Systemic Racism?
The charge of systemic racism is an impediment to progress in that it accuses all, without naming any.
Peering back through the mists of time to my Freshman year of college I recall this assertion made by my Professor of Black Studies:
“Black people cannot be racist. It is impossible.”
The concept of Black Studies was relatively new at the time and had only been made mandatory for graduation a few years earlier.
Based on the idea that knowledge leads to understanding, Black Studies courses were intended to offer insight into the history and contributions of black people as well as a glimpse into the “black experience” not readily accessible to students of other races.
A laudable idea, but one that quickly morphed from informational to activist, eschewing practical curricula in favor of “woke” propaganda.
“Black people cannot be racist” because black people do not have the institutional. structural power to implement prejudicial policy based on race, or so goes the explanation offered by apologists for this tripe, my above-referenced Professor included.
This assertion is willfully ignorant and poisonous in practice. Racism is a matter of the heart, not an independent element of nature. It’s not like the wind, blowing unbidden on all. It’s not like rainfall, which comes and goes under its own imprimatur.
Racism is an ugly defect and no respecter of persons. It can afflict anyone who doesn’t actively root it out at first notice. It is ubiquitous among races.
Black people can indeed be racist. They have no particular immunity to the shortcomings of our fallen nature. Hate and distrust are the fertile soil in which racism germinates, and given our present state of affairs, it looks to be a bumper crop this year.
What are we to do?
We need to kill the plant, not fertilize it. Nonsensical tropes like the one described above (which has been taught dutifully in Black Studies courses without interruption for more than 40 years) must be abandoned and replaced with an acceptance of personal responsibility borne by all.
The concept of systemic racism is an impediment to progress as it accuses all without naming any. We have long-standing laws against the once-routine practices in hiring, education and housing that served to diminish the opportunities of non-whites.
When asked "Who is doing this? Which person? What company?" specifics escape them and they resort to citing statistics of lower minority societal achievement as clear evidence of racism at work, when there are literally thousands of other factors that contribute to those numbers, not the least of which is a failure to accept responsibility for poor life choices.
No one has charged anyone a poll tax to vote for the better part of a century. Redlining (the practice of not lending to people within a certain neighborhood or zip code) has been illegal for nearly as long. "Whites Only" signs exist only in museums as a reminder of our former errors.
Racism is real, but it springs from the heart of individuals and only finds widespread expression when propagated by groups of individuals with the same warped mindset.
Systemic racism cannot exist without a great number of individual racists implementing racist policies, policies we cannot find evidence of, nor individuals to be held responsible for enforcing them.
Drop the shields, abandon the tortured logic that serves only to cement a gross misconception in the minds of millions. Anyone can be racist.
Until both sides can see themselves clearly, neither side will be capable of seeing the truth of their brethren.