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Thread: Does systemic racism exist in the US?

  1. #161
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    Default Re: Does systemic racism exist in the US?

    My experience of racism in my country is the hand stacked in my own favour. The extreme ease with which I was able to work and get educated was in part due to my work, and more to the work of my ancestors, but even more a system that accepts a white man more easily than some other categories.

    I feel a lot of gratitude for all the work by others that made my life easier. I consciously work to keep in place the family conditions that benefited me for my child and step children.

    My observation of the education system here in Australia is that races till matters and the people who identify as indigenous have it harder. The stats, anecdotes etc back it up and I feel that racism built right into the system is part of the problem.

    The little I know of the US from family there and family here (especially in education, both praxis and policy) is many parts of the US experience mirror ours. Its a bigger and more diverse sector of course, but elements seem familiar. One commonality is that it is more difficult for a person from some cultures/sub-cultures to complete high school.

    It is worthwhile framing the question around personal decision making but if you know any teenagers you know the majority are incapable of adult decision making. By definition their circumstances are heritable, reflecting the circumstances of their parents at conception. This pushes the horizon for the influence of systemic racism back 13 years minimum. Teen pregnancy, high rates of incarceration and employment disruption are all big factors here and sit on uncomfortable places where personal decision making by individuals, as well as institutional structures create feedback loops that shorten lives and impoverish people.

    Should we compensate people for their grandparents circumstances? Circumstances centuries back? Hard questions. It seems to be be getting better, despite the outrage machines smoking nonsense. I think its good that the discussion of racism has got to the point where its no longer about actual Jim Crow laws, segregation etc. and now about residual elements within more stubborn holdout institutions.
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  2. #162

    Default Re: Does systemic racism exist in the US?

    I think part of the issue in the US is people have been conditioned to see what has historically been 90%+ of the (white) people in the country controlling 90%+ of the power and wealth in society as some kind of grave injustice/privilege from the outset, when it is entirely expected. The white percentage of population only began what has become a customary decline in 1960 due to immigration, and is now sitting at around 60%, while the majority of wealth is owned by Gen X and Baby Boomers who are more likely to be white, also to be expected.

    https://www.federalreserve.gov/relea...:1989.3,2020.3

    What’s unexpected is that immigrants should gain such a large percentage of national wealth in such a short period of time, suggesting the very opposite of systemic racism. While the percentage of national wealth owned by white households has been steadily shrinking, the portion owned by blacks and immigrants is increasing. Given that the racial wealth gap is driven primarily by labor income rather than by generational transfers, the challenge to those claiming the gap is the result of ongoing systemic bias exclusively in favor of white people would really involve more than just establishing causation, though even that minimum standard has not been met. It is also to substantiate the idea that the declining fraction of wealth held by white households and increasing fraction held by non-whites is indicative of systemic bias in favor of whites; that is, to substantiate the counterintuitive idea that white households should be worse off than they are.
    Of these facts there cannot be any shadow of doubt: for instance, that civil society was renovated in every part by Christian institutions; that in the strength of that renewal the human race was lifted up to better things-nay, that it was brought back from death to life, and to so excellent a life that nothing more perfect had been known before, or will come to be known in the ages that have yet to be. - Pope Leo XIII

  3. #163
    Ludicus's Avatar Comes Limitis
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    Default Re: Does systemic racism exist in the US?

    Quote Originally Posted by Legio_Italica View Post
    On the contrary, I’ve made it clear what the minimum burden of proof would be for someone claiming systemic racism exists in the US.

    Who has the burden of proof when discussing God? I'm not sure about unicorns, but we can say with certainty that discrimination based on race and ethnicity is real, not an unicorn. Are Afro-Americans delusion-prone individuals?

    Last edited by Ludicus; December 30, 2020 at 05:12 PM.
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  4. #164

    Default Re: Does systemic racism exist in the US?

    Interesting that you compare systemic racism to religion. If your point is that you can’t prove systemic racism is causing those 26 disparities, any more than you can prove God did, then you’re certainly entitled to religious belief. However, no one claimed racism doesn’t exist.
    Of these facts there cannot be any shadow of doubt: for instance, that civil society was renovated in every part by Christian institutions; that in the strength of that renewal the human race was lifted up to better things-nay, that it was brought back from death to life, and to so excellent a life that nothing more perfect had been known before, or will come to be known in the ages that have yet to be. - Pope Leo XIII

  5. #165
    Muizer's Avatar member 3519
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    Default Re: Does systemic racism exist in the US?

    Quote Originally Posted by Legio_Italica View Post
    Given that the racial wealth gap is driven primarily by labor income rather than by generational transfers
    Let's not create a false dichotomy though. The study only considers inheritance as generational transfer. Is there really anyone who believes intergenerational impacts on wealth would operate mainly, or even substantially, through inheritance and thereby sustain a wealth gap? I doubt it. On average people inherit around the age of 60. We all know (probably from personal experience) that parents' contribution to their children's wealth resides not in the money they transfer to them when they die, but in the opportunities they provide while they live. In this study, the only place where you find that impact is as possible predictor of income.
    "Lay these words to heart, Lucilius, that you may scorn the pleasure which comes from the applause of the majority. Many men praise you; but have you any reason for being pleased with yourself, if you are a person whom the many can understand?" - Lucius Annaeus Seneca -

  6. #166

    Default Re: Does systemic racism exist in the US?

    Quote Originally Posted by Muizer View Post
    Let's not create a false dichotomy though. The study only considers inheritance as generational transfer. Is there really anyone who believes intergenerational impacts on wealth would operate mainly, or even substantially, through inheritance and thereby sustain a wealth gap? I doubt it. On average people inherit around the age of 60. We all know (probably from personal experience) that parents' contribution to their children's wealth resides not in the money they transfer to them when they die, but in the opportunities they provide while they live. In this study, the only place where you find that impact is as possible predictor of income.
    I don’t think the Fed study created a false dichotomy. Again, the point of examining inheritances and ROI versus income is because home equity (redlining) and inheritances underpin the traditional narrative about causes of the current wealth gap. However, the Fed study looked at data as far back as 1962 and determined that “the income gap is the primary driver behind the wealth gap and that it is large enough to explain the persistent difference in wealth accumulation.” I also discussed the racial wage gap since labor income was identified as primary driver of the wealth gap.
    Of these facts there cannot be any shadow of doubt: for instance, that civil society was renovated in every part by Christian institutions; that in the strength of that renewal the human race was lifted up to better things-nay, that it was brought back from death to life, and to so excellent a life that nothing more perfect had been known before, or will come to be known in the ages that have yet to be. - Pope Leo XIII

  7. #167

    Default Re: Does systemic racism exist in the US?

    I'm shocked someone is discussing survey results as empirical proof that something definitely happens.

    the amount of falsehood deliberate or not inherent in that beggars belief. A survey can suggest, it can imply, it is always subject to sample size and questions asked but important beyond everything else is interpretation based on the aforementioned. Now this is a courtesy educational comment, someone having a negative view does not equate to them having negative treatment, there is a multitude of potential causes behind this of one could be actual negative treatment that has been factually reported.

    Good lord. I'm always happy to help.

  8. #168
    pacifism's Avatar see the day
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    Default Re: Does systemic racism exist in the US?

    Quote Originally Posted by Legio_Italica View Post
    Systemic racism, which refers to the systems in place that perpetuate racial injustice, has three primary components to its definition, says Bonilla-Silva. First, it's historically specific, meaning the systems maintaining racial injustice change over time (and sometimes based on location).
    Redlining was banned 50 years ago. To prove that redlining is still causing the current wealth gap (the example given) one would need to establish, at a minimum, that
    A) formerly redlined areas at least correlate with current black residence today. Yet there is no such correlation to begin with, even as a baseline.

    B)the current wealth gap is caused in some appropriately significant measure by redlining. Yet Fed research of available data found that wage income, not home equity or inheritances, was the primary driver of the racial wealth gap. In most major urban areas, black income growth outpaces white income growth. Coupled with the role of immigration in urban income inequality and the lack of correlation between black residence and formerly redlined areas, there doesn’t seem to be significant evidence of causation there.
    Second, systemic racism is a distinctly structural phenomenon, meaning the practices and behaviors that perpetuate racism within a system are baked into the system itself. This also means that regardless of intention, most people participate in some way with the systems that are in place, Bonilla-Silva notes.
    Finally, Bonilla-Silva explains that where systemic racism exists, if the system provides advantages for some, it disadvantages others."
    Thus the minimum standard would be to establish that current systemic racism is causing the disparities under discussion. That’s the basic request reiterated from the beginning of the thread.
    A cause. Not the cause. Nothing has just one cause. And as Muizer pointed out, it’s one of the things that causes the disparities to persist. All are important qualifiers that you have not recognized while you give these unreasonable expectations of proof.

    I actually had slavery in mind when I mentioned being barred from owning homes, but I can switch gears to redlining easily enough. In the case of redlining, it’s not like a practice that no longer exists is causing bad things to happen today – what a silly thing to argue – it’s that redlining created worse circumstances that contribute to bad things happening today. So when a bad thing happens, it’s important to remember some of the less obvious influences at play instead of railing against the usual suspects and whining about rap music.

    In regard to your first response, I think that is unreasonable to expect redlined areas to exactly line up with racial distribution in a city today and that no change took place since thing. For one thing, there were still changes in the neighborhoods of those cities even during the days of redlining. In fact, it might be better just to simply say that the urban jungle is always changing. Baltimore became a bit of a spotlight for academic research on race in America since the death of Freddie Gray, so let’s use Baltimore as an example for your objections to the relevance of redlining. In the case of Baltimore, U.S. census data shows that the population of Baltimore was about the same during the redlining heyday: about 850,000 in the late thirties and a little over 900,000 when it ended in the late sixties. However, the percent population of blacks in Baltimore grew from not quite 20% to about 45% in that same time. Even though there was something of a black flight to the suburbs, the increase in black population but a lack of increase in overall city population shows that the black flight clearly pales in comparison to the white flight, and the city population had increased in every census before 1950 and decreased in every census after 1950.

    You can easily see the difference between the 1930s HOLC map and the 1970 map around Druid Hill Park, so the fact that there is change from the 1970 to 2010 does not in and of itself mean anything:
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 





    It is perfectly natural that this increase in the black population and decrease in white population would require blacks to find new areas to move in to because buildings have occupancy limits. But as Edward Orser points out in his book Blockbusting in Baltimore, there was also blockbusting in Baltimore that would change where black people live in Baltimore so that it would not exactly match up with redlining, but it would still be a case of racial discrimination. Even after blockbusting and redlining were canceled, there is still migration, immigration, and gentrification to consider. So your argument that the racial breakdown of cities today need to basically match what it was almost a century ago is trying to portray cities as much more static and simple than they really are, to the point that your demands are unreasonable or even arbitrary.

    So while your criticism about strictly using HOLC maps might have a certain level of validity if I were trying to craft some kind of aid policy around them - and such a thing was proposed by some people in the 2020 Democratic primaries - it's not much of an argument for the idea that redlining is not a factor anymore. This is something you have left out in certain images from this article that you have used as a source before:
    Given the demographic shifts that have occurred since the federal government started using color-coded maps to assess mortgage risk, and the relatively small share of the Black population currently living in these areas, proposals that center on these past tools to redress discrimination probably won’t “dismantle the master’s house.”

    The Past Still Haunts Us

    Together with racially restrictive housing covenants that prohibited Black Americans from buying certain properties, redlining prevented generations of families from gaining equity in homeownership or making improvements to homes already owned. These unjust practices form part of a long history of discrimination, which has contributed to the disparities in homeownership and wealth still observed between the Black and white populations of the country today.
    For your second argument, about how inheritances are not driving the racial wealth gap, that is clearly ignoring other important factors. For one thing, it ignores where the racial wage gap comes from. Now, you can respond that it’s basically due to a racial education gap, but where did that come from? My premise is relatively simple: poverty begets poverty. It is more difficult to get the education necessary to escape poverty when the amount of poverty in a school district is a big factor in what causes schools to lack the necessary funds to help more students succeed. According to an article from the Brookings Institute:
    The new work by Reardon, et al., “Is Separate Still Unequal? New Evidence on School Segregation and Racial Academic Achievement Gaps”, suggests that it is primarily poverty segregation rather than race segregation that accounts for segregation’s effect on the achievement gap.
    And yet we know how racial discrimination created poverty in the first place. When you talk about the racial wage gap, you have left out several salient points of information from your own source like this one:
    The current racial wealth gap is the consequence of many decades of racial inequality that imposed barriers to wealth accumulation either through explicit prohibition during slavery or unequal treatment after emancipation. Examples of postemancipation barriers include legally mandated segregation in schools and housing, discrimination in the labor market, and redlining, which reduced access to capital in black neighborhoods.

    And while the existence of a racial wealth gap may not be altogether surprising, it may be surprising how little the racial wealth gap has changed over the past half century, even after the passage of civil rights legislation. In fact, the 2016 wealth gap is roughly the same as it was in 1962, two years before the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
    I can’t help but wonder if you really are being as dispassionately data driven as you are letting on when you overlook basic stuff like that, even when it’s brought up in your own sources. I have no problem with the idea that inheritances are not the main factor. There is no reason to restrict the damage of housing discrimination to inheritance and nothing else. Even if the wealth gap is completely driven by wages, it still doesn’t address that the damage of redlining can easily be seen in lenders siphoning a greater portion of often-lower wages out of racial discrimination: essentially stealing from nonwhite paychecks all across America every day for decades.

    Quote Originally Posted by Legio_Italica View Post
    So, having failed to prove the original claim that the US is currently, systemically racist, we’ve now moved on to a separate unsubstantiated claim that living white people are materially benefitting from the past racism of dead white people?
    See, it’s when you say stuff like this that makes me think you haven’t really processed what the people you disagree with even mean when they say the words “systemic racism”. It’s pretty straightforward how that fits into the definition of systemic racism that you yourself finally provided.

    And second of all, isn’t that what happened? Is that not what things like the G.I. Bill or redlining did? Collect money from everyone – maybe even a little extra from nonwhites – for a program with some excellent short-term and long-term benefits that are really only offered to whites?

    Quote Originally Posted by Mithradates View Post
    I believe thats the key to this, I agree that being born in a family plagued by inter-generational poverty is a serious handicap (happens in every country with all kinds of peoples) but I believe that the main cause why the cycle of misery continues through multiple generations is the forementioned family itself, and not racism. And you dont need to be an "exceptional achiever" to break out, just dont copy what your parrents did, graduate high-school, get a job, become "average" If you dont do this because its too "whiteness" and "not your culture" then thats on you, maybe the nexr generation will do it.

    Or blame the whites but that wont change anything.

    (obviously Im not talking about you personaly)
    That kind of reasoning makes way less sense when you consider how recently racist laws were abolished in the United States. There are millions of Americans alive today whose lives were hampered by legal racism. On top of that, these people were harmed in ways that greatly affect the livelihood of future generations. Or is that little whoopsie-daisy still the family’s fault?

    Quote Originally Posted by Legio_Italica View Post
    I wouldn’t consider graduating high school and getting any full time job to be an exceptional achievement either
    Well, maybe not for you, but it certainly is for some people for any number of valid reasons. Not everyone got to grow up as smart, able, or safe as you did.
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  9. #169

    Default Re: Does systemic racism exist in the US?

    Quote Originally Posted by pacifism
    A cause. Not the cause. Nothing has just one cause. And as Muizer pointed out, it’s one of the things that causes the disparities to persist. All are important qualifiers that you have not recognized while you give these unreasonable expectations of proof.
    No one suggested the disparities under discussion have a single cause. The basic standard that claims asserting the causal role of systemic racism in these disparities should present proof does not mean systemic racism must be proven the only cause. So far, no causal link has been established, however.
    In regard to your first response, I think that is unreasonable to expect redlined areas to exactly line up with racial distribution in a city today and that no change took place since thing.
    That’s not what I expect. Given that there is no correlation between formerly redlined areas and current black residence (an implication of redlining’s historical role in the creation of segregated racial ghettos), asserting that a policy banned 50 years ago proves the causal role of current systemic racism today in current disparities just becomes that much harder to do, yet would be necessary to substantiate related claims.
    Together with racially restrictive housing covenants that prohibited Black Americans from buying certain properties, redlining prevented generations of families from gaining equity in homeownership or making improvements to homes already owned. These unjust practices form part of a long history of discrimination, which has contributed to the disparities in homeownership and wealth still observed between the Black and white populations of the country today.

    I can’t help but wonder if you really are being as dispassionately data driven as you are letting on when you overlook basic stuff like that, even when it’s brought up in your own sources. I have no problem with the idea that inheritances are not the main factor. There is no reason to restrict the damage of housing discrimination to inheritance and nothing else.
    The study doesn’t restrict housing discrimination to inheritances, nor does it link redlining to the current wage gap. If you want to argue against the study’s conclusions and insist homeownership is the primary driver of the current racial wealth gap (estimated to account for around 5%), you’d still have to do more than misconstrue sources to evidence that. Afterwards, you can work on demonstrating the causal role of current systemic racism in some significant portion of the other 95%.
    For your second argument, about how inheritances are not driving the racial wealth gap, that is clearly ignoring other important factors. For one thing, it ignores where the racial wage gap comes from. Now, you can respond that it’s basically due to a racial education gap, but where did that come from? My premise is relatively simple: poverty begets poverty. It is more difficult to get the education necessary to escape poverty when the amount of poverty in a school district is a big factor in what causes schools to lack the necessary funds to help more students succeed. According to an article from the Brookings Institute:
    An article that claims the racial achievement gap is actually driven by poverty rather than race would harm, not help your suggestion the gap is caused by systemic racism. Historical examples of discrimination wouldn’t prove that current systemic racism is causing current disparities.
    See, it’s when you say stuff like this that makes me think you haven’t really processed what the people you disagree with even mean when they say the words “systemic racism”. It’s pretty straightforward how that fits into the definition of systemic racism that you yourself finally provided.
    The definition was provided several pages ago. Another definition was provided on page 1 of the thread.
    And second of all, isn’t that what happened? Is that not what things like the G.I. Bill or redlining did? Collect money from everyone – maybe even a little extra from nonwhites – for a program with some excellent short-term and long-term benefits that are really only offered to whites?
    That would be an even weaker definition of systemic racism than the one provided, given that discrimination of that kind is illegal; ergo one would be forced to conclude that the US is not currently, systemically racist, nor has it been for decades, nor could current systemic racism be causing current disparities.
    Even if the wealth gap is completely driven by wages, it still doesn’t address that the damage of redlining can easily be seen in lenders siphoning a greater portion of often-lower wages out of racial discrimination: essentially stealing from nonwhite paychecks all across America every day for decades.
    Interesting theory, however,
    In this paper we use a semi-parametric estimation procedure to examine differences in the distribution of wages for black and white male workers in the US. In keeping with recent studies we find that differences in cognitive skills are an important determinant of the black-white wage gap and can explain almost the entire male racial wage gap among high wage workers. However, we find that equalising the distribution of cognitive skills will be less successful in reducing this gap at the lower end of the distribution.

    https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/297025083.pdf
    This makes sense given that the lower end of the distribution would involve jobs with less of a demand for cognitive skills in the first place. If anything, this would suggest racism does not play a causal role in the wage gap in a way that could be construed as systemic, and that confounding variables would instead influence both an observed racial wage gap in some cases and the lack of one in others.

    A deeper analysis of pre-labor market indicate parental consequences for educational and skills acquisition. This is important to account for given that half or more of black children are born into single parent households. The behavioral impact is also important to parse from intuitive socioeconomic factors, because the latter is linked to education and family background (making causation difficult to determine), while the former has been found to actually reverse the educational attainment gap at the secondary level.
    This article shows that the traditional narrative of Black-White high school graduation gaps is inverted among economically disadvantaged female students. Two nationally representative surveys and statewide administrative data demonstrate that low-income White females graduate at rates 5 to 6 percentage points lower than Black peers despite having higher test scores. Greater rates of tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drug use among White females account for one third of the attainment disparity.

    In contrast to the role of behavioral factors, analyses show that lower graduation rates among low-income White females remain after accounting for detailed family earnings, neighborhood and school characteristics, urban versus rural contexts, and cognitive skills. Income differences cannot explain this phenomenon, as both national surveys show that low-income White females come from higher earning households relative to Black peers. Moreover, lower graduation rates among low-income White females persist despite their higher standardized test scores and related measures of academic performance, such that accounting for cognitive skills exacerbate rather than narrow differences in attainment. These findings motivate a reexamination of the traditional narrative on racial attainment gaps among economically disadvantaged populations, since White students fail to translate advantages in these domains to higher attainment.

    https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/ful...32858420915203
    The results of the systematic review strongly suggest the existence of a positive association between growing up in a single-parent family and crime by adolescents. This is in accordance with previous literature reviews conducted a couple of decades ago (e.g. Wells & Rankin, 1991), or that were more limited or broader in scope (e.g. Price & Kunz, 2003; Savage, 2014). The majority of the studies containing multivariate analyses also controlled for parental resources and parental attachment, but adding these constructs did not alter the results.

    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full...X.2020.1774589
    There is longstanding evidence that youth raised by single parents are more likely to perform poorly in school and partake in ‘deviant’ behaviors such as smoking, sex, substance use and crime. However, there is not widespread agreement as to whether the timing of the marital disruption differentially impacts youth outcomes. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and its Young Adult Supplement, we find that an additional five years with the biological father decreases the probability of smoking, drinking, engaging in sexual activity, marijuana use, and conviction by approximately 5.3, 1.2, 3.4, 2.2 and 0.3 percentage points, respectively.

    http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc...=rep1&type=pdf
    This is consistent with the returns to education on black wages addressed earlier in the thread, as well as the broader trends referenced previously which highlighted that as little as 2% of people who complete high school, avoid teen pregnancy, and get any full time job at all live in poverty. These factors’ impact on most or all of the observed racial wage gap leave little or no room for assumptions asserting the causal role of systemic racism. This is a key finding given the role of wage income in the wealth gap.
    Of these facts there cannot be any shadow of doubt: for instance, that civil society was renovated in every part by Christian institutions; that in the strength of that renewal the human race was lifted up to better things-nay, that it was brought back from death to life, and to so excellent a life that nothing more perfect had been known before, or will come to be known in the ages that have yet to be. - Pope Leo XIII

  10. #170
    pacifism's Avatar see the day
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    Default Re: Does systemic racism exist in the US?

    Quote Originally Posted by Legio_Italica View Post
    That’s not what I expect. Given that there is no correlation between formerly redlined areas and current black residence (an implication of redlining’s historical role in the creation of segregated racial ghettos), asserting that a policy banned 50 years ago proves the causal role of current systemic racism today in current disparities just becomes that much harder to do, yet would be necessary to substantiate related claims.
    Well, there clearly are some American cities with informally segregated areas. I don’t think that’s up for debate. But here’s another implication of redlining: it didn’t have to be creating segregated racial ghettos to still have impacts that last to this day.

    Quote Originally Posted by Legio_Italica View Post
    The study doesn’t restrict housing discrimination to inheritances, nor does it link redlining to the current wage gap. If you want to argue against the study’s conclusions and insist homeownership is the primary driver of the current racial wealth gap (estimated to account for around 5%), you’d still have to do more than misconstrue sources to evidence that. Afterwards, you can work on demonstrating the causal role of current systemic racism in some significant portion of the other 95%.
    I’m fine with the idea that the racial wealth gap is driven by the racial income gap. Housing discrimination clearly impacts the income gap anyways. To be blunt, I don’t really care about quibbling over the exact percentages if you are just going to blatantly overlook the part of your own sources that say that the racial wealth gap was created through racial discrimination and only stare at the part that says it is being sustained by the racial income gap.

    Quote Originally Posted by Legio_Italica View Post
    An article that claims the racial achievement gap is actually driven by poverty rather than race would harm, not help your suggestion the gap is caused by systemic racism. Historical examples of discrimination wouldn’t prove that current systemic racism is causing current disparities.
    What in history created the poverty that disproportionately disadvantages blacks today?

    Quote Originally Posted by Legio_Italica View Post
    Interesting theory, however,
    In this paper we use a semi-parametric estimation procedure to examine differences in the distribution of wages for black and white male workers in the US. In keeping with recent studies we find that differences in cognitive skills are an important determinant of the black-white wage gap and can explain almost the entire male racial wage gap among high wage workers. However, we find that equalising the distribution of cognitive skills will be less successful in reducing this gap at the lower end of the distribution.

    https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/297025083.pdf
    This makes sense given that the lower end of the distribution would involve jobs with less of a demand for cognitive skills in the first place. If anything, this would suggest racism does not play a causal role in the wage gap in a way that could be construed as systemic, and that confounding variables would instead influence both an observed racial wage gap in some cases and the lack of one in others.
    That paper examines wage data from 1993, so it does not actually examine the extent that housing discrimination caused nonwhites to pay more for their housing than whites.

    Let me say it more simply, and we’ll see if you can find a paper that shows I’m mistaken. If black people were given higher interest rates on their loans, were offered lower quality mortgages than whites (if they were offered at all), and were driven to rent at higher rates than whites, that means that blacks had to spend a disproportionately higher amount of their income on their housing due to their race. That would contribute to impoverishment, which would become a major factor in how educated or successful they would likely be once those practices of racial discrimination became illegal.

    Quote Originally Posted by Legio_Italica View Post
    A deeper analysis of pre-labor market indicate parental consequences for educational and skills acquisition. This is important to account for given that half or more of black children are born into single parent households. The behavioral impact is also important to parse from intuitive socioeconomic factors, because the latter is linked to education and family background (making causation difficult to determine), while the former has been found to actually reverse the educational attainment gap at the secondary level.

    This article shows that the traditional narrative of Black-White high school graduation gaps is inverted among economically disadvantaged female students. Two nationally representative surveys and statewide administrative data demonstrate that low-income White females graduate at rates 5 to 6 percentage points lower than Black peers despite having higher test scores. Greater rates of tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drug use among White females account for one third of the attainment disparity.

    In contrast to the role of behavioral factors, analyses show that lower graduation rates among low-income White females remain after accounting for detailed family earnings, neighborhood and school characteristics, urban versus rural contexts, and cognitive skills. Income differences cannot explain this phenomenon, as both national surveys show that low-income White females come from higher earning households relative to Black peers. Moreover, lower graduation rates among low-income White females persist despite their higher standardized test scores and related measures of academic performance, such that accounting for cognitive skills exacerbate rather than narrow differences in attainment. These findings motivate a reexamination of the traditional narrative on racial attainment gaps among economically disadvantaged populations, since White students fail to translate advantages in these domains to higher attainment.

    https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/ful...32858420915203
    The results of the systematic review strongly suggest the existence of a positive association between growing up in a single-parent family and crime by adolescents. This is in accordance with previous literature reviews conducted a couple of decades ago (e.g. Wells & Rankin, 1991), or that were more limited or broader in scope (e.g. Price & Kunz, 2003; Savage, 2014). The majority of the studies containing multivariate analyses also controlled for parental resources and parental attachment, but adding these constructs did not alter the results.

    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full...X.2020.1774589
    There is longstanding evidence that youth raised by single parents are more likely to perform poorly in school and partake in ‘deviant’ behaviors such as smoking, sex, substance use and crime. However, there is not widespread agreement as to whether the timing of the marital disruption differentially impacts youth outcomes. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and its Young Adult Supplement, we find that an additional five years with the biological father decreases the probability of smoking, drinking, engaging in sexual activity, marijuana use, and conviction by approximately 5.3, 1.2, 3.4, 2.2 and 0.3 percentage points, respectively.

    http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc...=rep1&type=pdf
    This is consistent with the returns to education on black wages addressed earlier in the thread, as well as the broader trends referenced previously which highlighted that as little as 2% of people who complete high school, avoid teen pregnancy, and get any full time job at all live in poverty. These factors’ impact on most or all of the observed racial wage gap leave little or no room for assumptions asserting the causal role of systemic racism. This is a key finding given the role of wage income in the wealth gap.
    I already heard this sermon before, remember? I guess my question in response to that is: why do you think it is that blacks are so bad at doing those things? Do you think it is circumstantial, biological, or …? What do we do about it?
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  11. #171

    Default Re: Does systemic racism exist in the US?

    Quote Originally Posted by pacifism View Post
    Well, there clearly are some American cities with informally segregated areas. I don’t think that’s up for debate. But here’s another implication of redlining: it didn’t have to be creating segregated racial ghettos to still have impacts that last to this day.
    Redlining would indeed have to be creating segregated racial ghettos of mostly black people to this day, or at least demonstrate that they are still de facto restricted from leaving historically redlined areas due specifically to the now banned policy, even today. I don’t know how else one would link redlining to current systemic racism’s alleged causal role in current disparities. As I said, if formerly redlined areas don’t correlate with current black residence today, and the wealth gap is due primarily to wage income resulting from a cognitive skills gap and pre-market behavioral factors, linking redlining to allegations current systemic racism relies primarily on speculation, at least as you’ve presented it thus far. I also discussed the role of immigration in urban gentrification and income inequality, so the current causes of ethnic concentrations of residence or poverty in cities as it relates to alleged systemic racism would be even more difficult to parse from current effects of a policy banned 50 years ago. Nevertheless, it would be necessary to do so in order to substantiate related claims.
    To be blunt, I don’t really care about quibbling over the exact percentages if you are just going to blatantly overlook the part of your own sources that say that the racial wealth gap was created through racial discrimination and only stare at the part that says it is being sustained by the racial income gap.
    Again, no one argued historical discrimination never existed, and an acknowledgment of history wouldn’t substantiate any portion of your argument on its own. I’m not quibbling over percentages, I’m indicating the study’s findings. You misrepresented source material in an attempt to support your argument/counter mine, when the methodology and conclusions of those studies did no such thing.
    The current racial wealth gap is the consequence of many decades of racial inequality that imposed barriers to wealth accumulation either through explicit prohibition during slavery or unequal treatment after emancipation. Examples of postemancipation barriers include legally mandated segregation in schools and housing, discrimination in the labor market, and redlining, which reduced access to capital in black neighborhoods.
    The question, therefore, involves the causes of a current wealth gap given those historical barriers are illegal and have been for decades.
    Given the importance of wealth and the persistence of racial inequality in the United States, economists have had a long-standing interest in the racial wealth gap. A focus of economic research has been on understanding which factors contribute to the racial wealth gap and by how much. In this Commentary, we review existing evidence and literature on the wealth gap between blacks and whites in the United States. We then present new research showing that although differences in savings rates, inheritances, and rates of return on investments have all been suspected as playing a large role in maintaining the racial wealth gap, the gap is primarily the result of a sizeable and persistent income gap.

    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.
    Thus, as I said, If you want to argue against the study’s conclusions and insist homeownership is the primary driver of the current racial wealth gap (estimated to account for around 5%), you’d still have to do more than misconstrue sources to evidence that. Afterwards, you can work on demonstrating the causal role of current systemic racism in some significant portion of the other 95%.
    We study the issue using a different approach, capturing the dynamics of wealth accumulation over time. We find that the income gap is the primary driver behind the wealth gap and that it is large enough to explain the persistent difference in wealth accumulation.

    https://www.clevelandfed.org/newsroo...ealth-gap.aspx
    I’m fine with the idea that the racial wealth gap is driven by the racial income gap. Housing discrimination clearly impacts the income gap anyways.

    Let me say it more simply, and we’ll see if you can find a paper that shows I’m mistaken. If black people were given higher interest rates on their loans, were offered lower quality mortgages than whites (if they were offered at all), and were driven to rent at higher rates than whites, that means that blacks had to spend a disproportionately higher amount of their income on their housing due to their race. That would contribute to impoverishment, which would become a major factor in how educated or successful they would likely be once those practices of racial discrimination became illegal.
    Suggesting the studies and argument I’ve detailed are flawed absent contrary evidence, and/or misconstruing their conclusions because they don’t support your argument, does not constitute evidence proving your hypotheses, nor am I obligated to disprove the latter to substantiate my own. You should be able to establish these things on your own if convinced what you’re saying is accurate. Furthermore, what you outline here would cover historical discrimination, not allegations of current systemic racism, or even labor income, since ROI and home equity/portfolios were parsed separately in the first place. Put simply, you would need to prove your claim that the labor income gap is caused by current housing discrimination caused by systemic racism, more than cognitive skills, behavior or self selection, if this does form the basis of your argument affirming current systemic racism.
    What in history created the poverty that disproportionately disadvantages blacks today?
    As has been exhaustively covered at this point, poverty is a complex phenomenon with multiple causes and effects. As a function of the current racial wealth gqp, a labor income gap linked to cognitive skills, behavior and self-selection has been thoroughly established. What has not been established is your theory about the labor income gap being caused by current racially discriminatory mortgage rates, nor a causal link between current systemic racism and current disparities, which is what has been claimed and what I can only assume is the basis of your argument.
    That paper examines wage data from 1993, so it does not actually examine the extent that housing discrimination caused nonwhites to pay more for their housing than whites.
    The suggestion that data from the last 30-40 years is too recent to capture evidence proving your claims about current systemic racism would harm, not help them, since the implication would be that the causal role of systemic racism in disparate racial outcomes ended sometime before then. The Fed study looked at data from 1962 and found labor income, not housing, is the primary driver of the current wealth gap. The lack of support these studies provide for your argument would be a mark against the latter, not mine.
    I already heard this sermon before, remember? I guess my question in response to that is: why do you think it is that blacks are so bad at doing those things? Do you think it is circumstantial, biological, or …? What do we do about it?
    The behavioral impact on pre-labor market factors does not inherently relate to motive or personality. It would be racially prejudicial to assign collective motives or personality traits to entire ethnic groups, let alone to paternalistically speculate as to how to correct them. Claims that current racial disparities are caused by current systemic racism wouldn’t be affirmatively associated with the morality of motive or personal choice anyway, since one would need to determine the current causal role of institutions, not people.
    Last edited by Lord Thesaurian; January 03, 2021 at 11:05 AM.
    Of these facts there cannot be any shadow of doubt: for instance, that civil society was renovated in every part by Christian institutions; that in the strength of that renewal the human race was lifted up to better things-nay, that it was brought back from death to life, and to so excellent a life that nothing more perfect had been known before, or will come to be known in the ages that have yet to be. - Pope Leo XIII

  12. #172
    Ludicus's Avatar Comes Limitis
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    Default Re: Does systemic racism exist in the US?

    Quote Originally Posted by Legio_Italica View Post
    It would be racially prejudicial to assign collective motives or personality traits to entire ethnic groups
    Ethnic identity can explain why some minorities perceive prejudice when others do not. Btw, the COVID 19 pandemic that disproportionately kills Black and Latins highlights the need to end systemic racism. Public health officials have long known that systemic racism is a public health issue. Listen to Lisa Cooper, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity.
    What Covid-19 does is actually shine a light on a problem that was already there
    That's systemic racism.
    For example, Black doctor's death.
    Many Black Americans also report that medical professionals take their ailments less seriously when they seek treatment
    Dra Susan Moore said, before dying " this is how black people get killed. He made me feel like I was a drug addict. And he knew I was a physician. I put forward and I mantain,if I was white I wouldn't have go through that"
    In fact,racial injustice in American health in the 21st century has a long genealogy.Stop hiding behind rethoric, Legio. The evidence is here. Racism teaches people that whiteness has value, because it confers on Whites privileges that are not available to people of color.
    Another example? Flint's water crisis (2014) provides a real example of environmental racism in action.Right?
    its easy to understand that lone acts of racism seldom occur in a vacuum.Its not difficult to understand how racism becomes systemic. It implies recurrent individual mistreatment,
    ---
    Kamala Harris said that "we can no longer ignore the role that structural racism plays in the poor health outcomes for African Americans, especially in the current pandemic" and I fully agree.
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  13. #173

    Default Re: Does systemic racism exist in the US?

    Quote Originally Posted by Ludicus View Post
    Ethnic identity can explain why some minorities perceive prejudice when others do not.
    As far as prejudice and perception goes, non-whites exhibit more prejudicial attitudes and in-group bias relative to whites, including Asians, who tend to be higher educated. I don’t think this is an avenue that will help your case.




    Btw, the COVID 19 pandemic that disproportionately kills Black and Latins highlights the need to end systemic racism. Public health officials have long known that systemic racism is a public health issue. Listen to Lisa Cooper, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity.

    That's systemic racism.

    For example, Black doctor's death.

    Dra Susan Moore said, before dying " this is how black people get killed. He made me feel like I was a drug addict. And he knew I was a physician. I put forward and I mantain,if I was white I wouldn't have go through that"
    In fact,racial injustice in American health in the 21st century has a long genealogy.Stop hiding behind rethoric, Legio. The evidence is here. Racism teaches people that whiteness has value, because it confers on Whites privileges that are not available to people of color.
    Another example? Flint's water crisis (2014) provides a real example of environmental racism in action.Right?
    its easy to understand that lone acts of racism seldom occur in a vacuum.Its not difficult to understand how racism becomes systemic. It implies recurrent individual mistreatment,
    ---
    Kamala Harris said that "we can no longer ignore the role that structural racism plays in the poor health outcomes for African Americans, especially in the current pandemic" and I fully agree.
    Flint is a politicized anecdote, so I’m not sure what your point is there. Covid is a politically hot topic for obvious reasons, but we’ve been over this before, including on the subject of health. Disparate outcomes do not prove systemic racism. It’s too early to control for relevant factors at this stage, and the data wouldn’t even be in since we are still mid-pandemic. In any case, the data that is available identifies at least two proven confounders I haven’t seen taken into account by studies highlighting racially disparate outcomes. The latter typically only control for age, sex, and a handful of co-morbidities. I found one study that controlled for income.

    Intent to comply:
    National average intent to comply most certainly was over 80% for four recommendations: wash hands (90%); social distancing (86%); stay home (95%); and cough etiquette (86%), but substantially lower for avoid touching face (59%, N = 5,005, p < .05) (Table 2). Metro areas showed wide variation across recommendations: wash hands (82%–95%); social distancing (80%–95%); stay home (89%–96%); cough etiquette (81%–92%); and avoid touching face (44%–71%).

    Our demographic distribution is skewed toward White women who self-identified as having above-average social status, which may limit generalizability. This likely stems from our snowball sampling method. This group is associated with better health outcomes (Lago et al., 2018), so our data may reflect the upper boundary of intent, in turn suggesting that other demographic groups may have lower compliance, and hence, higher risk. Recent data on self-reported compliance with public health recommendations to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in African Americans supports this interpretation (Block, Berg, Lennon, Miller, & Nunez-Smith, 2020).

    https://www.healio.com/public-health...ecommendations
    Self-reported intent to comply is an important factor since it would be a fairly straightforward measure, whereas actual rates of compliance are impacted by other variables beyond a respondent’s control. The fact minorities so far seem to self-report lower rates of intent to comply would be a pretty significant variable for obvious reasons, especially since some studies identify disparate risk of infection, but not necessarily in fatalities, when controlling for confirmed case rates.

    Metropolitan population:
    Our study uses structural equation modeling to account for both direct and indirect impacts of density on the COVID-19 infection and mortality rates for 913 U.S. metropolitan counties, controlling for key confounding factors. We find metropolitan population to be one of the most significant predictors of infection rates; larger metropolitan areas have higher infection and higher mortality rates. We also find that after controlling for metropolitan population, county density is not significantly related to the infection rate, possibly due to more adherence to social distancing guidelines. However, counties with higher densities have significantly lower virus-related mortality rates than do counties with lower densities, possibly due to superior health care systems.

    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full...3.2020.1777891
    While the result is more or less expected, the fact metropolitan population rather than density appears to be a key confounder is both unexpected and important. The importance to the current discussion is that metropolitan counties have far higher non-white populations on average, which would confound disparate outcomes by race:



    Of these facts there cannot be any shadow of doubt: for instance, that civil society was renovated in every part by Christian institutions; that in the strength of that renewal the human race was lifted up to better things-nay, that it was brought back from death to life, and to so excellent a life that nothing more perfect had been known before, or will come to be known in the ages that have yet to be. - Pope Leo XIII

  14. #174
    swabian's Avatar igni ferroque
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    Default Re: Does systemic racism exist in the US?

    I don't think SYSTEMIC racism does exist in the US for a simple reason: It is not intended and predetermined by LAW, that racial minorities are being discriminated against.

    This probably comes off as pedantic nonsense to some, but keep reading and hear me out.

    A "system", means a centralized organization (including a body of laws), that dictates racial discrimination does not exist in the US. It did, for example, indeed exist during the apartheid system in South Africa or during the 3rd Reich in Germany. In those organizations of power, it was the NORM to discriminate. It was also commanded by law and executed according to law.

    Of course, there is racism in the US system, but it is a FAILURE of the executive and not the INTENTION of the executive. So, therefore i don't think at all, that "systemic racism" applies to the political structure of the US. What does apply is failure, clearly.

    This is an important distinction. You're all welcome.

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    Muizer's Avatar member 3519
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    Default Re: Does systemic racism exist in the US?

    @swabian, redefining the concept (which is what you're doing) solves nothing.
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  16. #176
    Ludicus's Avatar Comes Limitis
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    Default Re: Does systemic racism exist in the US?

    Quote Originally Posted by Legio_Italica View Post
    As far as prejudice and perception goes...
    I'm not referring to you, Legio, but, generally speaking, it seems to me that all boils down to,


    The Right's Farcical Denial of Systemic Racism | The New ...

    Lately, right-wingers have been on something of a tear denying the existence of “systemic racism.”

    Harvard government professor Harvey Mansfield, writing on the conservative Wall Street Journal op-ed page, Andrew McCarthy in National Review, and Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute, all have argued that systemic racism is nothing but a term designed to lay a guilt trip on white people and also explain away the continuing failure of Black people to take responsibility for their own inadequacies.

    To right-wingers, racism only matters when it is conscious and deliberate; racism that is unconscious, implicit, or institutional simply doesn’t count in their worldview. And as individualists, they think we are all masters of our own fate: If people are poor, it is basically their own fault. Therefore, systemic racism is an impossibility.

    The number of true racists in society is trivially small, conservatives believe, and all evidence that Black people are economically disadvantaged just shows that they don’t work hard enough or save enough, have too many children out of wedlock, or are too comfortable being on welfare. The playbook here is clear: Always identify some reason for racially disparate life outcomes that lets white people off the hook and lays the responsibility for their circumstances squarely on Black people themselves. It’s a classic case of blaming-the-victim rhetoric.
    It is undeniable, however, that Black people are materially worse off than white people in a variety of ways indisputably documented in objective data. A new report on household income from the Census Bureau shows that the median income (the exact middle of the distribution) for Black households was just $45,438 in 2019, versus $72,204 for white households. The poverty rate was 18.8 percent for Blacks but only 7.3 percent for non-Hispanic whites. These gaps have existed for decades.

    According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, African Americans have had lower earnings and higher unemployment for as far back as there is data. One reason: Research shows that employers are less likely to interview job applicants with Black-sounding names than those with white-sounding names. It’s even the case that Black taxi drivers receive lower tips than whites.

    A new report from the Federal Reserve examines home ownership and net wealth. It shows that Black families have a fraction of the wealth of white families and considerably lower homeownership rates. The two are correlated because housing is a key source of wealth. According to the Fed, at every age, Black families are considerably less likely to be homeowners than white families. This is a key reason why the median net wealth of white families was $188,200 last year, but for Black families, it was just $24,100.

    It might seem that this is largely a lifestyle choice—some people prefer to rent while others would rather own a home. But this ignores the fact that government policy dating back to the New Deal systematically disadvantaged Blacks. A just-published study in the American Sociological Review reviews the sordid history of racist housing policy.

    Among the causes: The National Housing Act of 1934 established the Federal Housing Administration to guarantee private mortgages and make them more widely available and on much better terms than had been the case previously. The goal was to stimulate home-building to create jobs. Although there was no explicit racist intent in its creation, there was a deeply racist result in the way it operated in practice. Because the FHA favored single-family homes in racially homogeneous neighborhoods, it drained the cities of their white middle class. The FHA also instituted a practice known as “redlining” that effectively made homeownership out of reach for African Americans and other minorities. It would not insure loans in the places where they lived, thus creating ghettoes in all our major cities, ringed by lily-white suburbs.
    Although civil rights legislation in the 1960s prohibited formal policies that discriminated against African Americans, informal policies still exist, and the housing gap between Black and white Americans continues to grow. Last year, the Department of Housing and Urban Development accused social media of steering Blacks away from certain advertisements for homes. In the words of the Urban Institute’s Claudia Aranda, “Unbeknownst to them, individual home seekers are denied critical information about housing choices across multiple online platforms.”

    Even Trump administration officials took notice. “Facebook is discriminating against people based upon who they are and where they live,” said HUD Secretary Ben Carson. “Using a computer to limit a person’s housing choices can be just as discriminatory as slamming a door in someone’s face.”

    Racial bias extends even to Airbnb rentals. A 2017 study found that applicants with Black-sounding names were 16 percent less likely to be accepted by landlords than those with white-sounding names.

    A secondary effect of housing discrimination is that schools in predominantly Black districts tend to be underfunded and of lower quality than those elsewhere, in large part due to the widespread policy of funding schools with property taxes. This means that poorer areas tend to have financially strapped schools. A bad education takes away the first rung on the ladder of upward mobility, leading to worse employment prospects and lower lifetime incomes.

    The lack of wealth in the Black community has ripple effects. It reduces bequests to Black children compared to white children, which lowers access to higher education and makes it more difficult to start a business. This is why racial disparities last for generations. In many ways, Black Americans are still suffering for slavery and Jim Crow policies that took place decades ago, a key justification for reparations.

    Regarding health policy, research has long shown that African Americans generally have poorer health and receive inferior medical treatment than whites. For example, the infant mortality rate for Blacks is 2.3 times greater than for non-Hispanic whites, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Pregnancy-related deaths are considerably higher for Black women—for those with at least a college degree, the death rate was 5.2 times that of their white counterparts.

    The racial disparity extends to Covid-19. Blacks are overrepresented in terms of both the infection and death rate, as well as in terms of business failures resulting from the pandemic.

    Another area where public policy systematically discriminates against African Americans is policing and the war on drugs—a majority of Americans agree that Black citizens are treated less fairly than whites, according to a new poll from the University of Massachusetts. A key factor is the contrasting sentences for possession of crack cocaine, a drug that’s used widely in the Black community, and powdered cocaine, which is preferred by whites. Until a 2010 reform, the penalty for possessing 5 grams of the former carried the same penalty as for 500 grams of the latter—a 100-to-1 ratio. Nevertheless, possession of crack is still more harshly punished than for powdered cocaine, resulting in disparate treatment of Black and white populations for comparable drug offenses.

    Even without discriminatory laws, the criminal justice system tends to deal more harshly with Black Americans than whites charged with similar crimes. According to the NAACP, African Americans represent 34 percent of incarcerated persons in the United States but just 12 percent of the general population. Imprisonment, in turn, has long-term effects on the ability to get a job, which reinforces income inequality between African Americans and whites and also reduces the political power of Black people relative to whites because of laws that deny voting rights to those convicted of felonies.

    Space prohibits a full accounting of all the ways systemic racism permeates American society. A recent effort by Citigroup economists to calculate its economic impact concluded that if the racial gap in the U.S. had been closed 20 years ago, the gross domestic product would have been higher over this period to the tune of $16 trillion. Here’s a partial rundown of Citigroup’s findings:

    Closing the wage gap would have added $2.7 trillion to Black income, raising consumption and investment throughout the economy.
    Il y a quelque chose de pire que d'avoir une âme perverse. C’est d'avoir une âme habituée
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  17. #177
    Muizer's Avatar member 3519
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    Default Re: Does systemic racism exist in the US?

    The lack of wealth in the Black community has ripple effects. It reduces bequests to Black children compared to white children, which lowers access to higher education and makes it more difficult to start a business. This is why racial disparities last for generations
    Perhaps it's my flawed understanding of English, but if 'bequest' means 'inheritance' surely this makes no sense? How many children's lives are affected by money they inherit? In fact, how many lives of children are impacted by their parents inheriting? I mean, the average age people inherit at is 60, so their children will most likely be between 25 and 35, beyond the age where it would impact their education or early career.
    "Lay these words to heart, Lucilius, that you may scorn the pleasure which comes from the applause of the majority. Many men praise you; but have you any reason for being pleased with yourself, if you are a person whom the many can understand?" - Lucius Annaeus Seneca -

  18. #178

    Default Re: Does systemic racism exist in the US?

    Quote Originally Posted by Ludicus
    I'm not referring to you, Legio, but, generally speaking, it seems to me that all boils down to,
    I didn’t assume you were. The op ed is a bizarre strawman of the issue and doesn’t support your argument or the underlying claims you would need to substantiate in order to ground your narrative on any point of fact. The existence of a racial gap does not prove systemic racism, no matter how many different ways one might insist it does for the sake of justifying political policy preferences. This has been exhaustively explained throughout the thread; collectively as well as case by case, including each example of alleged systemic racism named in the article.
    Last edited by Lord Thesaurian; January 06, 2021 at 01:05 PM.
    Of these facts there cannot be any shadow of doubt: for instance, that civil society was renovated in every part by Christian institutions; that in the strength of that renewal the human race was lifted up to better things-nay, that it was brought back from death to life, and to so excellent a life that nothing more perfect had been known before, or will come to be known in the ages that have yet to be. - Pope Leo XIII

  19. #179
    irontaino's Avatar Protector Domesticus
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    Default Re: Does systemic racism exist in the US?

    If you want a lesson in systemic racism and white privilege, look at what's happening in the Capitol Building right now.
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  20. #180

    Default Re: Does systemic racism exist in the US?

    Considering how the Capitol mob has been condemned by everyone except Trump, Mo Brooks is already blaming Antifa, and the national guard will likely be deployed, I’m not sure this episode will service your narrative the way you assume.
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

    Last edited by Lord Thesaurian; January 06, 2021 at 03:23 PM.
    Of these facts there cannot be any shadow of doubt: for instance, that civil society was renovated in every part by Christian institutions; that in the strength of that renewal the human race was lifted up to better things-nay, that it was brought back from death to life, and to so excellent a life that nothing more perfect had been known before, or will come to be known in the ages that have yet to be. - Pope Leo XIII

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