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Comment by blueflow | Hacker News Reader

> The causality fits very well into our world view. It also gives a very "simple fix".

> Social, governmental, institutional and systemic racism.

Some people use video games as bogeyman, some people use time spent online, and you just used racism. Could it be that you are from the US (alternatively: from the anglosphere) and i am not?

At this point i find it hilarious how US people point at every second problem and be like, "racism is behind this". I hope i'm not the only one who feels this is some kind of insane.

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Systemic racism is the QAnon theory of the left. Every disparity between races has one simple explanation, racism, disregarding all other possible causes. The data contradicts the narrative but data doesn’t matter as long as they believe it’s right.

> Systemic racism is the QAnon theory of the left.

No, its not.

> Every disparity between races has one simple explanation, racism, disregarding all other possible causes.

No, “systemic racism” is not “all racial disparities are caused by racism”. It is “some racial disparities are caused by institutional features that may seem racially neutral on shallow analysis but which structurally disadvantage particular races”.

> The data contradicts the narrative

Well, it certainly contradicts your strawman narrative, but that has nothing to do with what systemic racism is about.

Ok, so what are the disparities that aren’t caused by racism?

Man, this counter-question is surprisingly good at exposing the dogmatic "all disparities are caused by *isms" thinking in people. Bookmarked!

While it's always a good thought exercise to ask oneself "what else might (partially) produce this result", that does not mean one is equipped to answer it accurately.

Additionally, if your goal is to "expose" people instead of working with them to figure out what is happening, then all you will ever find are exposures. That doesn't mean that's all there is to find.

People who insist that disparities in people are caused by _isms are just delusional. If i had to guess, these people are insecure and want to do these "endangered minorities" a favor to feel better about themselves. But i don't really know for sure.

I say this is a emotionally driven pattern and nothing rational or fact-based. In my eyes, the "systemic _ism" is just a pretext, the kind of pretext people make up to conceptualize their feelings. And i think it needs to be exposed to prevent it from interfering with the constructive talk.

What caused me to be bugged by irjustin's post: They accurately point out how humans pick the easy answers even when they are wrong, and he continues to make the exact same mistake in their next line. Just, how? Is it easier pointing at others than to reflect upon yourself?

S8E18 of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (granted, a left leaning show) had a rather interesting section into Housing discrimination ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_discrimination_in_th... )

I think most people, right or left leaning, could agree to recognize that as systemic racism?

It used to be there were laws enforcing racial segregation, that was systemic racism. Those laws are gone yet the effects still persist. But when there is discrimination now it is caused by individual actions, there is no system behind it anymore. So is that still systemic racism?

Furthermore, how do we know housing discrimination is caused by racism instead of class? If a landlord doesn't want to rent to black Americans he's racist. If he doesn't want to rent to white Americans he's not. But what if in both cases he's worried about not getting rent because of perceived class, is one racism and the other not?

literally got turned down to purchase property in a manufactured home park yesterday; because they have a "minimum credit score 670" rule for occupants. (My credit score is >750; but the unit was going to be occupied by my daughter who has some chronic health issues).

if that's not housing discrimination, I don't know what is.

Now look at which races are overrepresented in which classes and you will understand systemic racism. Intent of the landlord is irrelevant.

> classes

IMHO this is the elephant in the room. The US is a bad place for poor people, and the black folks are overrepresented in the poorer social classes.

The social and economical system of the US is failing, and media and politicians are sprouting anti-racist slogans to distract attention away from their failings to improve the living conditions of the poor.

Its not racism, its poverty that is eating the country.

See, this is exactly the fallacy I'm talking about. Black Americans are poorer on average so naturally it's because of systemic racism. It's the only explanation.

When we look at Nigerian Americans we see they earn more than whites and they are more educated than whites. We see the same with other ethnic minorities. If class was determined by the color of someone's skin this would be impossible. Clearly there are other factors at play.

Political discourse in the US would be a lot more healthy if the focus was on class instead of race.

One argument made in the episode was that since only white people could get mortgage loans the wealth generated from owning property, was exclusive to them. Which is more or less the wealth that defines the middle class today?

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