Comment by jyounker | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jyounker | Hacker News Reader

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> It's ridiculous to assume that there's even some intrinsic "racial hierarchy" to begin with

Yea, it is ridiculous to assume that there is an intrinsic racial hierarchy. That doesn't mean that that US doesn't have one though. If you need evidence, just look at incarceration rates, police shooting rates, property ownership rates, intergenerational wealth, representation in government, hiring disparities, educational disparities, medical treatment disparities, etc. There are clear disparities that break down along racial lines, and from the numbers it looks like african americans and native americans are at the bottom.

> despite what twitter says that's largely not due to any deeply rooted systemic issue

Who needs to consult twitter to know about the US's history of racial oppression targeted at black people, and its lingering intergenerational effects?

* Redlining: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining * GI Bill restrictions for black soldiers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Bill * Block busting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockbusting * Racially based deed restrictions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covenant_(law)#:~:text=In%20th....

And then you can get into things like urban renewal of the fifties, sixties, and seventies. Frequently the "renewed" areas were thriving black neighborhoods. And then the US, as a country, ignores that these things happened.

It's really comforting to imagine that today's problems aren't a result of things in the past that our ancestors (or even just parents) were complicit in, but that isn't the world we live in.

Current economic consequences of historic oppression are, while unfortunate, not indicative of current, on-going oppression.

It's also quite misleading to throw out statistics like incarceration rates, police shootings, etc and assume it's automatically because of racism and not instead indicative of the violent culture that become pervasive in many black urban communities. I have no doubt that part of it does stem from racial prejudice, but let's not pretend like that's the only or even a major contributor to those statistics.

As for the other disparities, those are largely a result of poverty/low-income, not racism. I hear "well that's still pretty much racism since black americans are the poorest demographic" and that's not true. It's not the same because it isn't racism. It's unfortunate that historic events have made black americans the poorest demographic, but poor white, asian, hispanic, etc families have very much the same issues. Check those same numbers but control for income and see for yourself how it isn't racism but is classism.

Instead of harping on about the imagined ingrained racism in america let's face the real issue, which is cyclical poverty. The black community is the most effected by this due to relatively recent oppression, but they aren't the sole suffering demographic.

Was what happened in the past awful? Yes. Are some people still suffering today as a result? Yes. Does that mean that america still has ongoing systemic racism? No. When controlling for income, we all have very near equal opportunity to succeed or fail.

So these policies existed up until the 1980s, but the sentiment driving them has somehow gone away? Classism is an over-cited reason used to remove the issue of race from the discussion. Jim Crow applied to all blacks, regardless of class. Housing covenants denied the sale to blacks regardless of class.

Okay what laws are there in 2022 that are harmful to black americans in any given economic bracket that are not also harmful to other demographics in the same economic bracket?

You keep bringing up how black americans were oppressed but can't seem to articulate what systemic racism still exists today. The only semblance of oppression left is the economic consequences of the past, which I've already spoken on.

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