[Roberton3]

I generally try not to step into political discussions on this board...

I should learn to follow that approach.  I was just making a social-science point, and naively ignored the possibility that people could misinterpret it as a political statement (despite having had that happen to me many times before).  Staying out of political discussions (at least on this board) is probably much wiser.

...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.

It does sound like there was some serious miscommunication, and if I misinterpreted the term, then I apologize.  I hadn't heard the term "systematic racism" before (it's not a term used in my field, even among researchers who study racial disparities), and I interpreted it as meaning that the legal and/or economic systems of society discriminate based on race (e.g., apartheid in South Africa, Jim Crow in the south, etc., or some scaled-down version thereof).  I just did a quick web search on the term, and didn't find a single clear definition: some people seem to be using it in exactly the way I interpreted it, while others seem to define it much more broadly.  That leaves me inclined to avoid the term, and discussions where it plays a central role; if participants disagree about definitions of key terms, discussions are almost always frustrating and unproductive.

Discussions that revolve around definitions rather than facts seem to be a particular problem with racial issues.  I've seen far too many debates which devolve into each side trying to define "racism" in a way that makes the opponent's position "racist" and one's own position "not racist."  I want to steer far clear of that kind of debate.

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.

Again, this turns on the definition of "racist."  If the definition of racism includes any racial disparity regardless of cause, then obviously any racial disparity is proof of racism (in that case, it's a tautology).  Under other reasonable definitions, that's not obvious, and (depending on the definition) might not be true.  And, as I said above, I don't find discussions that revolve around varying definitions to be at all useful.

I think the key points in what you wrote are "...people should pay careful attention to exactly what causes a given disparity" and "Finding out exactly why that is true is the most important step in fixing the problem..."  If disparities in sentencing arise because jurors are discriminating on the basis of race, the path to fixing the problem is quite different than if the disparities arise because poor people can only afford low-quality lawyers (picking just two of the many possible explanations, for the sake of example).  And that's true regardless of what your definition of racism is. 

But in my experience, many people jump to conclusions that aren't supported by any hard evidence (and, in many cases, are directly contradicted by hard evidence) and as a result, push for actions that won't solve the problem (and may make it worse) -- a phenomenon which seems particularly common in the context of racial disparities, but by no means unique to that context.  What I haven't figured out yet is how to point out the evidence (or lack thereof) in such situations, without being perceived as having a political agenda, and without having the discussion devolve into unproductive debates about the definition of "racism" or some similar term.

[Roberton3]

I generally try not to step into political discussions on this board...

I should learn to follow that approach.  I was just making a social-science point, and naively ignored the possibility that people could misinterpret it as a political statement (despite having had that happen to me many times before).  Staying out of political discussions (at least on this board) is probably much wiser.

...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.

It does sound like there was some serious miscommunication, and if I misinterpreted the term, then I apologize.  I hadn't heard the term "systematic racism" before (it's not a term used in my field, even among researchers who study racial disparities), and I interpreted it as meaning that the legal and/or economic systems of society discriminate based on race (e.g., apartheid in South Africa, Jim Crow in the south, etc., or some scaled-down version thereof).  I just did a quick web search on the term, and didn't find a single clear definition: some people seem to be using it in exactly the way I interpreted it, while others seem to define it much more broadly.  That leaves me inclined to avoid the term, and discussions where it plays a central role; if participants disagree about definitions of key terms, discussions are almost always frustrating and unproductive.

Discussions that revolve around definitions rather than facts seem to be a particular problem with racial issues.  I've seen far too many debates which devolve into each side trying to define "racism" in a way that makes the opponent's position "racist" and one's own position "not racist."  I want to steer far clear of that kind of debate.

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.

Again, this turns on the definition of "racist."  If the definition of racism includes any racial disparity regardless of cause, then obviously any racial disparity is proof of racism (in that case, it's a tautology).  Under other reasonable definitions, that's not obvious, and (depending on the definition) might not be true.  And, as I said above, I don't find discussions that revolve around varying definitions to be at all useful.

I think the key points in what you wrote are "...people should pay careful attention to exactly what causes a given disparity" and "Finding out exactly why that is true is the most important step in fixing the problem..."  If disparities in sentencing arise because jurors are discriminating on the basis of race, the path to fixing the problem is quite different than if the disparities arise because poor people can only afford low-quality lawyers (picking just two of the many possible explanations, for the sake of example).  And that's true regardless of what your definition of racism is. 

But in my experience, many people jump to conclusions that aren't supported by any hard evidence (and, in many cases, are directly contradicted by hard evidence) and as a result, push for actions that won't solve the problem (and may make it worse) -- a phenomenon which seems particularly common in the context of racial disparities, but by no means unique to that context.  What I haven't figured out yet is how to point out the evidence (or lack thereof) in such situations, without being perceived as having a political agenda, and without having the discussion devolve into unproductive debates about the definition of "racism" or some similar term.