I am changing the title from my last post, but the topic remains the same. Our society inundates us with sloppy reasoning regarding some of the more serious topics of our day. The one I want to address today is the topic of systemic racism. The Left ubitiquously, almost literally, cannot go an entire day without leveling the charge of systemic racism at someone. If one were to be persuaded by the Left’s rhetoric, our society is hopelessly tainted by systemic racism at every turn. I have a problem with this worldview on so many levels. The most important is that it is patently not true of our world, especially here in America: today! America’s history (and world history in general) is replete with example after example of the stains of systemic racism in our past, to include our recent past, but with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 life for the African American has not been plagued by systemic racism. Racism, yes, but not systemic racism in the slightest.
Let there be no mistaking my position or cultural awareness. Racism is alive and well, just as ageism, sexism, and a whole slew of other isms that will continue to plague our world until Jesus Christ returns and sets His feet upon the Mount of Olives to begin His reign to usher in the Millennium Kingdom. Yet, there is a vast gulf between racism (what has always taken place and regrettably always will) and systemic racism. A brief history lesson I have communicated on several occasions to adherents of systemic racism being a clear and present danger. Stokely Carmichael, a prominent Civil Rights advocate during the 60s, was the first person to employ the term. I believe he actually used the term institutional racism. Institutional racism and systemic racism are interchangeable terms, so I will stay with the flavor of the day: systemic racism. Systemic racism is when an entity (hence the original term by Carmichael of institutional) develops and implements a policy that materially adversely affects people based on their skin color. Examples like the Poll Tax or the Literacy Test used against the Negro during the Jim Crow era would be systemic racism examples. Remember the root word of systemic. It is the word system. Of course, the word itself has many variants of meaning, but for our context, we can use this one from Merriam Webster: a form of social, economic, or political organization or practice.
This definition is crucial if we are to have a meaningful dialogue. The individual does not and cannot perform systemic racism. That is simple racism, and I readily concede that it has and will always reside in this human experiment. Sadly, many on the Left, naively and gravely damaging, attempt to postulate African Americans are not capable of racism. That is friggin pure lunacy, and I submit the reader must reject whole cloth. Frankly, it is an insult of the highest magnitude.
America has no books on the law that can be correctly viewed as a practice to suppress any person’s rights or liberty based on sex, race, religion, or creed. This truth is unassailable. Whereas during Jim Crow African Americans just had to accept that the school their child attended would be materially inferior to the school of his Caucasian counterpart, thankfully, that reality is no longer possible. Now, the Caucasian counterpart can still adopt and employ racist animus against the African American student, but his racism is not systemic.
Even after taking the time to give the historical context of how the term systemic racism first arose and providing example after example, I was the individual who was still chided for being defective in my thinking. I am flabbergasted at the hubris and lack of historical context by my friends from the Left.
Any sane person readily concedes racism still exists prominently in the world today. There used to be a time in US history where a Caucasian could perpetrate a despicable atrocity against African Americans with impunity. Americans would freely and brazenly celebrate the event and have both the act and the celebration chronicled in the newspaper the following day. That was then, and thankfully, this is not the tenor of America today. Withstanding my thoughts on the State of Minnesota’s actions, I nonetheless note the State of Minnesota took immediate actions to award the family of George Floyd twenty-seven million dollars. They did so even before the criminal matters concerning Floyd were adjudicated. That act alone demonstrated how far our country has come, though we surely still have significant ground to cover.
Postulating that racism still exists is akin to postulating that water is wet. You are not communicating anything noteworthy when you postulate racism still exists. Yet, when I hear African American after African American naively spout the company line I know something is seriously amiss. They are simply parroting the company line without even realizing that there has never been a better time for the African American to flourish on so many levels. Let me explain before your head explodes. Our society is so keen to reflect diversity many of our educational institutions, including our elite institutions, literally scour the known world to find minority students to matriculate at the place of higher learning. Many elite programs continually struggle to find minority candidates to meet their diversity goals. For instance, since African Americans comprise thirteen per cent of the US population institutions are energetic to see that number of African Americans in their respective programs.
The system, i.e., the government, is not systemically employing or displaying racism towards African Americans. President Biden strategically chooses an African American as his running mate for Pete’s sake. In addition, President Biden chose General Lloyd Austin to serve as his Secretary of Defense, a first in US History.
If African Americans apply themselves, there are opportunities available to this generation that the generation before me longed for and spilled blood, sweat, and tears so future African American generations could claim the American dream. So, it is sad all I hear from the race-baiters are the greatest ills affecting African Americans is systemic racism. I am going to speak a wee bit edgy here, but that is how I roll, so you will have to choose to grin and bear it or cancel me and eliminate me from any future dialogue. I respond as my late Dad always responded when he thought something was foolish: Negro, Please!
In a future blog post, I will detail my next chief complaint about African Americans deploying systemic racism as the principal cause for African American pathology. The principal cause of African American pathology is internal vice external. The African American community’s ills will never change significantly until we properly address black-on-black crime, lack of fathers in the home, exorbitantly high incarceration rate, to name just a few of the maladies.
What I am finding most alarming is several of my close friends are captivated by this ill-conceived ideology. They are highly educated, with advanced degrees, and highly accomplished in their respective fields. But they are Woke on steroids.
If this is the symptom of being Woke, then put me to bed interminably. This thinking, or in this case, this lack of thinking, is maddening. My most significant frustration is I see no hope on the horizon. The Bible convinces me the secular, God-hating ideology will only progress. As usual, let me know what you think. Until then, keep your hands to the plow and seek to serve for an Audience of One.