By the brilliant John McWhorter. An excerpt:
"If the mantra is that what we need to do to solve black America’s problems is “get rid of systemic racism,” we’re in trouble. That analysis, be it explicit or tacit, is based on a third-grader’s understanding of how a society works. More importantly, that analysis does not help black people and often hurts us."
And: "All discrepancies between blacks and whites are not due to “racism” – or, the racism involved was so far in the past that battling “racism” now would be impossible. The word racism hits our brain centers where we process the personal, the offense – we bristle. The term systemic racism cannot help but fire up the same bundles of neurons – we think the society is “a racist” deserving the same treatment as the racist person. Not if we think about it consciously, of course – but so much of being human is subconscious. When someone stands before us and intones about “systemic racism” we think on a certain level of “a racist,” bigotry."
He is not saying racism isn't still a problem, isn't still an obstacle in the way of the lives of black Americans. He just believes that it's not the only obstacle, that entire systems are racist roadblocks to black people. It's one of many. One can disagree, but lets have a respectful discussion about it.
It's not one of his best pieces - it needs some editing to make it "tighter" and flow more smoothly; but he has some interesting observations. The rest is here:
https://tinyurl.com/4fpus2pbTo join up or read about his great and much needed organization "Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism", go here:
https://www.fairforall.org/
