[cardcoug]

[quote author=burger link=topic=13558.msg140596#msg140596 date=1447095069]
Your original post didn't distinguish between present and past racism. 

Sorry -- I thought that would be obvious based on the comments I was responding to.

And from the way you wrote it, your ambivalence about racism's effects, past or present, led me to believe that you weren't aware of some of the history on the housing issue (you wrote, "and that might be because of current racism, or because of past racism, or for any number of other reasons", which sounded to me like you just didn't know the history)  I really didn't mean any condescension.

OK -- thanks.  Evidently I didn't write clearly enough -- one of the dangers of responding too quickly.  I am far from ambivalent about racism's effects, and certainly don't want to give any other impression.  Racism is horrible.  But because it's so horrible, one needs to be especially careful about jumping to conclusions.  And untangling the causes of current inqualities is a tremendously challenging task, even if you know the history very well.
[/quote]
I generally try not to step into political discussions on this board, but I think it's worth pointing out that there is definitely some miscommunication happening here. A racial disparity that is the effect of past (explicit) racism is the paradigm case of "systematic racism", as I understand it. The whole point of talking about systematic racism is to point out that social systems can be set up such there are racist effects on people without there being some specific person (s) whose current racist attitudes (except perhaps apathy or ignorance) are responsible for those effects. It seems to me like you (Roberton3) are not using the term in this sense, so I don't think your point about sorting out the real causes is going to carry much weight with the people protesting systematic racism.

You're obviously right that people should pay careful attention to exactly what causes a given disparity, but i dont think we should withhold the term "racist" until we find a confederate flag flying bigot behind the scenes. If black people are getting harsher sentences than white people for the same crime (they are), that is racist. End of story. Finding out exactly why that is true is the most important step in fixing the problem, but I can't imagine a cause for this effect that would make it not racist. Perhaps all I'm doing here is insisting that we use the term "racist" differently than you are using it, but that in itself is not unimportant.

[cardcoug]

[quote author=burger link=topic=13558.msg140596#msg140596 date=1447095069]
Your original post didn't distinguish between present and past racism. 

Sorry -- I thought that would be obvious based on the comments I was responding to.

And from the way you wrote it, your ambivalence about racism's effects, past or present, led me to believe that you weren't aware of some of the history on the housing issue (you wrote, "and that might be because of current racism, or because of past racism, or for any number of other reasons", which sounded to me like you just didn't know the history)  I really didn't mean any condescension.

OK -- thanks.  Evidently I didn't write clearly enough -- one of the dangers of responding too quickly.  I am far from ambivalent about racism's effects, and certainly don't want to give any other impression.  Racism is horrible.  But because it's so horrible, one needs to be especially careful about jumping to conclusions.  And untangling the causes of current inqualities is a tremendously challenging task, even if you know the history very well.
[/quote]
I generally try not to step into political discussions on this board, but I think it's worth pointing out that there is definitely some miscommunication happening here. A racial disparity that is the effect of past (explicit) racism is the paradigm case of "systematic racism", as I understand it. The whole point of talking about systematic racism is to point out that social systems can be set up such there are racist effects on people without there being some specific person (s) whose current racist attitudes (except perhaps apathy or ignorance) are responsible for those effects. It seems to me like you (Roberton3) are not using the term in this sense, so I don't think your point about sorting out the real causes is going to carry much weight with the people protesting systematic racism.

You're obviously right that people should pay careful attention to exactly what causes a given disparity, but i dont think we should withhold the term "racist" until we find a confederate flag flying bigot behind the scenes. If black people are getting harsher sentences than white people for the same crime (they are), that is racist. End of story. Finding out exactly why that is true is the most important step in fixing the problem, but I can't imagine a cause for this effect that would make it not racist. Perhaps all I'm doing here is insisting that we use the term "racist" differently than you are using it, but that in itself is not unimportant.