But if you don’t know if the behavior was motivated by racism, how do you know it was racist?

RonF, I realize it’s easier to deconstruct my post if you change what I actually said, but I’d appreciate if you didn’t do that.

Again, the point I raised is not “what is racist?” but that white people shouldn’t make their first priority rushing in to play chattering-class rhetorical games about what ‘racist’ is and whether the person really meant to be racist and so on. I like to think that we can condemn Charles Murray for, as a teenager, burning a cross on a black family’s lawn without quibbling about whether he did or didn’t really understand the history and implications of cross-burning.

You may see that kind of inquiry as an important discussion of unconscious motivations. To a black person, they may see that kind of inquiry as wagon-circling. Do you blame them?

Since you slid in an attack on “disparate impact” there, I’d note that internal racism doesn’t have to motivate racist behavior. I absolutely believe that skin color has nothing to do with intelligence. But let’s assume that my alma mater has racist effects–say it has legacy admissions, or gives higher ratings to “traditionally high-achieving” white suburban schools (so that a graduate of those schools has an edge regardless of individual achievement). If I oppose changing those policies so that my white children have a smaller field of competition, is that racist? I don’t think any less of blacks, but in this example, every black student kept out of the running is one less person bucking for my kids’ admission slot.

I’m not saying that my opposition would be smart or effective, but is it racist in your view?

For example, dismissing actions that disproportionately affect people based on race as random, uncontrollable events (like meteorites) or merely lots of individual people who can be dismissed one by one (there’s no forest there! see, I can point out a tree there, and a tree there, and….).

I don’t think people have been arguing that the forest (systematic racism) doesn’t exist, but that its just a bunch of trees (individual racism). If you chop all the trees down the forest is gone. I have dabbled in day trading as a hobby, when you are looking at all the intricate and complex charts and indicators its very easy to forget that its just a bunch of individual people deciding to buy and sell. But at its basic level that’s all it is.

People have said that if X happens to a population that happens to be PoC, that it obviously implies some systematic racism. They forget that correlation does not prove causation, but that seems to be the default position anyway. Like Ron said above, if you really are interested in solving a problem then you have to understand it. It is a rational process that involves isolating and accounting for the all variables that you can, etc.

So when someone makes the assertion that “because X disproportionately effects some population of PoC therefore racism was the cause,” that hypothesis as open to dispute as any other. It is also falsifiable. The unfortunate inevitable reply that they are only trying cause distractions by introducing other reasonable explanations instead of automatically accepting the hypothesis as true is not very convincing. Worse, it defeats the purpose actually finding the truth.

I thought Roberts meteor example was pretty good, but a recent real example is Katrina and N.O. When you isolate N.O. from the rest of the effected area the disaster obviously disproportionately effected black people (as opposed to Biloxi which Katrina also decimated).

Did Bush really withhold help because he didn’t like black people? (as that idiot singer said on TV during some awards show) Or was the federal government not as prepared for the level of utter incompetence from the state and local governments. Or did FEMA drop the ball. Or was it corrupt state politics that kept diverting money that could have been used to improve levies and disaster preparedness. Or was it just a really big disaster that you can’t really prepare for given the funding available. Or some other and included combinations?

The simpleton might think that since so many PoC were effected the root cause must be racism. Well maybe, maybe not, but I think its worth considering all possibilities if really we want to get to the bottom of it.

If you have (1) participation in institutions and modes of speech and action that exclude particular racial groups (which may be intentionally designed to do so or simply do so because historically the shaping of those institutions and modes of speech and action have never taken into account the interests of those racial groups), and (2) a refusal to consider the possibility, upon it being drawn to your attention by persons of those racial groups, that they are so excluded on grounds of race — there is a problem there which needs to be considered in terms of race, not simply in terms of the application of “neutral principles with disparate impact”. The entire notion of the principle being neutral is in itself an institution or mode of speech or action that has grown up, historically (again, whether intentionally or as an emergent phenomenon) around the exclusion of the racial group in question.

One can hate another race but not consider them inferior, though this particular situation is so rare as to be purely theoretical*. This, in my book, would fall under bigotry but not racism.

Remember, this is a theoretical case; I am not entering into the argument of whether this is the specific reason why we have our current imbalance of races in jails in the U.S. I want to know whether the fact that a prison population has a disproportionate racial balance automatically means that the legal system that put them there is racist.

The problem is that for many people the issue isn’t merely theoretical. But the question of equality between individuals and equality between races is a good one. My answer is that you can support equality between individuals at the expense of strict racial equality without being racist. What proportion of people who say this actually mean it is where theory departs from real life.

And in any case, even going by your assumptions, the first step when a claim of racism isn’t made shouldn’t be to parse the motivations of the (alleged) perpetrator. (1) you’d assess the nature of the problem and determine if any harm was done. If yes, then (2), you’d consider whether or not anyone is immediately culpable. And regardless of the answer to (2), if the answer to (1) was yes, then (3) is evaluating a solution to the problem. If you only do (2) and ignore (1) and (3), you’ll come across as pretty racist, and for good reason. You can run out screaming and brandishing a gun without being a maniac, but most who do are and you’ll be branded by association.

* Consider, for instance, the sentiment, common in some quarters, that the Japanese and/or Chinese are taking over the world. On its face, the fear seems complimentary, as inferior people aren’t capable of taking over the world. But it always comes laden with baggage such as the implication that their success from their being of a fanatical, collective hive mind of some sort, lacking the rugged individualism that diehard followers of talk radio possess. Inferiority comes in more than one form.

Maybe I’m reading a different blog than y’all, but I believe Amp’s point was that white people should not, FIRST, be falling all over themselves to figure out whether racist behavior was motivated by malice,

But if you don’t know if the behavior was motivated by racism, how do you know it was racist? What measure that is completely independent of motive do you use to determine if the behavior was racist? The fact that a given event/action/behavior may disproportionately affect a given race is not, in and of itself, sufficient evidence that it was racist - although it is an indicator that the question should be considered, certainly.

For example, dismissing actions that disproportionately affect people based on race as random, uncontrollable events (like meteorites) or merely lots of individual people who can be dismissed one by one (there’s no forest there! see, I can point out a tree there, and a tree there, and….).

idyllicmollusk Writes:
February 28th, 2008 at 11:40 am
Social justice folks do not value vague “other issues” above their top priority of equal access to justice/eliminating disparity… Therefore, there is nothing that honestly competes with eliminating isms (at least for these folks) and they would indeed view it as racist to deprioritize racism vis-a-vis some other concern (or homophobia, or classism, etc).

Perhaps i wasn’t clear.

Classism and sexism and ageism and other “isms” AREsome of those those “vague other issues” w/r/t to racism, just as racism is an “other issue” w/r/t a non-race issue.

So saying “gender trumps race” is racist, but saying “race does not trump gender” is neither racist or sexist. Similarly, saying “race should not be ignored” is neither sexist or racist, but if you say “race should always be the top factor” then you ARE THEREFORE saying “…instead of gender, class, age, etc” which means that you are, then, being sexist/ageist/classist/etc.

There are other issues which don’t have their own “ism”, like structural ones. Though, as Sam noted, addressing the structure and process of a system shouldn’t–at least in my mind–disqualify one from a commitment to justice in general. Structure is vastly important in attaining justice.

I do not think that race is trumped by everything else. Neither do I think it trumps everything else. Does that make me a non-social-justice racist?

Posit that incomes are not distributed normally with regards to race; there are races whose average income is lower than the overall population average. Posit that people with less money than average have less access to education than average. Further posit that people with a less than average education tend to make less money - thus, we have a negative feedback cycle. Finally, posit that people in this cycle tend to commit more crimes than people who are not in this cycle.

This gives a criminal population that has a racial imbalance. Racism may well have had a role in the production of this situation. However; is it then racist to apply the criminal justice system equally to all individuals regardless of race? Because if you do, then a given race will be represented disproportionately in the prison population. Is this outcome due to a racist criminal justice system?

Remember, this is a theoretical case; I am not entering into the argument of whether this is the specific reason why we have our current imbalance of races in jails in the U.S. I want to know whether the fact that a prison population has a disproportionate racial balance automatically means that the legal system that put them there is racist.

If, having been accused of a crime the odds of being convicted are independent of race, does that mean that the people who are convicted had equal access to justice? I would measure “independent of race” on the basis of whether the proportion of people charged with a given crime that are convicted is relatively equal across the races.

White people love to bring up that people of color can also be racist/say racist things.

I’m wondering what you meant, and who you are talking about. Who are “people of color”? You answered:

On the ground people who do not identify as “white” use the term “people/person of color” to express solidarity with all people who are not “white.”

Well, that’s what you think other people mean when they use it. What do you mean when you use it? Expressing solidarity is all well and good, but who are you actually talking about?

Right; however, I think that justice is a good thing in itself EVEN IF there are disparities in access to it. Thus, I’m not in favor of reducing the justice of the system generally, whether it makes access more equal or not. (If we just imprisoned everyone who was accused of a crime, racism in the trial process would not be an issue; it would still be worse than the current sometimes-racist process.) And I do not admit that I am thus a wilful accomplice to racism.

Sailorman: This blog is used by many individuals who highly prioritize social justice. The top priority of social justice folks is ensuring that everyone has equal access to justice. So long as “isms” exist, there is disparity in access to justice. These isms are, of course, related in a network of privilege and oppression- none exists in a vacuum. Social justice folks do not value vague “other issues” above their top priority of equal access to justice/eliminating disparity. Therefore, there is nothing that honestly competes with eliminating isms (at least for these folks) and they would indeed view it as racist to deprioritize racism vis-a-vis some other concern (or homophobia, or classism, etc).

To say that there are “other issues” that are more important to you than the isms indicates that you are in a position of power where the isms do not negatively affect you much. That you would spend time focusing primarily on these “other issues” indicates that you have the privilege of not being hampered by isms, and are happy to let the status quo abide, as it is inconvenient in the light of your priorities to challenge it.

This means you allow systematic issues to chug along, making you an accomplice to institutional isms.

Sure. Fix it. But how?

I can guess that the ways that I would put forth to fix a particular problem of race discrimination are different from those that some other people would put forth. So then we’d have to debate which made more sense: and in the end, you’ve got to analyze which one is best, and THAT usually requires looking at the cause.

Take the issue of criminal justice, where POC defendants get imprisoned at a too-high rate. There are a variety of ways to improve that, ranging from training police officers better, to admitting more POC law students, to giving the POC in the area access to better elementary schools. There are probably 100,000 ways which, if implemented, would lessen the disparity in the CJ system. And YES: the fact that people often insist on evaluation before action DOES prevent some actual change from occurring, change that would be beneficial.

But what’s the answer? Are you willing to trust me, and to follow my solutions, without “wasting time” trying to figure out the best way? Or is that whole “can we just fix things?” comment just a hidden form of “you all should just stop asking questions and do what i tell you to do”?

And finally, to use Stentor’s earlier example of “can we agree these harms need to be redressed?”: Yes, but. Practically speaking, not all harms can be (or are) redressed, even if they should be. We will always prioritize and triage. Although there are many racial issues which deserve to be at or near the head of the line, classifying something as a “race” issue rather than another type of issue doesn’t automatically make it jump to the head of the line. There will always be conflicts with other worthy issues–class, sex, political, theoretical, etc.

Acknowledging that we need to balance issues against other issues should not be termed “racist.” If it is “racist” to balance other issues against race, then it is “sexist” to balance other issues against sex, and so on. I don’t think that is a particularly useful means of analysis.

The problem is that it ignores the reality of systematic racism, by making racism individual, not systematic.

That’s not a bug, that’s a feature. Racism is individual.

Kira:

And when we focus our energy on trying to assign blame, or evade responsibility, or figure out whether it was racist in the first place, we don’t focus on fixing the problem.

Kira, I make my living solving problems. It’s what I do when I’m not on blogs. And what I have found is that if you do not establish the reason for a problem and who are and what is responsible for it, you’ll never solve it. Especially if the solution requires the active involvement of other people, as they won’t buy in to the solution and put effort into it if you can’t demonstrate to them that a) there’s a problem and b) here’s the cause.

It is sometimes possible to apply a work-around that will clean up the immediate situation, but as soon as circumstances change or a slightly different issue comes up the work-around won’t work anymore. To really solve a problem so that it stays fixed, you have to drill down and do the dirty work of finding out who, what, when, where and how.

But that’s Ron’s point. There are some things that we might not want to eradicate, even though they may indicate “systemic racism”. Affirmative action hurts Asians trying to get into high-end schools. That’s systemic racism - nobody is trying to hurt Asians, there’s no intentional racism going on, but that’s the systemic effect. Your argument would militate for the eradication of affirmative action. Is that what you actually want?

Another example is the mortgage situation. Members of minority groups seem to have been steered into subprime loans even when they could qualify for regular programs. We’re not 100% sure why yet. I used to believe that this was an artifact of some variable that wasn’t showing up in the analysis - that it was systemic racism, in fact, wherein unprejudiced banks were nonetheless creating prejudiced results. Now it is looking more and more like there are a lot of loan officers and mortgage brokers who had personal racism issues with minorities, and ASSUMED that they should be in subprime programs. So it might turn out NOT to be systemic racism at all, but a case of the aggregate of lots of personal racist decisions. Which is it? I don’t really know, and neither do you - and it could just as easily be some third thing nobody has hypothesized yet. But your call for decisive action leaves out this lack of knowledge. If we assume it’s systemic racism and make changes to the banking system, and it turns out we were wrong, then we still end up having a bunch of racists running a system whose rules have changed - and we know how that one works out. If we assume it’s individual racism and go around having witch hunts of bank officers, but then it turns out that we were wrong, we’ve tainted a profession and damaged the anti-racist cause itself. There are consequences to our knowledge. We have to get it right, or at least give it the old college try.

It is therefore important for us to be able to analyze and determine what the story is on a particular ‘racist’ element of society. It might be something we have to, or want to, live with, sometimes because the consequences of “just FIX IT” are worse than the existing condition, sometimes because it’s not something that can be fixed, sometimes because we don’t know HOW to fix it. It might be something that we have to take drastic action to rectify. We won’t know until we know.

“Stop trying to think about the problem in your own way and just accept my conclusions and call to action” is not a persuasive approach. Since fighting racism is not something that a small group is going to be able to impose on society, you need to actually worry about whether your approach is persuasive or not. So far, not so much.

“But if a system is one that affects different races in different ways because the races are disproportionately distributed on the basis of a non-racial set of criteria that are equally applied to all individuals, then you have to look deeper to see if that’s a racist system or not.”

I kind of feel like you’re missing the point, and I feel like that’s what Ampersand was talking about. Part of the problem with systemic racism is that it isn’t any one person’s fault, or even one group’s fault. That’s why it’s systemic, and why it’s so difficult to eradicate. And when we focus our energy on trying to assign blame, or evade responsibility, or figure out whether it was racist in the first place, we don’t focus on fixing the problem.

Essentially, it’s a waste of time, and a misdirection to react to an assertion of racism by trying to prove that there’s no racism, or that no one meant any harm by it. (It’s also racist, but that’s another rant.) And in fact, institutionalized racism is a bigger deal than someone making ignorant comments at a cocktail party (of course, the latter feeds into and reenforces the former) because when it happens (and oh does it happen), it seriously fucks with the lives of lots and lots of people. So, yeah, who cares if the people in charge meant it, what they have to do now is FIX it.

Humans seem to be predisposed to attend to stories with a villain, a victim and/or a hero. Stories about natural disasters are often presented as stories about a supernatural person causing natural disasters. It is hardly surprising, then, that people latch onto racism as personified rather than racism as institutionalized, even if the one is much less harmful than the other.

I think you have that backwards. The concept of Institutional or systematic racism is the personification. It is the shadowy force that moves unseen as opposed to real world cause and effect (actual people doing or saying something racist).

In industrial organization economics/antitrust law, we distinguish between competition and rivalry. “Rivalry” refers to the symbols of competition: the CEOs of Coke and Pepsi snarling at each other, or the Chargers vs. the Patriots. Very showy. Yet neither Coke nor Pepsi cut their prices to anything like their marginal cost, or even run promotions in the same market on the same weekend. And the putatively rival teams of the NFL enter into collusive agreements involving salary caps and draft choices. Lots of rivalry, but how much real competition?

In contrast, we observe Farmer Bob and Farmer Bill, two brothers who attend the same church, send their kids to the same schools, and even help bring in each other’s harvest. But at the Chicago Board of Trade, Bob’s grain competes with Bill’s grain so effectively than neither party can demand even a quarter of a penny more per bushel than the other. It is Bob and Bill that illustrate the economic ideal of competition, the lack of rivalry notwithstanding. The economically significant idea of competition reflects a system, not a dramatic clash of personalities.

In this vein, I sense that people think about “racism” as exemplified by Sheriff Bull Connor turning fire hoses and attack dogs on peaceful marchers. Very showy. They may not focus as much attention on the quality of educational opportunities. They’re both important, but they don’t get the same attention.

Similarly, does “white privilege” refer to the way white people talk or act at the expense of racial minorities? Or does it refer to the fact that minorities experience worse life outcomes than whites, whether or not triggered by the conduct of whites? One concept is clearly dramatic; the other is clearly important. What’s not clear is that the concepts refer to the same thing.

The problem is that it ignores the reality of systematic racism, by making racism individual, not systematic.

And the problem in trying to differentiate “systematic” racism with individual racism is that “the system” is solely made up of individual people making individual choices. Buildings (banks, hospitals, prisons, corporate offices) cannot be racist, computer programs are human created, organizations of people are just people, there is no hive mind.