[washingtonismoney]

Are you inferring that all differences in outcomes are the results of contemporary "judging" and solely racially motivated?  Seems simplistic and I'm sure you are aiming at something more subtle.

I see a knotty and multi-generational problem that is often subverted when people only focus on overt racism and/or contemporary judgement. 

Well, I would say "racism" takes many forms. Unfortunately, discussion tends to reduce to certain easily-understood actions as racism -- to which we can proclaim THAT'S RACIST and move on with our days. So this would be someone shouting racial epithets or the like.

This is definitely racism, of one type.

But I would define racism as including social systems that conspire to leave certain folk -- whether that's black or Latin or whomever -- with less opportunity and flourishing, based on belonging to a certain tribe.

So I believe that, for example, if 11% of white kids had lead poisoning, the country wouldn't rest until the problem was eradicated and solved. An instructive example can be seen with the opioid crisis that's consumed a lot of the health media. It's justified that there's so much attention on the problem -- it's played a central role, we suspect, in pushing up white middle-aged mortality over the past decade. And it's great that people are taking more of a nuanced approach to the problem -- using more harm reduction drugs like naloxone, rather than condemning all addicts to jail.

Yet I suspect that the problem would not be treated in the same way if it were primarily a black or brown problem*. Here's a New York Times article with some stunning quotes: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/31/us/her...rents.html

* (in fact, in a somewhat grim irony, the reason that opioid addiction isn't a problem is likely due to inequities of the healthcare system. We know black people are less likely to be prescribed pain medications when reporting various types of pain than identical white people. See, for example: http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpr...-children/)

[washingtonismoney]

Are you inferring that all differences in outcomes are the results of contemporary "judging" and solely racially motivated?  Seems simplistic and I'm sure you are aiming at something more subtle.

I see a knotty and multi-generational problem that is often subverted when people only focus on overt racism and/or contemporary judgement. 

Well, I would say "racism" takes many forms. Unfortunately, discussion tends to reduce to certain easily-understood actions as racism -- to which we can proclaim THAT'S RACIST and move on with our days. So this would be someone shouting racial epithets or the like.

This is definitely racism, of one type.

But I would define racism as including social systems that conspire to leave certain folk -- whether that's black or Latin or whomever -- with less opportunity and flourishing, based on belonging to a certain tribe.

So I believe that, for example, if 11% of white kids had lead poisoning, the country wouldn't rest until the problem was eradicated and solved. An instructive example can be seen with the opioid crisis that's consumed a lot of the health media. It's justified that there's so much attention on the problem -- it's played a central role, we suspect, in pushing up white middle-aged mortality over the past decade. And it's great that people are taking more of a nuanced approach to the problem -- using more harm reduction drugs like naloxone, rather than condemning all addicts to jail.

Yet I suspect that the problem would not be treated in the same way if it were primarily a black or brown problem*. Here's a New York Times article with some stunning quotes: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/31/us/her...rents.html

* (in fact, in a somewhat grim irony, the reason that opioid addiction isn't a problem is likely due to inequities of the healthcare system. We know black people are less likely to be prescribed pain medications when reporting various types of pain than identical white people. See, for example: http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpr...-children/)