THBT Systemic Racism is a Significant Problem in the US
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Systemic Racism: Developed by sociologist Joe Feagin, systemic racism is a popular way of explaining, within the social sciences and humanities, the significance of race and racism both historically and in today's world. Feagin describes the concept and the realities attached to it in his well-researched and readable book, "Racist America: Roots, Current Realities, and Future Reparations." In it, Feagin uses historical evidence and demographic statistics to create a theory that asserts that the United States was founded in racism since the Constitution classified Black people as the property of White people. Feagin illustrates that the legal recognition of slavery based on race is a cornerstone of a racist social system in which resources and rights were and are unjustly given to White people and unjustly denied to people of color.
"Systemic racism includes the complex array of antiblack practices, the unjustly gained political-economic power of whites, the continuing economic and other resource inequalities along racial lines, and the white racist ideologies and attitudes created to maintain and rationalize white privilege and power. Systemic here means that the core racist realities are manifested in each of society’s major parts [...] each major part of U.S. society—the economy, politics, education, religion, the family—reflects the fundamental reality of systemic racism."
https://www.thoughtco.com/systemic-racism-3026565
Burden of proof is shared. No troll arguments. No argument from God/The Bible is allowed.
Since Fauxlaw did not think Systemic Racism is a problem in the US, I will allow him and any other persons to challenge my premise backed by countless experts.
- the unjustly gained political-economic power of whites,
- the continuing economic and other resource inequalities along racial lines,
- and the white racist ideologies and attitudes created to maintain and rationalize white privilege and power.
- Systemic here means that the core racist realities are manifested in each of society’s major parts [...] each major part of U.S. society—the economy, politics, education, religion, the family—reflects the fundamental reality of systemic racism.
- The racism is so significant that minorities feel distressed and mental issues regarding the problem. "Elevated levels of Cultural Mistrust, Cultural Race-Related Stress, and Individual Race Related Stress lead to increased use of Emotion-Based Coping behaviors and decreased implementation of Avoidant-Focused and Task-Related Coping behaviors." [3] Supported by Scientific Magazine: "Universities are not level playing fields where all students have an equal opportunity to participate and succeed. The misuse of standardized tests such as the GRE excludes students who could have otherwise succeeded (4). Once admitted, Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) face challenges when transitioning to college life (5) and are more likely to be nontraditional students." [6]
- Another study regarding schooling proves that assumptions exist earlier on, which further enhances my incarceration point. People will assume things of blacks -- that they are more responsible, older, and maybe inherently related to Crime. From the American Psychology Association, "Our research found that black boys can be seen as responsible for their actions at an age when white boys still benefit from the assumption that children are essentially innocent" [17]. The unconscious dehumanization of blacks was caused by negative interactions with black children. And since the assumptions start from such a young age, this continues well into adulthood, establishing the baseline that racism doesn't just come out of nowhere.
- Blacks are also suspended at a disproportional rate [18], noting that from federal data "for every 100 students with special needs in 2015-16, white students lost 43 days to suspension, while black students lost 121 days". The huge difference between the two races proves that the problem is systemic and significant. Indeed, a GAO report proves that the representation of suspended blacks was severe in percentage difference; impossible to deny.
- "School to Prison" is a known term, where the schools cause the minority students to become ostracized. The extremely harsh punishments push them to become neglected and build upon their vulnerability, raising this point to the next level. [19] As a result of this educational racism, a very high proportion of minorities are also dropping out of school. [20] How does Con explain this, if this is not due to the problems I've listed?
- Another research article furthers on how Brown V Board was not enough to dismantle our systemic Racism. Not enough room for analysis, so will copy paste: "[Schools] remain effectively segregated due to the following: discrimination in schools by administrators, teachers, and students; racial bias inschool curriculum; the separation of students into different abilitytracks reflecting racial, class, and gender stratification; and the use ofstandardized testing that contains significant racial and class bias." Basically, the law wasn't effectively enforced, proving that our system has failed.
- More Health, existing even in Artificial Intelligence: "The U.S. health care system uses commercial algorithms to guide health decisions. Obermeyer et al. find evidence of racial bias in one widely used algorithm, such that Black patients assigned the same level of risk by the algorithm are sicker than White patients". [4] Scientific Magazine also stacks upon an agreement: "Algorithms designed to make decisions about health care incorporate biases that limit care for Black patients." [5]
- The government has FAILED to implement the existing equalities and rights. This is backed by credible sources and the idea that the private sector does whatever it wants due to a lack of laws and regulations. "Racial disparities in health outcomes exist at alarming rates and can be seen in the prevalence of chronic health conditions, such as diabetes, asthma, and hypertension; 1 infant mortality; maternal mortality and morbidity; and police brutality. Furthermore, unequal access to quality health care disproportionately burdens communities of color and exacerbates racial disparities.
- The COVID-19 pandemic has unveiled these inequities and made it impossible to ignore structural racism. Comprehensive research on the public health impacts of structural racism is needed to confront and dismantle the racist systems and practices that create racial disparities and to develop race-conscious public health approaches to reverse the existing disparities that have plagued our nation for too long. This point has been underscored by the federal government’s failure to adequately collect race and ethnicity data on COVID-19 testing, hospitalization, and deaths." [11]
- This is not only supported by the collection of data but the real-world news. Yet another study highlighted " During the entire course of the pandemic so far, data compiled by the non‐profit APM Research Lab (2020) has shown that the crude death rate for Black Americans is more than double that for all other racialized groups. When adjusted for age, the risk of death from COVID‐19 is as much as nine times higher for African Americans than it is for whites (Bassett, Chen, & Krieger, 2020)." [15] The large political, social, and economic forces combined is the sole explanation for the blacks, and con has no way to deny this. The expert explains that there is an undeniable correlation. The social forces shape up the toxic environment for the blacks to be unable to access health services. The synergy between the biology and the sociological processes combine to ruin the minorities. My researcher further explains, "already we see evidence of racial inequities in COVID‐19 treatment (Eligon & Burch, 2020), and we know that discrimination in healthcare settings adversely affects the management of chronic conditions like diabetes (Peek, Wagner, Tang, Baker, & Chin, 2011)."
- Another expert's experiment proves that blacks even received better treatment under those who were more racially accepting than those who were not. Under current circumstances, the gap between white and black mortality is unacceptable -- even my research highlights that the gap could be reduced by up to 19% if we tackled the systemic inequality. [14]
- Refers to the complex interactions of large scale societal systems, practices, ideologies, and programs that produce and and perpetuate inequities for racial minorities. The key aspect of structural or systematic racism is that these macro-level mechanisms operate independent of the intentions and actions of individuals, so that even if individual racism is not present, the adverse conditions and inequalities for racial minorities will continue to exist (Gee & Ford, 2011).
- Examples: housing discrimination, government surveillance, social segregation, racial profiling, predatory banking, access to healthcare, hiring/promotion practices, mandatory minimum sentences"
As I noted in my R3, Pro & Con agreed to a waiver of R4. Waiving, I trust all will agree, really means a suspension of all further argument. By his 275-word R4 entry – when “waive” is a single, adequate word - Pro violated the agreement, which was at his request.
Therefore, readers take note: within Pro’s R4 are additional arguments, to wit:
“…we have systemic racism, which gets rid of our equality and justice within the US.”
“…inaction, or lack of enforcement of a law about equality, is just as bad as proposing the racist law.”
In no previous round does Pro argue about “equality and justice.”
In no previous round does Pro argue about “inaction, or lack of enforcement of law about equality”
In no pervious round does Pro argue and that it “is just as bad as proposing racist law.”
I declare a foul of agreed protocol, and declare, as it was Pro who requested the waiver of round 4, to which I, in consult with a Mod, agreed, I therefore conclude the waiver is null and void, and I shall proceed with rebuttal and defense, taking all the words I need within what is still protocol by Pro’s initiation.
I Rebuttal: “We have failed to overturn our racist laws in the past”
I.a Pro has argued this point in the past, but raises it again in his R4. I will turn on it again:
I.a.1 Pro notes there were racist laws in the past. There were, and I’ll point to the SCOTUS precedent of Plessy v. Furguson [1898], which introduced, or, some may argue, codified “separate but equal.”
I.a.2 Pro raised the matter of further SCOTUS precedent by the decision of Brown v. Board of Education [1954], also in the past, but did not inform that this precedent overturned Plessy,and instituted the necessity for all U.S. legal statutes and public policy in all States to eliminate racist law and policy in the United States. Instead, Pro argued that Brown had little to no effect, that “…we have failed to overturn our racist laws in the past.”
I.a.2.A That’s a nice claim, but Pro did not cite any specific current legal statute or public policy to support his claim. Currency is the demand of Pro’s Resolution, since every keyword of the Resolution must stand up to scrutiny, yes? Having failed to do so, the claim remains as such; BoP failure by Pro.
II Rebuttal:“…we have systemic racism, which gets rid of our equality and justice within the US.”
II.a Pro’s own source, Joe Feagin, [see Pro R1] defined “systemic racism” by claim that “…the United States was founded in racism since the Constitution classified Black people as the property of White people.” I rebutted in my R1 that the Constitution, using Article I, section 2, clause 3 as Feagin’s source, says no such thing, but rather, that Black people are not mentioned at all, that all free people were to be counted [in the 1790 Census], and that included free Blacks in the North, and taxed Indians, neither owned by anybody else, and I’ll now add, since Pro brought it up, that it does not mention any people as property. Therefore, Feagin’s claim is not true; therefore, Pro’s claim fails.
II.b Pro’s source, Feagin, [as I argued in my R1, I.a.3] further defined systemic racism as “Systemic racism is a ‘material, social, and ideological reality that is well-embedded in major US institutions’ (Feagin 2006, p. 2).” I further argued, “Pro misses two factors in Feagin’s argument:
1. Systemic and individual racism are separate factors.
2. Systemic racism is institutional, not individual.”
II.b.1 Therefore, given that systemic racism must be institutional to be systemic, there must be statutory/policy examples to cite in order to demonstrate that systemic racism currently exists.
II.b.2 Pro stated in his R4 argument: “I have no doubt that my experts worked together to fulfill a correct definition and significance of systemic racism.” Therefore, according to Pro, all Pro sources agree with Feagin’s definition, and must, therefore, have current citation of statute/policy exhibiting allowance of systemic racism. Since no one, neither Pro nor his sources, have done so, Pro’s BoP fails.
III Rebuttal: “…inaction, or lack of enforcement of a law about equality, is just as bad as proposing the racist law.”
III.a As noted above, Pro never launched an argument about “lack of enforcement of a law about equality,” in any previous round, thus violating his request for waiver of round 4. I declare a foul. Further, as a new argument, Pro was obligated to make certain that his argument is supported, either by sourcing of recognized scholarship [the best option], or at least by logical, convincing argument readers can follow. Pro offered neither. I need rebut no further; the Pro argument fails under its own unsupported weight.
III.b I can say the same for the secondary clause, “…is just as bad as proposing the racist law.” In this case, Pro offers a suitable supporting argument, “if we keep slaves [present tense]… racism would still exist.” Pro implies systemic racism, but, as shown, Pro’s Feagin says systemic racism is defined as institutional, not individual, so Pro’s argument fails on two points: slavery no longer exists, and even if it did, it would have to have legal/policy precedent, and neither Pro, nor any of his sources, have demonstrated by citation that such laws or policies currently exists. Therefore, pro’s BoP fails.
IV Rebuttal: “…we have economic, health care, education, and criminal inequality, and therefore systemic racism still exists.”
IV.a We’ve been here before. I’ve demonstrated that all these various types of “major parts of society” have individuals within them, in some cases many people, but regardless of count, they act individually in violation of legal statute and public institutional policy, to act out in behavior that is neither legal nor ethical. The system cannot be blamed because there is no evidence that they encourage, condone, and, in fact, they do not document allowance of such behavior. If they did, Pro would have cited it by specific notation so that we, too, can find and read it. Pro did not do this. Therefore, his BoP fails.
V Conclusion
V I will simply repeat my R2, VIII.c.1 & R3, II.b: Isn’t it a bit sloppy for alleged experts, including Pro, to claim evidence [official legal statutes/public policies], but not cite any? For shame. Some experts.
I re-rest my case. Vote for Con
Undefeatable's summary of my vote is pretty much on target. I agree with him on this resolution, but I tried my best to divorce myself of my personal opinion.
TBH I think blacks have disproportionate political power as a race because the black vote is the most unified of all the races. Last election the black vote changed the outcome of pretty much everything.
Whiteflame felt that I attributed too much to authority and their competing definitions on individual vs systemic racism caused my argument to fall apart. Despite having 20+ experts supporting my case, it became arbitrary which one was only individual and which one was systemic.
I invite a re-read of
Forum: 1293-was-brown-vs-board-of-education-a-mistake
my post #36:
As James Madison once said, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”[1] But men are not angels, and, being imperfect, in spite of legislation, in spite of a documented, systemic policy, some people will ignore the system and act by their own, reimagined, anecdotal volition. But such individual and sub-group action cannot ever be blamed on the systemic construct. Blame the one or the few who violate the system. As the author, Richard Bach, wrote, “Argue for your limitations; they’re yours.”[2]
A scholastically-sourced definition of racism by the OED is, “beliefs that members of a particular racial or ethnic group possess innate characteristics or qualities, or that some racial or ethnic groups are superior to others; an ideology based on such beliefs.”
By this scholastically-accepted definition, even a phrase like “Black Lives Matter” must be cast in suspicious light, particularly in light of the following statement as a policy of BlackLivesMatter.com: “We are working for a world where Black lives are no longer systematically targeted for demise.”[3]
The quoted statement above, let alone the movement’s title, represents a policy of singling out Blacks as an unprotected class, specifically, as if to say the other racial entities do not matter, and declaring, without evidence provided, that Blacks are “systematically targeted,” and not just for generic prejudice, but for specific “demise.” Alleged systematic targeting is a claim made without properly interpreting the definition of systemic. There are proper, scholastically-accepted definitions, and there are re-imagined, wish-balloon definitions. The former prevails, or, rather, it should but apparently does not.
If Blacks are “systemically targeted,” by definition, it must be demonstrated by those advocates that the U.S. Government has, by legislation and policy, demonstrated a denial of at least the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment [1868], which declares the Equal Protection Clause: “..nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” It follows that every federal, state, and local statute must be in accordance with this Clause, or it is unconstitutional.
I offer from a list of 10 Supreme Court cases directly concerned with the Equal Protection Clause [EPC] of the 14thAmendment the following three cases having race as a substantive issue demonstrating the Court’s consistency in compliance with the 14th:
1. Plessy v. Ferguson [1896] found that there was systemic discrimination against Blacks in Louisiana by that state’s enforcement of a rule marking trolley cars with signs, “for blacks only,” and “for whites only,” because the signs, themselves, demonstrated unconstitutional violation.
2. Brown v. Board of Education [1954] based on a proper interpretation of Plessy, the Court found that some States had incorrectly applied Plessyto allow segregation of schools if the school facilities were “equal.” Brown overturned unconstitutional state laws, applying the notion in Plessythat “separate but equal” was not even equal just because the facilities were “equal,” but that even by signage, alone, segregated facilities are unconstitutional.
3. Loving v. Virginia [1967] overturned Virginia’s state law prohibiting interracial marriage. Virginia argued that their case did not violate the EPC because their argument applied penalty to both marriage partners, the Lovings. The Court determined that the EPC required strict scrutiny to race-based classifications where a ruling was a consequence by racial discrimination.
These cases demonstrate evidence of the negating argument, that impose a disclaimer on the Black Lives Matter policy quoted above.
These cases also demonstrate that even in the apparent innocuous effort to achieve racial equality, an organization declaring that one race matters at the exclusion of others [i.e., Black Lives Matter] may be found to be in violation of the EPC. Whereas, given a total of 10 Supreme Court cases over the 230-plus years of the Court’s existence, in cases specifically concerned with racial issues, the three cases highlighted demonstrate the consistency of the Court’s [part of the system, after all] compliance and protection of the EPC, and all citizens’ rights to expect equal protection by the system.
[1]James Madison, Federalist Papers #51
[2]Richard Bach, Illusions, The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, Dell, 1977
[3]https://blacklivesmatter.com/about/
Regarding your #25
Your initial point that gov’t/industry perpetuate systemic racism is apparently, on net judgment in two debates, not true. Remeber, my challenge to Pro in both debates was to show the evidence of that perpetuation by current statutory law, or by current government or industry policy [documented by publication] that such systemic racism is still a problem. My argument was that unless you have current law or policy to demonstrate, the issue is individual racism and not systemic. Pro failed, in both debates, to provide that proof.
I know something of manufacturing in the auto industry; I spent 12 years in it, both for GM and Ford as a process engineer, then manager. Your offered situation was once an issue, but in my 12 years, I watched the industry take great strides to avoid the very conditions you described. You ignore that there are two basic root cause factors of quality issues with any product, from cars to toothpicks. You either have a design issue, which requires design change to resolve, or you have manufacturing process issues, which are a little more difficult to resolve, simply because of the factors feeding manufacturing process: Method [or process], Material, Environment, Equipment, Manpower. All five have issues beyond design, and must be changed to correct/prevent issues. If the design is flawed, that could impact all five process issues. Root cause cannot have multiple factors, whereas there may be many cross-factor non-root issues, but, ultimately, there is but one root of them all, and that is what must be discovered to not only correct an issue, but prevent its recurrence. I will tell you, for nothing, that root issue is seldom manpower-related. It’s not impossible, but other issues are generally the cause, which, themselves, make manpower alter the process just to try to make things work. It is why a famous Japanese industrialist in the 80s was man enough to admit to his workers, “I’m sorry my process failed you.”
Then you are free to engage the third debate on this subject. I have passed on it, having drawn a draw and a win in the first two. I also perceive, however, a distinct disinterest in voting on the subject, drawing as single voter in 2 debates. Maybe "is not difficult' is a greater challenge than voters are willing to admit.
Showing that systemic racism exists and that it's a "significant problem" is not difficult. Is there a TLDR version of how this was lost?
I think I just didn’t use enough sources and that’s why I lost. There’s a bunch of more layman’s videos that explain more simply and concisely along with helpful graphs. The controversy among the top level was probably too muddled for research papers to win this one.
Voting will be over tomorrow, after that almost any type of discussion will be fair game.
I'd like to respond to your #25 post, but during the voting phase, I don't want to say anything that might be influential to potential voters, even though they should not let comments influence their vote, but it's always a possibility, even subconsciously, so I'll wait until voting has timed out.
thanks for voting
well, bravo on getting whiteflame's vote and winning (unless someone else votes). You did well. But I won't lose the next time!
What I read from your impacts were the various explanations for why racism has impacts and broad-scale racism, in particular, is damaging. The impacts I'm seeing aren't tied to the existence of systemic racism, they're tied to the existence of racism that affects many people, which is what Con preyed upon. I think examining why we need to define it as systemic racism in order to address it (e.g. we can't just punish bad actors and hope to fix the problem) would have done a lot to further your point. You have a lot of the link story to get there, but you spend most of your time focused on those links rather than examining why it matters to uphold your particular view of systemic racism and why the semantic argument is actually damaging to the wellbeing of so many in society. Essentially, while you certainly talked about why it was frustrating to face a semantic argument, I think you could have done more to explain what it does to perceptions of racism as a result, and how it hinders our capacity to both recognize and address causes of persistent racist tendencies in society.
in addition, I feel like I exhausted every single source possible and analyzed to the biggest extent I possibly could. I told of the history and the explanation for why systemic racism stems from the past from R3. Is the pro side of the debate just not possible with semantic arguments?
well I'll be damned. I feel like I tried my best to step back in R3 and succinctly prove my point in R4, despite my inability to waive the final round. What could I have done better in? I thought for sure I had the impacts with every source agreeing with the wording of "Systemic racism". I made sure to point out that there was individual racism, but once you get rid of that, there's still the large wave of laws and problems caused by government, healthcare, education, so on and so forth. I feel like I did reasonably well with linking the problems in the institutions to the problems in the system. How could I have won this?
RFD, Pt. 1
This debate is really frustrating because it's not really about whether this is a significant problem. It's the aim of so much of Pro's arguments, which focus on impacts, to establish its significance, yet much of that argumentation is either outright conceded or ignored because it's not pertinent to Con's argument. In fact, the only words that are pertinent are "systemic racism," and I get two very different views of what is required to meet the standard for systemic. I'm going to go ahead and quote the definition in the description:
"Systemic racism includes the complex array of antiblack practices, the unjustly gained political-economic power of whites, the continuing economic and other resource inequalities along racial lines, and the white racist ideologies and attitudes created to maintain and rationalize white privilege and power. Systemic here means that the core racist realities are manifested in each of society’s major parts [...] each major part of U.S. society—the economy, politics, education, religion, the family—reflects the fundamental reality of systemic racism."
RFD, Pt. 2
What's missing from this definition, and where Con puts the vast majority of his energies, is a clear comparison between what is systemic and what is individual racism. Part of the problem here is that there is a complex array of policies, and that it's not simple to disentangle what is the result of choices on a local level and what is systemic. When do we cross that line? Does a single city doing this become systemic? A single district? A handful? A state? I can understand that we must eventually reach that point of being systemic, but I don't know what it takes to reach it. Moreover, I'm kind of unclear about what makes a policy racist, which shouldn't really be this unclear by the end. If it causes harm to a given group of people without directly stating them in the policy, is it racist? Moreover, if a government decides to ignore the effects of a policy that was not intended to be racist, but clearly has an undue and excessive effect on certain races, is that society engaging in systemic racism?
RFD, Pt. 3
I feel like both sides try to engage with these questions, but I never get a clear answer as to why systemic racism must represent a given view. From Pro, I keep wondering what the cost is of failing to recognize these issues as systemic. I could buy a lot of Con's arguments about semantics and still find a plausible reason to support you if you explained what makes systemic racism so much more insidious or more important to address. Instead of trying to work against Con's game, play it: he keeps telling you that all the obvious examples are in the past, so explain why and how things have changed and why it matters. If you can't separate the concept of systemic from individual by definition alone, then you need to give me a reason that engages with why your experts see systemic and individual racism as a necessary distinction. Con keeps wielding that against you, but you could have used it to your advantage if you had forced him to engage with an argument that isn't semantic.
As for Con, I feel like you could be doing more to address this issue of a lack of action as a form of racism. That's a point Pro makes quite a bit, and while it is harder to define in that same light (as it's more the actions of individuals with the government effectively just allowing it to occur), I don't see you doing much to counter this point except to say that these policies don't specifically target race, which I think treads a thin line. It could easily have been argued that that is the new vogue for systemic racism since the days of Jim Crow: providing implicit consent to further a policy that chiefly doesn't solely target a race or set of races, but does clearly cause outsized harms to people in those groups. Simply being more complex and undirected doesn't automatically means it fails to meet the standard of being racist, yet I see much of your argument as very much to the letter. I can see ways in which that perspective could be problematic, some of which I mentioned in my feedback to Pro, to which I think your argument is vulnerable.
RFD, Pt. 4
All this being said, while I'm not particularly fond of semantic arguments, in a debate where the entire focus is semantics (it would have been on the word "significant" in most instances), the words play a pivotal role. As I see it, Con did a lot more work here, examining the discrepancies between the positions of Pro's experts and their own definitions of both individual and systemic racism. I may not be fond of it, but he does an incredibly thorough job of it. However, it's not so much the subject of the debate that has me making this decision, but rather the framing of the debate around experts. Pro makes a big point of stating up front how essential experts are to this debate, but is largely losing the debate on his experts and how they demarcate between individual and systemic racism. That reliance works against Pro, since any case he could have made for why it's important to establish that distinction and to recognize examples that fall into the systemic category are lost in the effort to just show that racism happens on a large scale. That ends up being reason enough for Con to carry the day.
Considering what I'm being told about what was agreed by Pro and not adhered to in the debate, I do also award conduct to Con, as Pro apparently agreed to waive the final round and still posted.
I give it 50-50 odds that I get through it. Read through over half of it yesterday.
I don't think anyone's going to be able to vote in only 2 days. Care to open up a 1 round waived debate where voters can vote on this debate?
I'll try to get through it, no promises for this one, though.
4 days left. Up to the challenge, or too long?
Voting closes in 1 week.
Maybe not 30k character limit is ridiculous