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Comment by AnimalMuppet | Hacker News Reader

> a lack of generational wealth, de facto segregation, racial profiling in policing and so on.

That's what's always bugged me about people saying "systemic racism". They never could tell me what it is. You are the first person I have read who can actually say something concrete, something I can actually understand.

I had assumed that, because nobody could actually say what it is, that it was just a nebulous term being tossed around to make whites feel guilty. Now I'm going to have to re-think that.

So, congratulations. You made me think. That's about the highest compliment possible on HN...

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Thanks, I'm glad I could help.

FWIW sometimes I'm not sure that the people using the term know what it means either. They often use it but then the attempted solution is basically to call out perceived racism in individuals, which will obviously do nothing to help these problems. The root self perpetuating problem is the poverty trap, combined with the racial aspects of segregation and profiling.

Systemic solutions would be things like investing more into inner city schools than the national average, targeted educational and entrepreneurial assistance for enterprising people from poor black backgrounds (I have a sneaking suspicion that many of the current progressive outreach programs are taken up by already-middle-class black people, which doesn't help solve the problem, but I hope I'm wrong) and other measures designed to provide ladders out of poverty to a large number of people at once. You basically need to provide elevated opportunities.

That you feel you are identifying solutions, or even a definition, not understood or pursued by people creating things like microinequity training, just reveals your ignorance.

I think my earlier comment which you described as a “no u” comeback was actually really apt and crystal clearly accurate based on your follow-ups.

You have not provided any evidence for this claim. And in fact, the very concept of "microinequity" (whatever that might mean) is at the opposite end of the spectrum from anything systemic.

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