Does systemic racism exist in the US?

[Lord Thesaurian]

This is a good rabbit hole to go down, because it is an area where multi-generational trends can actually be influential on the present even without any current systemic racism, and it's an area where perhaps both sides of this argument could find come commonality...

I'm also thinking we need to do more in this conversation to understand that this isn't an all or nothing thing (and thus avoid using outcomes for different groups as evidence for or against the thread's premise - prejudice isn't an on/off switch. It can be subjective and relative: My grandfather hated the Japanese till the day he died, but had no problem with anybody else).

Speculating for a moment, but long term multi generational poverty that we see in the present - including the poor health, education and employment outcomes (and the poor personal choices that are more likely to occur under those circumstances), may be symptomatic of systemic racism 30 or 50 or 80 years ago rather than centuries (this doesn't need to be 'about “roots” and trends across decades and centuries' - Remember that in the United States there are still many people alive today who were literally born both into poverty, and a prejudicial legal framework that was undoubtedly systemic racism). The fact that those demographic indicators have not always improved significantly since the adjustment of legal frameworks in the 1960 (or 70s or 80s or whenever), might be more to do with the fragmented and lacklustre approach to poverty that is seen in the US, rather than evidence of systemic racism still at play.

In this respect, some of what people are presenting as evidence of systemic racism is exactly that - evidence of systemic racism (but in 1955 or 1964). It is also evidence of how poor the United States has been as a nation at dealing with endemic poverty since then.

Speculation is fine but that’s what it is. Causation would need to be established linking these observations from decades ago to outcomes today, taking into account both the agency of those currently alive, the lack of agency of those who are no longer alive, as well as controls for the confounding factors heretofore discussed. If one considers, for example, that rates of single parenthood have tripled (and thus the magnitude of potential impacts we already know to be associated with that) since the end of Jim Crow, we may not even be able to operate from the assumption that selected outcomes were better or worse decades ago than they are now.

[antaeus]

Speculation is fine but that’s what it is. Causation would need to be established linking these observations from decades ago to outcomes today, taking into account both the agency of those currently alive, the lack of agency of those who are no longer alive, as well as controls for the confounding factors heretofore discussed. If one considers, for example, that rates of single parenthood have tripled (and thus the magnitude of potential impacts we already know to be associated with that) since the end of Jim Crow, we may not even be able to operate from the assumption that selected outcomes were better or worse decades ago than they are now.

Legio says "No" (with Grumpy Cat (R.I.P.) face)

You're trying to establish an unprovable situation, that is a disingenuous debate. Causation doesn't need to be established to link current poverty to previous legal frameworks, just continuity.

As for speculation, again rates of single parenthood could just as easily be symptomatic of the types of broken down social fabric you would expect to have under poverty and prejudice stricken societies. Again, when laws change there is going to be an intergenerational lag for social and cultural change to follow, and some problems caused by a prejudicial set of laws might not even become apparent until those laws are revoked and society becomes more open.

[Lord Thesaurian]

Legio says "No" (with Grumpy Cat (R.I.P.) face)

You're trying to establish an unprovable situation, that is a disingenuous debate. Causation doesn't need to be established to link current poverty to previous legal frameworks, just continuity.

As for speculation, again rates of single parenthood could just as easily be symptomatic of the types of broken down social fabric you would expect to have under poverty and prejudice stricken societies. Again, when laws change there is going to be an intergenerational lag for social and cultural change to follow, and some problems caused by a prejudicial set of laws might not even become apparent until those laws are revoked and society becomes more open.

I’m not trying to establish anything in particular. There are claims asserting the existence and causal role of systemic racism in various disparities. Thus causation is the minimum standard of proof for claims of systemic racism causing disparities. I’m simply acknowledging what would make those claims falsifiable and addressing them on their own terms. Establishing falsifiability is the baseline of good faith analysis or debate. No one would accept an unproven assertion that Prohibition caused current rates of alcoholism, for example. Proof of that assertion would need to consist of actual causation, not just the idea that a narrative thread of continuity sounds plausible.

As for poverty, there are multiple factors proven to contribute to that which provide more fruitful avenues of inquiry before one would need to look to abstract and unproven concepts like systemic racism for answers, some of which have been discussed already, particularly with regard to the wealth gap. The main source of disingenuous talking points so far hasn’t been mine but in fact those which suppose no relevant discussion of racial disparities has taken place, or that there’s a need to redefine premises in order to do so.

[antaeus]

As for poverty, there are multiple factors proven to contribute to that which provide more fruitful avenues of inquiry before one would need to look to abstract and unproven concepts like systemic racism for answers, some of which have been discussed already, particularly with regard to the wealth gap. The main source of disingenuous talking points so far hasn’t been mine but in fact those which suppose no relevant discussion of racial disparities has taken place, or that there’s a need to redefine premises in order to do so.

When we would be talking about a time period (e.g. the 1960s) where prejudice was written into law, then I'm not sure why you would need to challenge as to whether that amounted to systemic racism.

[Infidel144]

If one considers, for example, that rates of single parenthood have tripled (and thus the magnitude of potential impacts we already know to be associated with that) since the end of Jim Crow, we may not even be able to operate from the assumption that selected outcomes were better or worse decades ago than they are now.

Why have they tripled?

[Lord Thesaurian]

When we would be talking about a time period (e.g. the 1960s) where prejudice was written into law, then I'm not sure why you would need to challenge as to whether that amounted to systemic racism.

I’m not sure what the object of this game is. No one made any such challenge.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964

The subsequent wealth gap has already been discussed. The primary driver of the black-white wealth gap has not been ROI nor inheritances, as the traditional racial bias narrative would suggest, but labor income.

While portfolio differences are real and impactful, these data suggest that portfolio differences are not the most significant factor contributing to the racial wealth gap. Gittleman and Wolff estimate that over 1984–1994 the wealth gap would have closed by only an additional 4 percentage points if black households had held the same portfolios as white households.

Menchik and Jianakoplos (1997) estimate that between 10 percent and 20 percent of the racial wealth gap can be accounted for by inheritances, while Gittleman and Wolff (2004) find that if black households had the same inheritances as white households, the wealth gap would have closed by an additional 5 percentage points. However, differences in inheritances do not appear to drive the racial wealth gap simply because so few households, whether black or white, receive what could be considered “large” inheritances (Hendricks, 2001).

Our study offers a new perspective on the racial wealth gap by capturing the dynamics of wealth accumulation. While our study is only one contribution in the broader literature on the racial wealth gap, our analysis supports the conclusion that the racial labor income gap is the primary driver behind the large and persistent difference in average wealth between black and white households.

https://www.clevelandfed.org/newsroo...ealth-gap.aspx

As for labor income:

We estimate wage gaps using nonparametric matching methods and detailed measures of field of study for university graduates. We find a modest portion of the wage gap is the consequence of measurement error in the Census education measure. For Hispanic and Asian men, the remaining gap is attributable to premarket factors—primarily differences in formal education and English language proficiency. For black men, only about one-quarter of the wage gap is explained by these same factors. For a subsample of black men born outside the South to parents with some college education, these factors do account for the entire wage gap.

https://dukespace.lib.duke.edu/dspac...452?sequence=1

These findings are consistent with the returns to education on black wages

Studying working and non-working men, we find that, after closing substantially from 1940 to
the mid-1970s, the median black-white earnings gap has since returned to its 1950 level, while
the positional rank the median black man would hold in the white distribution has remained little
changed since 1940. By contrast, higher quantile black men have experienced substantial gains in
both relative earnings levels and their positional rank in the white earnings distribution. Using a
new decomposition method that extends existing approaches to account for non-participation, we
show that the gains of black men at higher quantiles have been driven primarily by positional
gains within education level due to forces like improved access to quality schools and declining
occupational exclusion. At the median and below, strong racial convergence in educational
attainment has been counteracted by the rising returns to education in the labor market, which
have disproportionately disadvantaged the shrinking but still substantial share of blacks with
lower education.

This analysis reveals several key findings. First, the increase in returns to education over the latter half of the study period has been principally responsible for the lack of positional gains for low-skilled black men since 1970. In fact, racial convergence in educational attainment would have led to strong positional gains for black men at the median and below, except that these men faced strong
structural headwinds from the simultaneously increasing rising returns to education, both in terms of wages and in the probability of employment. In essence, the relative gains that low-skilled black men have made through the acquisition of more education have been directly countered by the increase in the
labor market returns associated with the racial differences in education that
remain.12 Taken as a whole, our results imply that the progressively worse
economic outcomes of black men in the lower and middle parts of the earnings
distribution in recent decades have been primarily the result of structural
changes to the economy that have devastated the working lives of low-skilled men
more generally, especially the strengthened relationship between education and
economic rank.

Second, in sharp contrast to the median, the positional gains of high-skilled
black men have been largely due to improvements in relative position within
education categories, especially among those with some college and a college
degree. The vast majority of the relative gains of black college-educated men
occurred in the 1960s and 1970s and these gains have held through the end of the
study period as an increasing share of men have attended college. These results
suggest that much of the decline in racial earnings differences among high-skilled
men has been the result of more equal access to quality higher education and
high-skilled occupations and professions.

https://www.nber.org/system/files/wo...22797.rev0.pdf

This is consistent with the findings heretofore referenced:

In addition to the thousands of local and national programs that aim to help young people avoid these life-altering problems, we should figure out more ways to convince young people that their decisions will greatly influence whether they avoid poverty and enter the middle class. Let politicians, schoolteachers and administrators, community leaders, ministers and parents drill into children the message that in a free society, they enter adulthood with three major responsibilities: at least finish high school, get a full-time job and wait until age 21 to get married and have children.

Our research shows that of American adults who followed these three simple rules, only about 2 percent are in poverty and nearly 75 percent have joined the middle class (defined as earning around $55,000 or more per year). There are surely influences other than these principles at play, but following them guides a young adult away from poverty and toward the middle class.

https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/t...-middle-class/

Consistent with these findings, the poverty rate of black married couples is below the national average and about half of that of white single parent households. The rate of children born to single parents has tripled since the end of Jim Crow. The link between single parenthood and crime, promiscuity, substance use and incarceration is well established.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full...X.2020.1774589

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc...=rep1&type=pdf

https://www.researchgate.net/publica..._Violent_Crime

https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/206316.pdf

Why have they tripled?

I haven’t seen definitive research on it. One theory is that access to contraceptives, abortion and birth control reduced the gravity of consequences associated with premarital sex, and as social stigma associated with that and with single parenthood subsequently decreased, men were less and less socially obligated to marry the women they knocked up.

Indeed, the technology shock theory explains not only the increase in the out-of-wedlock birth rate, but also related changes in family structure and sexual practice, such as the sharp decline in the number of children put up for adoption. The peak year for adoptions in the United States was 1970, the year of the technology shock. In the five years following the shock the number of agency adoptions was halved from 86,000 to 43,000. In 1969, mothers of out-of-wedlock children who had not married after three years kept only 28 percent of those children. In 1984, that rate was 56 percent; by the late 1980s it was 66 percent.

Unlike the other statistics we have mentioned, the shotgun marriage rate itself underwent only gradual change following the early 1970s. Why did it not change as dramatically as the others? For two reasons. The first is that shotgun marriage was an accepted social convention and, as such, it changed slowly. It took time for men to recognize that they did not have to promise marriage in the event of a pregnancy in exchange for sexual relations. It may also have taken time for women to perceive the increased willingness of men to leave them if they demanded marriage. As new expectations formed, social norms readjusted, and the shotgun marriage rate began its long decline.

In addition, the decreasing stigma of out-of-wedlock childbirth reinforced the technology-driven causes for the decline in shotgun marriage and increased retention of out-of-wedlock children. With premarital sex the rule, rather than the exception, an out-of-wedlock childbirth gradually ceased to be a sign that society’s sexual taboos had been violated. The reduction in stigma also helps explain why women who would once have put their baby up for adoption chose to keep it instead.

One final puzzle requires explanation. The black shotgun marriage ratio began to fall earlier than the white ratio and shows no significant change in trend around 1970. How do we account for that apparent anomaly? Here federal welfare benefits may play a role. For women whose earnings are so low that they are potentially eligible for welfare, an increase in welfare benefits has the same effect on out-of-wedlock births as a decline in the stigma to bearing a child out-of-wedlock. The difference in welfare eligibility between whites and blacks and the patterns of change in benefits rising in the 1960s and falling thereafter may then explain why the decline in the black shotgun marriage ratio began earlier than that for whites. Because blacks on average have lower incomes than whites, they are more affected by changes in welfare benefits. As a result, the rise in welfare benefits in the 1960s may have had only a small impact on the white shotgun rate but resulted in a significant decrease in the black shotgun marriage rate.

https://www.brookings.edu/research/a...united-states/

[antaeus]

I’m not sure what the object of this game is. No one made any such challenge.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964

The subsequent wealth gap has already been discussed. The primary driver of the black-white wealth gap has not been ROI nor inheritances, as the traditional racial bias narrative would suggest, but labor income.

As for labor income:

These findings are consistent with the returns to education on black wages

This is consistent with the findings heretofore referenced:

Consistent with these findings, the poverty rate of black married couples is below the national average and about half of that of white single parent households. The rate of children born to single parents has tripled since the end of Jim Crow. The link between single parenthood and crime, promiscuity, substance use and incarceration is well established.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full...X.2020.1774589

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc...=rep1&type=pdf

https://www.researchgate.net/publica..._Violent_Crime

https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/206316.pdf


I haven’t seen definitive research on it. One theory is that access to contraceptives, abortion and birth control reduced the gravity of consequences associated with premarital sex, and as social stigma associated with that and with single parenthood subsequently decreased, men were less and less socially obligated to marry the women they knocked up.

As per our previous two posts, we're speculating, as to whether conditions established under racially divisive or prejudicial laws (in particular pre-1960s) contribute in any way to the present conditions for both those people who are still alive who were born under the previous legal framework, and those borne since. Most of what you present deals with the time since, and doesn't really investigate continuity of lived experience.

For example, would someone who is black, and was born in the 1940s in the South, who received a segregated and substandard education and early employment, continue to experience poorer outcomes or suffer the mental fallout from early life experience well beyond the end of segregation? In particular I'm interested as to whether a point of commonality of opinion can be established between the different sides of this debate, as to whether systemic racism did exist at some point, and whether that might in any way affect people's lived experience in the present which might explain why so many people feel that there is systemic racism now. I'm looking for something more than just "it's a leftist/racial narrative blah blah" - which aside from the well structured and evidence backed posts, is lazy.

[Lord Thesaurian]

What I’ve presented is actual analysis of concrete factors contributing to racial disparities, as opposed to speculation based on a priori assumptions. If there is actual analysis based on concrete factors proving both the existence of current systemic racism, and its causal role in the racial disparities heretofore discussed, it has yet to be presented.

I’m not really interested in people’s feelings, but in terms of lived experience, I think you’ll find the most passionate crusaders in the cause of racial grievance as it relates to alleged systemic racism are younger, whiter and more liberal than the people who spearheaded the Civil Rights era. Thus there is something to be said about that sense of grievance in terms of identity politics and signaling credibility for those coming of age in a racially oriented community or social group.

Yet there is an elephant in the room. It is simply that we blacks aren’t much victimized any more. Today we are free to build a life that won’t be stunted by racial persecution. Today we are far more likely to encounter racial preferences than racial discrimination. Moreover, we live in a society that generally shows us goodwill—a society that has isolated racism as its most unforgivable sin.

This lack of victimization amounts to an “absence of malice” that profoundly threatens the victim-focused black identity. Who are we without the malice of racism? Can we be black without being victims? The great diminishment (not eradication) of racism since the ’60s means that our victim-focused identity has become an anachronism. Well suited for the past, it strains for relevance in the present.
Thus, for many blacks today—especially the young—there is a feeling of inauthenticity, that one is only thinly black because one isn’t racially persecuted. “Systemic racism” is a term that tries to recover authenticity for a less and less convincing black identity. This racism is really more compensatory than systemic. It was invented to make up for the increasing absence of the real thing.

This summer, in cities from Portland, Ore., to Baltimore, black protest seemed driven more by the angst of inauthenticity than by any real menace. The protests themselves came off as theater. There were costumes, masks and well-rehearsed mimes of confrontation and outrage. The violence was destructive, but only to a point. After all it was calibrated to go on for months. In the summer of 2020, self-consciousness replaced spontaneity as the essence of youthful protest in America—yet another sign that there is not enough real victimization to light the sort of fire that burned down Detroit in the ’60s.

In the end, only one achievement will turn us from the old victim-focused racial order toward a new, nonracial order: the full and unqualified acceptance of our freedom. We don’t have to fight for freedom so much any more. We have to do something more difficult—fully accept that we are free.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-ina...er-11606069287

[antaeus]

I’m not really interested in people’s feelings, but in terms of lived experience.

Then you're likely to lose the debate in the real world, because those who disagree with you are much better at weaponising qualitative experience than you are, and quantative doesn't win debates in the public sphere.

By discovering points of commonality, I had hoped we could combine the two to undermine that qualitative argument with a more nuanced one.

[Lord Thesaurian]

Then you're likely to lose the debate in the real world, because those who disagree with you are much better at weaponising qualitative experience than you are.

Well yeah, I would have thought that was obvious. If political/journalistic narratives were governed by truth, the world would be a very different place. If we can agree the systemic racism narrative is racial/emotional grievance weaponized by people with ulterior agendas, as opposed to provable or evidence-based, then you’ll understand why it is so insidious and detrimental to the country as a whole, witnessed over the summer and the last several years.

[Cope]

As per our previous two posts, we're speculating, as to whether conditions established under racially divisive or prejudicial laws (in particular pre-1960s) contribute in any way to the present conditions for both those people who are still alive who were born under the previous legal framework, and those borne since. Most of what you present deals with the time since, and doesn't really investigate continuity of lived experience.

For example, would someone who is black, and was born in the 1940s in the South, who received a segregated and substandard education and early employment, continue to experience poorer outcomes or suffer the mental fallout from early life experience well beyond the end of segregation? In particular I'm interested as to whether a point of commonality of opinion can be established between the different sides of this debate, as to whether systemic racism did exist at some point, and whether that might in any way affect people's lived experience in the present which might explain why so many people feel that there is systemic racism now. I'm looking for something more than just "it's a leftist/racial narrative blah blah" - which aside from the well structured and evidence backed posts, is lazy.

What's being discussed is whether ongoing systemic racism is culpable for various racial disparities, not whether historic discrimination contributed to differing average outcomes. Note the title of the thread: "Does systemic racism exist is the US?"

As to the question of whether I could reach an accord with those who declare or imply that my skin colour carries some original sin which can only be excised via their policy preferences, the answer is no.

[Infidel144]

I haven’t seen definitive research on it. One theory is that access to contraceptives, abortion and birth control reduced the gravity of consequences associated with premarital sex, and as social stigma associated with that and with single parenthood subsequently decreased, men were less and less socially obligated to marry the women they knocked up.

As I recall Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D, NY) noted a correlation between the advance of the welfare state and single parenthood as well.
Since the race hustlers are only interested in speculation, I would suggest that not compelling men to marry the women they knocked up is systemic racism...

[pacifism]

Fortunately it won't require twenty-six charts (most of which curiously ignore Asian Americans) to debunk the above post. Only one simple, yet repeatedly ignored, sentence is necessary. Disparities in group outcomes do not prove ongoing systemic discrimination.

I agree that a disparity alone does not prove anything. It usually needs to be used in the context of some kind of history lesson. But I’m not sure how effective your response is when there is such an obvious smoking gun for what created many of these disparities in the first place. When we know how these disparities got started, and that they still exist to this day, then there should be a clear concern that the effects of such a terrible cause are – in some ways – still around.

It should be pointed out that Asian-Americans have also endured a long history of racial discrimination. Now, it obviously did not manifest in quite the same ways it did for blacks and so it didn’t create the same results. At the risk of sounding a bit silly for making such a counter-intuitive claim, I would argue that even the “good disparities” like the higher average income and lower violent crime rates for Asian-Americans are also indirectly due to the history of racial discrimination, particularly in immigration law.

On an unrelated note, there are people here who do not seem to fully grasp how strong of a claim it is to say that America was systemically racist in the past, but now it’s not. To say that it does not exist at all right now is quite a bit bolder than the claim that there is at least some amount still around today. And anyone who contrasts the present from the recent past so sharply will face the problem of pinning down when exactly the switch happened. In this case, when exactly did America go from having systemic racism to having no systemic racism? Was there systemic racism in 1964 but not any ‘65? What about ’66? ’67? And so on.

EDIT:

As I recall Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D, NY) noted a correlation between the advance of the welfare state and single parenthood as well.
Since the race hustlers are only interested in speculation, I would suggest that not compelling men to marry the women they knocked up is systemic racism...

Oh, and what do you think such a policy would accomplish?

[Lord Thesaurian]

On an unrelated note, there are people here who do not seem to fully grasp how strong of a claim it is to say that America was systemically racist in the past, but now it’s not. To say that it does not exist at all right now is quite a bit bolder than the claim that there is at least some amount still around today. And anyone who contrasts the present from the recent past so sharply will face the problem of pinning down when exactly the switch happened. In this case, when exactly did America go from having systemic racism to having no systemic racism? Was there systemic racism in 1964 but not any ‘65? What about ’66? ’67? And so on.

Jim Crow existed and now it doesn’t. In fact, negative racial discrimination is illegal, and at the same time positive discrimination of a systemic nature explicitly designed to benefit people with black skin is legal and commonplace. States and localities are advancing legislation to directly provide material benefits to people who happen to have the right racial background, in direct conflict with the Civil Rights Act and the Constitution. Oregon has already instituted a special program to provide cash benefits exclusively for black business owners. Yet the national conversation is dominated by an orthodoxy that says not only is the US systemically racist against blacks, but that this current systemic racism is causing the disparate outcomes heretofore discussed. Thus the minimum standard required to substantiate that claim would be to prove the causal relationship.

[Cope]

I agree that a disparity alone does not prove anything. It usually needs to be used in the context of some kind of history lesson. But I’m not sure how effective your response is when there is such an obvious smoking gun for what created many of these disparities in the first place. When we know how these disparities got started, and that they still exist to this day, then there should be a clear concern that the effects of such a terrible cause are – in some ways – still around.

It has not been claimed that racism no longer exists, only that there is no substantial evidence for the existence of ongoing systemic racism. As mentioned elsewhere, most of the hard evidence now indicates that there are significant, institutionalized and systematized efforts to prevent discrimination against minority groups. It is much more reasonable explain the continued average disadvantages suffered by African Americans in terms of policy failures and collapsing social standards than it is to persistently appeal to the nebulous concept of systemic racism.

It should be pointed out that Asian-Americans have also endured a long history of racial discrimination. Now, it obviously did not manifest in quite the same ways it did for blacks and so it didn’t create the same results. At the risk of sounding a bit silly for making such a counter-intuitive claim, I would argue that even the “good disparities” like the higher average income and lower violent crime rates for Asian-Americans are also indirectly due to the history of racial discrimination, particularly in immigration law.

On an unrelated note, there are people here who do not seem to fully grasp how strong of a claim it is to say that America was systemically racist in the past, but now it’s not. To say that it does not exist at all right now is quite a bit bolder than the claim that there is at least some amount still around today. And anyone who contrasts the present from the recent past so sharply will face the problem of pinning down when exactly the switch happened. In this case, when exactly did America go from having systemic racism to having no systemic racism? Was there systemic racism in 1964 but not any ‘65? What about ’66? ’67? And so on.

There is no reason to assume that it would be possible to pinpoint the moment when systemic racism ceased to exist; sociocultural drifts are gradual and nonuniform, and we often lack the sociological data and techniques to make precise observations. See this post for a more thorough explanation.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The narrative of systemic racism is at the heart of the liberal/progressive ecosystem. It is ceaselessly professed by the organs of the liberal establishment, its activist base and leftist radicals. When we examine the facts, however, we see not only that the left's racial thesis is false, but that the very inverse is closer to the truth. America is not dominated by structural discrimination; it is instead characterized by its institutionalized opposition to white supremacy, racism and white identity collectivism. It is a society in which Floyd type injustices are the exception not the norm.

The historic laws codifying discrimination, be they from the Civil War or Crow eras, are gone. They have been replaced with legislation – federal and local, civil and criminal – which explicitly and extensively prohibits racial discrimination in the workplace, in education, in housing, in public health and in many other areas of civil life (see these examples from the Civil Rights Act - 18 USC,C13 & 42 USC, C45). These civil rights statutes have been supported by the expansion of the welfare state (which disproportionately assists minority communities), affirmative action policies,“hate-crime” legislation (which specifically treats racially motivated crimes as more egregious than other offences) and an anti-lynching bill which is likely to be signed into law.

At the same time, there has been a steep incline in the number of African Americans (and other racial minorities) in positions of power across the US, ranging from local police chiefs and district attorneys to congressional representatives. In 2008 the American people also elected their first non-white president.

Outside of the law too, expressions of racism are treated as socially criminal. They are strongly opposed by almost all of the country’s institutional pillars - the mainstream press, corporate America, academia, the entertainment industry, and both political parties. Here is an extensive list of the major corporations which have publicly rejected racism in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

1. 23andme: https://archive.is/Mjbwk
2. 72andSunny: https://archive.is/B1x7Y
3. Abbey Road Studios: https://archive.is/AJlrg
4. The Academy (the Oscars): https://archive.is/cNRYf
5. Activision Blizzard: https://archive.is/qfRJ1
6. Adidas: https://archive.is/ezQ22
7. Airbnb: https://archive.is/GmMjl
8. Alaska Airlines: https://archive.is/wnICf
9. Amazon: https://archive.is/lBR4u
10. American Airlines: https://archive.is/XBwhw
11. American Express: https://archive.is/kzWXa
12. American Apparel: https://archive.is/ETfYw
13. Apple Music: https://archive.is/cj97E
14. Astro Gaming: https://archive.is/9aWhf
15. AT&T: https://archive.is/OzC04
16. Atlantic Records: https://archive.is/65QQq
17. AWS: https://archive.is/NXNAG
18. AXE: https://archive.is/Xpxhw
19. Barnes & Noble: https://archive.is/PCPKn
20. Bank of America: https://archive.is/FH1O0
21. Bergdorf Goodman: https://archive.is/nQiPA
22. Bethesda: https://archive.is/2xeNE
23. Ben & Jerry’s: https://archive.is/BqHRv
24. Billboard: https://archive.is/Ruuv8
25. BMW: https://archive.is/lRN51
26. Boost Mobile: https://archive.is/pLnAf
27. Bratz: https://archive.is/vOA1d
28. Burberry: https://archive.is/ha0jP
29. Call of Duty: https://archive.is/DEJA6
30. Capitol Records: https://archive.is/jeUpY
31. Canada Goose: https://archive.is/y2nLo
32. Cisco: https://archive.is/fNvdP
33. Citigroup: https://archive.is/36fkF
34. Conde Nast: https://archive.is/ChMdI
35. Converse: https://archive.is//sKjmg
36. Crunchyroll: https://archive.is/q7Ucj
37. CW: https://archive.is/JumZU
38. CVS: https://archive.is/DbBSV
39. Degree: https://archive.is/SItaW
40. DIRECTV: https://archive.is/hhBG4
41. Discord: https://archive.is/hGtDw
42. Disney: https://archive.is/wldfM
43. Doritos: https://archive.is/nLHv0
44. Doulingo: https://archive.is/v9Wpk
45. E! News: https://archive.is/3PJyz
46. Eight Sleep: https://archive.is/IiV7n
47. ESPN: https://archive.is/1I5Tf
48. FedEx: https://archive.is/kKVJp
49. Fender: https://archive.is/OGjBM
50. Formula 1: https://archive.is/FCpBG
51. FOX: https://archive.is/p2BvT
52. Frosted Mini Wheats: https://archive.is/vrEYN
53. Funimation: https://archive.is/sfN8E
54. GameSpot: https://archive.is/zEkO3
55. Goldman Sachs: https://archive.is/TA2h0
56. Google: https://archive.is/DK2T8
57. Grindr: https://archive.is/Z6KcW
58. Harry’s: https://archive.is/mE4NN
59. HBO: https://archive.is/oiUyY
60. HBO Max: https://archive.is/LGsPt
61. Help Scout: https://archive.is//D8DCs
62. Hershey’s: https://archive.is/ZQ5zD
63. H&M: https://archive.is/A9ONJ
64. Hulu: https://archive.is/4CyO2
65. Indiegogo: https://archive.is/jrDZk
66. Intel: https://archive.is/93D5q
67. IKEA: https://archive.is/piwcs
68. ITV: https://archive.is/yD1pS
69. Kickstarter: https://archive.is/0zwng
70. Levi’s: https://archive.is/KizLO
71. LinkedIn: https://archive.is/sX5zb
72. L’Oreal Paris: https://archive.is/Jfelo
73. Logitech: https://archive.is/vf6J7
74. Lululemon: https://archive.is/rjCRV
75. Louis Vuitton: https://archive.is/nGZe8
76. Lyft: https://archive.is/UXl3k
77. Madden NFL 20 (shared by EA, EA Games, and EA Sports): https://archive.is/CTUoi
78. Marvel Entertainment: https://archive.is/Ptup6
79. MATTEL: https://archive.is/bvsqN
80. McAfee: https://archive.is/IGXA1
81. Mercedes Benz: https://archive.is/bs8y6
82. Metropolitan Opera: https://archive.fo/wecQ2
83. Microsoft: https://archive.is/A7Vjv
84. Napster: https://archive.is/fVY1s
85. NASCAR: https://archive.is/LG2hU
86. Netflix: https://archive.is/UVSEr
87. NFL: https://archive.is/G4yq4
88. NHL: https://archive.is/lYbyG
89. Niantic: https://archive.is/UdKYR
90. Nickelodeon: https://archive.is/JWSPQ
91. Nike: https://archive.is/UXYBy
92. Nintendo: https://archive.is/5UOjp
93. Nordstrom: https://archive.is/A7mUU
94. North Face: https://archive.is/rq1Cb
95. Old Spice: https://archive.is/1UK5d
96. Paramount Pictures: https://archive.is/ixXHd
97. Paramount Network: https://archive.is/BCAX3
98. Patreon: https://archive.is/wzfM5
99. Peloton: https://archive.is/d36k7
100. Playstation: https://archive.is/52Vvl
101. Popeye’s Chicken: https://archive.is/CzlHd
102. Porsche: https://archive.is/VrmlZ
103. Pringles: https://archive.is/1WpA1
104. Procter & Gamble: https://archive.is/JSMO4
105. Red Lobster: https://archive.is/aIUyy
106. Reebok: https://archive.is/v0nat
107. Reese’s: https://archive.is/Rc4pJ
108. Rice Krispies: https://archive.is/U4Zn9
109. Salesforce: https://archive.is/t1qZB
110. Sanofi: https://archive.is//ErmGO
111. Scholastic: https://archive.is/fFmX3
112. Showtime: https://archive.is/YTPVw
113. Slack: https://archive.is/gF9ym
114. Sephora: https://archive.is/Gm7Rc
115. Skillshare: https://archive.is/JX5em
116. Snap: https://archive.is/HcGGQ
117. Snapchat: https://archive.is/5reL4
118. State Street: https://archive.is/gnqt0
119. Sony: https://archive.is/1PtlU
120. Spotify: https://archive.is/ufTeo
121. STARZ: https://archive.is/eQ4YG
122. Starbucks: https://archive.is/EENlS
123. Star Wars: https://archive.is/xnSgt
124. Subway: https://archive.is/D5F8H
125. Target: https://archive.is/YoIrO
126. TBS: https://archive.is/N0QhU
127. Tesco: https://archive.is/hZS7B
128. TikTok: https://archive.is/bt2vy
129. Timberland: https://archive.is/HZtxv
130. Tinder: https://archive.is/YaY2y
131. TMobile: https://archive.is//KB2lG
132. Twitch: https://archive.is/DAmR5
133. Twitter: https://archive.is/auIgi
134. Ubisoft: https://archive.is/0qMff
135. Uber: https://archive.is/RrScn
136. UnitedHealth Group: https://archive.is/rzQXF
137. Vans: https://archive.is/5nYag
138. Verizon: https://archive.is/hPZoJ
139. VERSACE: https://archive.is/wWsxK
140. Via: https://archive.is/fFIvU
141. ViacomCBS: https://archive.is/uCGXy
142. Virgin Records: https://archive.is/QiykN
143. Vevo: https://archive.is/MVtrR
144. VIZ: https://archive.is/eMuIW
145. Warner Bros https://archive.is/F1Tqn
146. Warner Records: https://archive.is/Mm6qb
147. XBox: https://archive.is/6zdVS
148. YouTube: https://archive.is/5qz6a
149. Zildijian: https://archive.fo/o6Tqi

Moreover, most spaces, including communication platforms (i.e. social media) now strictly prohibit “hate-speech” and other discriminatory practices, with our own TWC being no exception. In fact, such is the exquisite sensitivity to certain racial slurs that even those who utter them without any specific intent or genuine malice risk being ostracized and swiftly ejected from polite society.

Yet it is this environment - an environment in which racial discrimination is forbidden by law and perennially denounced – which is more regularly accused of being “systemically racist” than almost any other. And whenever empirical evidence is requested to support such allegations – as in the George Floyd case – none is forthcoming. Instead we are met with the fallacy of disparity, generalized claims of “unconscious bias” (despite white Americans scoring lower than other racial groups by this measure), nonspecific complaints about Trump, anecdotal evidence and quasi-religious demands that we simply accept certain axioms/assumptions on faith.

It is little wonder then that the enemies of the US – the CCP, the Iranian regime, North Korea and the Kremlin – are eager to get in on the act, parroting the same destabilizing falsehoods which are disseminated by liberal and progressive racialists (examples 1, 2 and 3). But the more that claims of structural racism are professed, the more desperately they are insisted upon, the less credible they seem.

[pacifism]

Thus the minimum standard required to substantiate that claim would be to prove the causal relationship.

You said it yourself: Jim Crow existed. Do I really have to explain to you how old-timey racism impoverished people, many of whom are still poor?

It has not been claimed that racism no longer exists, only that there is no substantial evidence for the existence of ongoing systemic racism. As mentioned elsewhere, most of the hard evidence now indicates that there are significant, institutionalized and systematized efforts to prevent discrimination against minority groups. It is much more reasonable explain the he continued average disadvantages suffered by African Americans in terms of policy failures and collapsing social standards than it is to persistently appeal to the nebulous concept of systemic racism.

At a certain point, what difference does it make? If you cite current policies as a major reason why we know America is no longer systemically racist, but you also imply that policy failure is what’s doing racial minorities in right now and continuing their disadvantages, then what good have those policies even been at actually accomplishing anything? Do you see the inconsistency?

Even if we say that America now has race-neutral or even soft pro-minority in every system, and yet the damage done in the past is still visible today, then the country has merely achieved a lack of inflicting harm on racial minorities, not healing the damage that it had already caused. I think that that sentiment is what drives a lot of the conversation on systemic racism. Most people agree that is morally better for someone who has been harmed to not merely have the harm stopped, but to have the harm done to that person be undone as best we can. Can we genuinely say that America is trying to do the best we can right now to undo the harm it has done to racial minorities? If you think that the answer to that question is no, then I think we have a lot of common ground and that you are not that far from accepting the premise that systemic racism still exists in America in some way.

There is no reason to assume that it would be possible to pinpoint the moment when systemic racism ceased to exist; sociocultural drifts are gradual and nonuniform, and we often lack the sociological data and techniques to make precise observations. See this post for a more thorough explanation.

If your argument is that America is not systemically racist anymore, asking when it stopped happening is a rather reasonable question. The fact that I couldn’t answer that one is one of the reasons why I adopted the position that I currently have.

And honestly, it goes both ways. I think it’s a common problem for anyone who acts like we’re living in a world that’s so different from the past, for the better or the worse. I can’t help but wonder when exactly the president and The Newsroom’s Will McAvoy alike thought America was so great, and when we supposedly lost it. Like the America is now great/not great deal, the perspective that you are arguing for – that America is now formerly systemically racist – might be a little too simplistic for it to be a truly satisfying perspective if you can’t even ballpark the year the switch happened.

[Donny Crane]

A pertinent question for me would be, civil rights occurred after for the chinese in america but they recovered quicker, race questions don't apply to the point where universities won't even recognise them or actively discriminate against them.

Whatever has occurred, when and how do you determine it ends, how do you quantify external factors? What are the reasons despite earlier freedoms they are not like other minorities, I think I actually have some answers but not all (and no I care nothing for colour or race)

[Lord Thesaurian]

You said it yourself: Jim Crow existed. Do I really have to explain to you how old-timey racism impoverished people, many of whom are still poor?

As I said, you’ll need to prove that current systemic racism is causing the disparities under discussion. That’s what is claimed. “Systemic racism used to exist therefore it exists currently and is causing these disparities” does not constitute a provable conclusion. It is reasonable to suppose that coming from a poor family increases the odds you will be poor. That doesn’t prove the current existence of systemic racism nor its causal role in current disparate outcomes. If Prohibition ruined my family’s liquor business and we never recovered, suggesting that my current poverty is caused by current systemic bias in society would still need to be proven.

[Cope]

At a certain point, what difference does it make? If you cite current policies as a major reason why we know America is no longer systemically racist, but you also imply that policy failure is what’s doing racial minorities in right now and continuing their disadvantages, then what good have those policies even been at actually accomplishing anything? Do you see the inconsistency?

The persistence of disparities despite the existence of innumerable policies/programs designed to combat systemic racism suggests that the root cause of the difference is not, in fact, systemic racism.

Even if we say that America now has race-neutral or even soft pro-minority in every system, and yet the damage done in the past is still visible today, then the country has merely achieved a lack of inflicting harm on racial minorities, not healing the damage that it had already caused. I think that that sentiment is what drives a lot of the conversation on systemic racism. Most people agree that is morally better for someone who has been harmed to not merely have the harm stopped, but to have the harm done to that person be undone as best we can. Can we genuinely say that America is trying to do the best we can right now to undo the harm it has done to racial minorities? If you think that the answer to that question is no, then I think we have a lot of common ground and that you are not that far from accepting the premise that systemic racism still exists in America in some way.

So long as race-conscious affirmative action, the welfare state, “sensitivity” training, the monetization of alleged injustices, resentment of white America, the denigration of the nuclear family and gesticulating are treated as solutions to racial disparities, there will be no substantial movement on key metrics. Those willing to disavow these “remedies” might find a place at my table.

If your argument is that America is not systemically racist anymore, asking when it stopped happening is a rather reasonable question. The fact that I couldn’t answer that one is one of the reasons why I adopted the position that I currently have.

And honestly, it goes both ways. I think it’s a common problem for anyone who acts like we’re living in a world that’s so different from the past, for the better or the worse. I can’t help but wonder when exactly the president and The Newsroom’s Will McAvoy alike thought America was so great, and when we supposedly lost it. Like the America is now great/not great deal, the perspective that you are arguing for – that America is now formerly systemically racist – might be a little too simplistic for it to be a truly satisfying perspective if you can’t even ballpark the year the switch happened.

The question is analogous to asking “when exactly” when did Middle English become Early Modern English or when did apple pie become strongly associated with America. It cannot be answered precisely. The “ballpark” answer is that racism ceased to be a systemic problem in America at some point in between the signing of the Civil Rights Act and the election of President Obama.

[Ludicus]

It is reasonable to suppose that coming from a poor family increases the odds you will be poor. That doesn’t prove the current existence of systemic racism

If the post 96 hasn't convinced you, 26 charts that show how systemic racism is in the US, nothing will convince you...

Black children are more likely than white children to be persistently poor. It is more than a coincidence
Escaping Poverty - Urban Institute

Who Are Persistently Poor Children?
Following children from birth through age 17 reveals that 11.8 percent of children are persistently poor, meaning they spend at least half their childhoods living below the poverty level (figure 1). Translating these percentages to numbers, nearly 9 million of today’s children will spend at least half their childhoods in poverty.

Children of color fare much worse than average. Just over 40 percent of black children are persistently poor, compared with less than 6 percent of white children.
With this, 56 percent of persistently poor children are black, while 36 percent are white and 8 percent are another race or ethnicity.
racial segregation in schools is associated with decreased school achievement, especially for students of color (Borman and Dowling 2010; Johnson 2011).
Growing up in a disadvantaged neighborhood with greater racial segregation makes it hard for children to succeed.

The myth of "hard work and you wil succeed" mantra,

The overwhelming majority of persistently poor children—69 percent—are poor at birth. Nearly 90 percent are poor by age 2.

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On a side note...
Robert E. Lee statue removed from Capitol - POLITICO

A Virginia commission has recommended that a statue of civil rights leader Barbara Johns replace that of the Confederate general.
The Robert E. Lee statue honors a legacy of division, oppression, and racism — a dark period in the history of our Commonwealth and our country. There is no reason his statue should be one of the two representing Virginia in the U.S. Capitol

.