, then you clearly aren't looking to engage in good faith. The cumulative evidence clearly points to systemic racism currently existing in the US. You haven't debunked that nor have you provided any evidence to the contrary.

But go ahead and cherry pick and ignore evidence since it suits your imaginary world where there is no systemic racism in the US.

It’s clear you didn’t read the linked thread where the methodologies used in the articles you cited were discussed in detail, evidence to the contrary (on redlining in particular) was presented, as well as the actual factors contributing to several key racial disparities. Claiming that a quote you yourself presented is a strawman of your argument just underscores your bad faith argumentation. But go ahead and ignore evidence since it suits your imaginary world where there is systemic racism in the US.

[chilon]

It’s clear you didn’t read the linked thread where the methodologies used in the articles you cited were discussed in detail, evidence to the contrary (on redlining in particular) was presented, as well as the actual factors contributing to several key racial disparities. Claiming that a quote you yourself presented is a strawman of your argument just underscores your bad faith argumentation. But go ahead and ignore evidence since it suits your imaginary world where there is systemic racism in the US.

If you are reducing the Atwater quote to "right-of-center in US politics is predicated on some kind of racist conspiracy" then you have missed the point entire. The point is Atwater is blatantly talking about how institutional racism has been disguised under policies that offer some form of plausible deniability.

Also, if you think you've already debunked all the evidence linked in the first set of articles, feel free to copy and past the relevant posts under the article. I'm not wasting time diving through your post history when it truly doesn't appear like you care to discuss in good faith based on your previous post.

[Lord Thesaurian]

If you are reducing the Atwater quote to "right-of-center in US politics is predicated on some kind of racist conspiracy" then you have missed the point entire. The point is Atwater is blatantly talking about how institutional racism has been disguised under policies that offer some form of plausible deniability.

This “point” is, at best, a conspiratorial extrapolation, as I said. You’ve presented nothing to connect the Southern strategy to claims of systemic racism.

Also, if you think you've already debunked all the evidence linked in the first set of articles, feel free to copy and past the relevant posts under the article. I'm not wasting time diving through your post history when it truly doesn't appear like you care to discuss in good faith based on your previous post.

No diving necessary. A link was provided. If you can’t be bothered to review a discussion that directly addresses the points you raised, there’s no reason to assume your demand that they be rehashed here for your convenience is made in good faith.

[chilon]

This “point” is, at best, a conspiratorial extrapolation, as I said. You’ve presented nothing to connect the Southern strategy to claims of systemic racism.

No diving necessary. A link was provided. If you can’t be bothered to review a discussion that directly addresses the points you raised, there’s no reason to assume your demand that they be rehashed here for your convenience is made in good faith.

I read the single post you linked and it quite simply does not debunk any of these topics mentioned in my first post:
The disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine
The disparity between drug arrests despite equivalent percentages of drug use
Redlining policies
The legacy of Jim Crow laws
Disparity in hiring for equal applicants of different racism but equivalent qualifications
Legacy of sundown towns

You presented some data that doesn't address any of the proof of systemic racism. For instance you linked a graph that takes a narrow time frame and says that black income growth outpaced white income growth. A clever distraction but it fails to account for base levels of income - if white income and opportunity is already much greater due to systemic racism, then a brief 5 year period focusing solely on income growth doesn't disprove systemic racism in any way.

And your post hardly addresses all the topics I've linked - for instance 5 years of income growth data alone hardly disproves all of Devah Pager's research that demonstrates systemic racism in the hiring process. Nothing you posted negates the ongoing effects of racism criminal justice polices like crack vs powder or the disparity in arrests. Nothing you said explains that.

And those links are what connects to Atwater's quote to systemic racism. I guess you are looking for a someone to come out and say "we instituted these policies because of racism" before you can admit it exists.

[Lord Thesaurian]

I read the single post you linked and it quite simply does not debunk any of these topics mentioned in my first post:
The disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine
The disparity between drug arrests despite equivalent percentages of drug use
Redlining policies
The legacy of Jim Crow laws
Disparity in hiring for equal applicants of different racism but equivalent qualifications
Legacy of sundown towns

You presented some data that doesn't address any of the proof of systemic racism. For instance you linked a graph that takes a narrow time frame and says that black income growth outpaced white income growth. A clever distraction but it fails to account for base levels of income - if white income and opportunity is already much greater due to systemic racism, then a brief 5 year period focusing solely on income growth doesn't disprove systemic racism in any way.

And your post hardly addresses all the topics I've linked - for instance 5 years of income growth data alone hardly disproves all of Devah Pager's research that demonstrates systemic racism in the hiring process. Nothing you posted negates the ongoing effects of racism criminal justice polices like crack vs powder or the disparity in arrests. Nothing you said explains that.

And those links are what connects to Atwater's quote to systemic racism. I guess you are looking for a someone to come out and say "we instituted these policies because of racism" before you can admit it exists.

Again, this just proves you didn’t read the discussion. At all. And no, I’m not going to quote the entire thing for you. The onus is on you to prove the existence of systemic racism, as that is the affirmative claim you are making; not on anyone else to disprove your claim.

[Cope]

It's obvious you didn't read any of the linked articles. The entire first list is about current systemic racism.

And this bit is a clearly a strawman that I never said "right-of-center in US politics is predicated on some kind of racist conspiracy".

If your only response is to ignore all the cumulative evidence linked and make strawmen, then you clearly aren't looking to engage in good faith. The cumulative evidence clearly points to systemic racism currently existing in the US. You haven't debunked that nor have you provided any evidence to the contrary.

But go ahead and cherry pick and ignore evidence since it suits your imaginary world where there is no systemic racism in the US.

The provided analyses of the war on drugs (the second of which is twenty-five years old and therefore not a commentary on alleged on-going discrimination) establish only that economically underprivileged groups were disproportionately incarcerated, largely due to misconceptions and hysteria about crack cocaine (which, due to its cheaper price, was more prevalent than powder cocaine in poorer communities).

The cited study indicates that the Anti-Drug Abuse Act was signed into law as a reaction to the death of a black athlete who was believed to have overdosed on crack cocaine. There is no evidence that the legislation was intended to be racially malicious. In fact, the bill was drafted by a certain Democratic senator, Joe Biden, who also supported a subsequent Drug Abuse Act in 1998 and the 1994 Crime and Control bill.

Two decades later he explained his reasoning and the cause of the disparity between the treatment of crack and powder cocaine:

And I might say at the outset in full disclosure, I am the guy that drafted this legislation [the Anti-Drug Abuse Act] years ago with a guy named Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who was the Senator from New York at the time. And crack was new. It was a new "epidemic'' that we were facing. And we had at that time extensive medical testimony talking about the particularly addictive nature of crack versus powder cocaine. And the school of thought was that we had to do everything we could to dissuade the use of crack cocaine. And so I am part of the problem that I have been trying to solve since then, because I think the disparity is way out of line. The current disparity in cocaine sentencing I do not think can be justified on the facts we know today and the facts we operated on at the time we set this up.

In 1986, crack was the newest drug on the street, and Congress was told that this smokeable form of cocaine was instantly addictive and that its effect on a child if smoked during pregnancy was far worse than that of other drugs and that it would ravage our inner cities.

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/...0shrg46050.htm

[chilon]

Again, this just proves you didn’t read the discussion. At all. And no, I’m not going to quote the entire thing for you. The onus is on you to prove the existence of systemic racism, as that is the affirmative claim you are making; not on anyone else to disprove your claim.

The cumulative articles linked and many more peer-reviewed studies do prove systemic racism. As stated, your post that you quoted in the other thread does nothing to debunk any of that. In fact, Pacifism countered most of your points already. But, it's neat tactic you use here. You just claim you already wrote a post debunking things that you haven't actually debunked then refuse to engage further.

The provided analyses of the war on drugs (the second of which is twenty-five years old and therefore not a commentary on alleged on-going discrimination) establish only that economically underprivileged groups were disproportionately incarcerated, largely due to misconceptions and hysteria about crack cocaine (which, due to its cheaper price, was more prevalent than powder cocaine in poorer communities).

The cited study indicates that the Anti-Drug Abuse Act was signed into law as a reaction to the death of a black athlete who was believed to have overdosed on crack cocaine. There is no evidence that the legislation was intended to be racially malicious. In fact, the bill was drafted by a certain Democratic senator, Joe Biden, who also supported a subsequent Drug Abuse Act in 1998 and the 1994 Crime and Control bill.

Two decades later he explained his reasoning and the cause of the disparity between the treatment of crack and powder cocaine:

Systemic racism does not have to be "racially malicious".
And the fact Biden supported and Clinton signed doesn't change the fact that policies were inherently racist. The point is systemic racism exists, as shown by a host of examples and plenty of research across many disciplines, not that Republicans are racist and Democrats are not.

[Cope]

Systemic racism does not have to be "racially malicious".
And the fact Biden supported and Clinton signed doesn't change the fact that policies were inherently racist. The point is systemic racism exists, as shown by a host of examples and plenty of research across many disciplines, not that Republicans are racist and Democrats are not.

1. Reagan signed the ADAA, not Clinton.

2. There is zero evidence that the mentioned policies were "inherently racist". As explained above, discrimination is not to be assumed as the explanation for differences in group outcomes.

[Ludicus]

I consider myself center left

In Europe, center-left includes includes progressives.Social democrats/democratic socialists, greens and the Christian left. In the U.S. today, left and right suggest progressivism and conservatism.

Progressives.. are the minorities

An erroneous perspective.
Working-Class Americans in All States Support Progressive economic policies ...

Raising minimum wage is popular among all workers (table 1)
Workers support raising taxes on the wealthy (table2)
Working-class Americans support investments on health care spending (table 3)
Workers overhelmingly support increased education spending (table 4)
Workers believe government should increase spending on transportation and infrastructure (table 5)
Working support for progressive economic policies is high across race and ethnicity.(table 6)

hardcore Trumpists

There are no softcore Trumpists, in the same way that there is no softcore holocaust denial.The ideology is based on anti-intellectualism, Christian fundamentalism, market fundamentalism and racial resentment.
------
Louis Brandeis; Supreme Court Justice, 1916-1939

We must make our own choice. We may have democracy, or may have wealth concentraded in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both

Who was Brandeis?
Louis Brandeis - Wikipedia

Was the first Jew to sit on the high court.Justice William O. Douglas later wrote, " He was dangerous not only because of his brilliance,his arithmetic, his courage. He was dangerous because he was incorruptible” ...to become one of the most famous and influential figures ever to serve on the high court. His opinions were, according to legal scholars, some of the "greatest defenses"of freedom of speech andthe right to privacy ever written by a member of the Supreme Court

---
The economists Gabriel Zucman and Emmanuel Saez who designed Elizabeth Warren's wealth plan, argue that we are in a new Gilded Age:“The the purpose of high taxes on the wealthy isn’t merely togenerate revenue, but rather, to safeguard “democracy against oligarchy”


---
Concentrated wealth is imcompatible with democracy-Intelligencer

The notion that political freedom has a material basis did not originate with Karl Marx and the creed of Communism; it was a core idea of the17th-century British political theorist James Harrington, and his formulation of classical republicanism... “where there is inequality of estates, there must be inequality of power, and where there is inequality of power, there can be no commonwealth.”
These premises deeply informed the American founders’ conception of republican liberty.

[chilon]

1. Reagan signed the ADAA, not Clinton.

2. There is zero evidence that the mentioned policies were "inherently racist". As explained above, discrimination is not to be assumed as the explanation for differences in group outcomes.

You denying it doesn't make it so. This is why research that Pager's is important because she controlled for every other variable except race. When all the other variables are controlled for, you can't just hand wave away disparities by claiming there is an alternative explanation.
https://inequality.stanford.edu/publ...rd-devah-pager
https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/bo...bor-market.pdf

Clinton signed the Crime Bill, the point was that Biden and Clinton supporting something doesn't make it "not racist".

And please, let's see your alternative explanation to all the examples that don't include systemic racism.

[Ludicus]

structural racism needs just one thing as proof of its existence: statistically significantly worse outcomes for black people in terms of income, education, healthcare etc. Such disparity in outcomes requires an explanation.

Precisely.

Tackling systemic racism is always going to require substantial government intervention

Starts in schools. Education can adress and erradicate racism.Educational instituitions have an important role.

[Love Mountain]

It's important not to be bamboozled by those who consider the word 'racism' an affront and those who abuse this sentiment in others by misrepresenting terms like 'structural racism' or 'systemic racism'. Bottom line is that structural racism needs just one thing as proof of its existence: statistically significantly worse outcomes for black people in terms of income, education, healthcare etc. Such disparity in outcomes requires an explanation. The only explanation that would absolve society as a whole would be that it's all self inflicted somehow. You can see how close one is sailing to the winds of overt racism if one goes down that route. If not, one has to recognize that there are factors operating in society that are perpetuating these disparate outcomes. Various definitions exist of structural racism that point to what these factors might be, but in its broadest sense no more is needed than this.

This is really not true. Disparities in outcomes can result from a large number of causes, including cultural values. Even if we eliminated all racism tomorrow, outcomes could still be starkly disparate. In fact, they could become even more stark. This does not mean that we are treating African Americans differently. Take for example, financial outcomes. Asian Americans, through cultural norms and values, tend to save more. Whereas African Americans are the opposite. Yet if we were to hypothetically compare the "economic outcome" of those two lifestyles, Asian Americans would come out statistically "better". But, is a desire to live more frugally mean you are "better off?" Of course not.

No, it's not simply about outcomes and educated activists know this. This is why they point out to specifically how the system treats people based on their racial status. You have to look at possible reasons for the high rate of black jurors, for example. Or the specific causes of why African Americans receive longer sentences than their counterparts. Presumably, for the same reasons women tend to get shorter sentences than men, but of course we need to look at these things statistically, and case-by-case. It's a high bar to clear, in regards to evidence, but this is why systemic racism is so hard to dismantle. It does not require its participants to be inherently racist. Such biases are often unconscious.

[Lord Thesaurian]

The cumulative articles linked and many more peer-reviewed studies do prove systemic racism. As stated, your post that you quoted in the other thread does nothing to debunk any of that. In fact, Pacifism countered most of your points already. But, it's neat tactic you use here. You just claim you already wrote a post debunking things that you haven't actually debunked then refuse to engage further.

Not true. In fact you’ve run through the false framing already debunked in that discussion; that observed disparate outcomes by race “proved” systemic racism (they don’t), uniformly dismissed evidence to the contrary, then pivoted to the inevitable fallback position that failure to disprove the premise that systemic racism exists proves it does. Hence I don’t feel like having the same discussion twice, especially given you haven’t presented any evidence supporting your claim of systemic racism, thus nothing for me to “engage.”

The disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine
The rationale for the difference in penalty was cited at the time as a general belief that crack is more dangerous/harmful to society due to its extensive proliferation and widespread use. The article does not dispute this. In fact it goes on to cite nothing more than the observation of disparate outcomes as evidence of racism, which again, does not prove such a claim.

The assumption that crack was penalized more heavily in order to target blacks doesn’t even hold up to scrutiny:

The participants were all ages 12 and older. Social and environmental risk factors that might confound racial comparisons were held constant through an epidemiologic strategy involving the poststratification of participants into neighborhood risk sets. The analysis used a conditional logistic regression model to estimate the relative odds of crack use by race/ethnicity. Results revealed that, given similar social and environmental conditions, crack use does not strongly depend on race-specific personal factors. Findings did not refute previous analyses, but provided evidence that prevalence estimates unadjusted for social environmental risk factors may lead to misunderstanding about the role of race or ethnicity in the epidemiology of crack use. Future research should seek to determine which characteristics of the neighborhood social environment are important and potentially modifiable determinants of drug use.

https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=154366

The disparity between drug arrests despite equivalent percentages of drug use
The article states:

The analysis leaves unexplained 13 percentage points (the difference between 36% and the explained 23%). Perhaps the 13 percentage points or some portion of them reflect a practice of police unjustifiably overarresting blacks, but not necessarily. Besides discriminatory arrest practices, there are numerous other possible explanations. Suppose, for example, that criminally active persons who use drugs (both whites and blacks alike) tend not to admit drug use when asked in a household survey. This is not wild supposition, given that, in the National Institute of Justice's Drug Use Forecast survey, about half of arrested suspects testing positive for drug use were drug-use-deniers
(they denied using drugs but urinalysis indicated otherwise). Although arrested whites and arrested blacks were about equally likely to be drug-use-deniers, these results nevertheless have implications for the SAMHSA survey. A larger fraction of the black population than the white population consists of criminally active persons and, therefore, a larger fraction of the black population than the white population would consist of criminally active persons who use drugs but deny it.13 Consequently, the SAMHSA survey would probably understate the difference between whites and blacks in terms of drug use. Whether the effect of such drug-use-denial among criminally active persons is large enough to account for the unexplained 13 percent is not known,
but research on the topic should pursue this possibility.

Interesting citation as evidence of systemic racism given that the author specifically says this is not necessarily the case and even unlikely.

Redlining policies
Addressed here

The legacy of Jim Crow laws
No evidence is given in the article for its comparison between Jim Crow laws and voter ID. Again, the only explanation given in support of that argument is a simple observation that a larger portion of African Americans are don’t have photo ID. The most common reason for a lack of photo ID is living in an urban area where public transportation is available and thus the need for drivers licenses is decreased. Again, no evidence was given for the outlandish comparison between Jim Crow laws and essentially living in an urban area and/or being too old to drive.

Disparity in hiring for equal applicants of different racism but equivalent qualifications
Again, all that is presented here is an observation of disparity with no analysis of underlying factors, thus there is little or nothing available to measure the presenter’s assumptions. Hiring is done by people. People have biases. These hiring biases have been found to work in favor of as well as against black or white applicants.

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2020-47013-001


Legacy of sundown towns
This is a blog post where one person recounts their personal experiences. As I said, historical discrimination does not evidence current claims of systemic racism, assuming you could extrapolate from county level racial disparities in residence in a single state to begin with.

It does not require its participants to be inherently racist. Such biases are often unconscious.

As an aside, the assumption that implicit biases can cause explicit disparities in outcomes, is just that. Evidence indicates while changes in implicit measures are possible, those changes do not necessarily translate into changes in explicit measures or behavior.

[chilon]

Not true. In fact you’ve run through the false framing already debunked in that discussion; that observed disparate outcomes by race “proved” systemic racism (they don’t), uniformly dismissed evidence to the contrary, then pivoted to the inevitable fallback position that failure to disprove the premise that systemic racism exists proves it does. Hence I don’t feel like having the same discussion twice, especially given you haven’t presented any evidence supporting your claim of systemic racism, thus nothing for me to “engage.”

The disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine
The rationale for the difference in penalty was cited at the time as a general belief that crack is more dangerous/harmful to society due to its extensive proliferation and widespread use. The article does not dispute this. In fact it goes on to cite nothing more than the observation of disparate outcomes as evidence of racism, which again, does not prove such a claim.

The assumption that crack was penalized more heavily in order to target blacks doesn’t even hold up to scrutiny:


The disparity between drug arrests despite equivalent percentages of drug use
The article states:

Interesting citation as evidence of systemic racism given that the author specifically says this is not necessarily the case and even unlikely.

Redlining policies
Addressed here

The legacy of Jim Crow laws
No evidence is given in the article for its comparison between Jim Crow laws and voter ID. Again, the only explanation given in support of that argument is a simple observation that a larger portion of African Americans are don’t have photo ID. The most common reason for a lack of photo ID is living in an urban area where public transportation is available and thus the need for drivers licenses is decreased. Again, no evidence was given for the outlandish comparison between Jim Crow laws and essentially living in an urban area and/or being too old to drive.

Disparity in hiring for equal applicants of different racism but equivalent qualifications
Again, all that is presented here is an observation of disparity with no analysis of underlying factors, thus there is little or nothing available to measure the presenter’s assumptions. Hiring is done by people. People have biases. These hiring biases have been found to work in favor of as well as against black or white applicants.

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2020-47013-001


Legacy of sundown towns
This is a blog post where one person recounts their personal experiences. As I said, historical discrimination does not evidence current claims of systemic racism, assuming you could extrapolate from county level racial disparities in residence in a single state to begin with.

As an aside, the assumption that implicit biases, even if they exist, can cause explicit disparities in outcomes, is just that. Evidence indicates while changes in implicit measures are possible, but those changes do not necessarily translate into changes in explicit measures or behavior.

What is your definition of systemic racism?

You seem to believe it can only exist if there is smoking gun of explicit racism. You also seem to believe that you stating your personal opinion debunks something. Also, you seem to believe that disparity of outcome doesn't even count as evidence of systemic racism. It's like you believe every disparity of outcome cannot ever be due to systemic racism. So lets define systemic racism first.

Oh and Pager's research literally controls for every other variable. So if there is a systemic difference in hiring outcomes, what is your alternative explanation?

[Lord Thesaurian]

What is your definition of systemic racism? You seem to believe it can only exist if there is smoking gun of explicit racism.

An explicit declaration of racist intent is not required for racism to be systemic, but you haven’t presented evidence of either. The latter is based on evidence and the lack thereof, not my opinion.

[Cope]

You denying it doesn't make it so.

That which can be claimed without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

This is why research that Pager's is important because she controlled for every other variable except race. When all the other variables are controlled for, you can't just hand wave away disparities by claiming there is an alternative explanation.
https://inequality.stanford.edu/publ...rd-devah-pager
https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/bonikowski/files/pager-western-bonikowski-discrimination-in-a-low-wage-labor-market.pdf

These studies are not related to the incarceration disparity which was being discussed. I assume you have no interest in defending that "evidence" any further.

Some points on the Harvard employment study (I confess I’ve only read it briefly):

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

(1) The study is sixteen years old (2004). In scientific terms this is extremely outdated, particularly with regard to proving the existence of an alleged contemporary phenomenon (i.e. ongoing systemic racism).

(2) The study is localized (only New York City) and includes only a handful of participants. This does not render its findings invalid, but it certainly isn’t comprehensive enough to prove the alleged trend.

(3) The test group arbitrarily excluded Asian Americans, a significant racial group in America as per the US census.

(4) The test did not control for the race of the employers.

(5) The test has limited practical application insofar as the Civil Rights Act prohibits employers from asking about ethnicity, race, national origin or religion during the application process. This means first, that there are already federal protections against the biases which the study sought to test for and second, that employers may have looked unfavourably on minority testers precisely because they offered unnecessary racial information.

(6) The above – so far as I can recall - is also true for criminal convictions, which can only be asked for under limited circumstances.

(7) The discovered bias narrowed after personal contact with the employer.

(8) Give the ongoing replicability crisis in various academic fields (esp. the social sciences), these sociological findings are to be treated with particular scepticism.

Taking that into account, if this study can credibly be said to evidence systemic racism, it must necessarily follow that the very institution from which it originates, Harvard, (in addition to Yale) also engages in systemic racism when it systematically and consciously prefers/discriminates against candidates based on their racial characteristics. (1),(2).

In other words, I will accept this study evidences systemic racism if you are willing to acknowledge that race-conscious affirmative action is also an example of systemic racism. In that case, we'll be discussing a systemic problem which is not limited to alleged discrimination perpetrated by white Americans (which is what is almost exclusively being referred to by liberals).

Clinton signed the Crime Bill, the point was that Biden and Clinton supporting something doesn't make it "not racist".

Biden’s explanation for why crack cocaine was targeted indicates that the bill was a consequence of hysteria, poor planning and inadequate research, not racial malice. As per his cited testimony, the intention was to protect inner cities (which have large African American populations) from an "epidemic", not to enact a racially discriminatory policy. This explanation is consistent with the ACLU study which claims the following:

In the 1980s, crack had “come to symbolize . . . the entire problem of illicit narcotics in America.” Members of Congress were concerned that crack opened the market to the poor and juveniles and that it might spread outward from urban areas. In 1986, Congress reacted to the perceived concerns of their constituents over illegal drug use and the death of Len Bias. The heightened media attention devoted to crack and the approaching mid-term elections motivated Congress to act quickly. Setting aside the regular process, Congress expedited the Anti-Drug Actof 1986 based on a belief that the nation was “under siege from crack.”

It is often stated or implied that these crime bills were motivated by white supremacy and tantamount to slavery by another name. This is false. As above, it also false to state that the existence of a disparity proves ongoing systemic racism in and of itself.

[chilon]

An explicit declaration of racist intent is not required for racism to be systemic, but you haven’t presented evidence of either. The latter is based on evidence and the lack thereof, not my opinion.

Ok, then what's your definition of systemic racism?

You dismiss redlining as systemically racist because others, not just black Americans, were affected by it. That doesn't disprove redlining was a racist tactic. Simply because some other races including even some whites were caught up in it, doesn't prove that redlining was not a racist practice. So that's why your interpretation is based on your opinion not evidence. For example, if people with political influence wants to ensure no blacks enter his neighborhood, they can institute a policy that prevents blacks from moving into that neighborhood. If the rules they erect happen to trap people of other races in their redlined zones, that doesn't negate it is, in fact, a systemic racist policy. It just means they can't be explicitly racist and their way to circumvent that happens to affect others as well. So your data points don't actually debunk that redlining was racist. So yes, your posts are mostly just opinion pieces rather than being based on evidence. Redlining is well documented to have been instituted for racist purposes. I can provide links later.

And you didn't answer the Pager point. So if there is a systemic difference in hiring outcomes, what is your alternative explanation when all other variables are controlled for?