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Comment by vimy | Hacker News Reader

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?

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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.

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?

> 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.

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