Out of the Woods

Systemic Racism

In the last two weeks we have witnessed the astonishing phenomenon of one very large, very rich corporation after the other announcing their commitment of millions and millions of dollars to an effort to combat systemic racism. In their statements the leaders of these corporations suggest that they have been enemies of systemic racism forever but I think we are allowed to be somewhat skeptical of that claim.

This sudden commitment to antiracism is surprising and, we should of course add, welcome. Also surprising is the commitment to oppose systemic racism. This is a relatively new term and it is worth a bit of time trying to figure out what it means.

What makes racism systemic?

The phrase suggests that the injuries black Americans complain of are not inflicted by individuals but by systems – social, economic and other systems. That sounds as if racist injuries are not perpetrated by individual persons, by you and me, but by this whole other kind of entity, a system. If that is true I do not have to feel guilty about racism because I am not responsible. It's the system, stupid.

But what are these systems?

Perhaps if we look at a concrete example, we can figure this out. In the town where I live, sociologists at a state college studied the rates at which children of different backgrounds are punished and are sent home from school. They found that black children and Latinx children were suspended at a much higher rate relative to their numbers in this school population, than the white children.

Clearly the suspensions were imposed on specific students by specific teachers. So far the racist situation – that children of color were suspended much more frequently than white children – was brought about through the action of individual teachers. We have not found the system yet.

We encounter the systemic nature of this racist situation only when we look at the entire school department, the popularly elected school committee and their reaction to this crisis. It turns out that both the school administration and the elected school committee are not troubled by the uneven rates of suspension of children of color and white children. They accept this as perfectly normal.

The standards for punishment and specifically for suspension from school applied to different groups of children are different for children of color than for white children. The educational system – the School Department and the elected School Committee – accepts racial inequities as fair and normal. Racist disadvantages are built in to the educational system in our town. The actions of individual teachers in applying these unequal standards are simply executing the disadvantages the educational system imposes on children of color.

These individual teachers are, of course, responsible for following the racist rules set by the educational system. They cannot deny their responsibility. They are responsible for not seeing the injustices they perpetrate, for not speaking up, and resisting. But they are only partially responsible. They say "I don't make the rules--I just work here."

In order to address the systemic racism, the rules of the system need to be addressed and changed. Most likely the process by which the rules are produced also needs to come under scrutiny and be improved.

But where do these systems come from? We have schools, we have businesses. Cities must be run and for each of those there are administrative systems. What makes them racist? Why are there so few teachers of color in our schools? Why is City Hall lily white? Why do our businesses have so few leaders of color?

Why are rules applied more harshly to children of color than to white children? Why are black children perceived as threatening where the same behaviors of white children are not? White teachers and administrators read black children differently from how they interpret stances and attitudes of children of color. Whites share a subtle and complex method of interpretation specific to children of color which they often are not fully aware of.

Our present situation is remarkable because white people – some white people – are beginning to be willing to give a frank answer to all these questions: it is because white people believe that they are superior, that they are entitled to privileges that most persons of color do not deserve. Because white people are superior, they should have the leadership positions, they should have the jobs you can do from home, and people of color should have the hands-on jobs and should be the people who are ordered around by white supervisors. Given their beliefs in their superiority, white people – all white people – support racist rules in their different institutional systems.

The members of each of these systems need to reflect carefully about the ways in which they have supported in the past and still support rules that are clearly unjust and that do not acknowledge the full equality of all citizens regardless of the color of their skin or their origin from different parts of the globe.

From the very beginning of our history, we have been officially committed to the equality of all persons. At the same time we have treated persons with dark skin as inferior. They have with admirable tenacity gained a certain amount of recognition for their full humanity. White people have been persuaded to see the justice of their cause. We need to continue the work to make real our guiding principle that "all men [and women] are created equal."

In the last two weeks we have witnessed the astonishing phenomenon of one very large, very rich corporation after the other announcing their commitment of millions and millions of dollars to an effort to combat systemic racism. In their statements the leaders of these corporations suggest that they have been enemies of systemic racism forever but I think we are allowed to be somewhat skeptical of that claim.

This sudden commitment to antiracism is surprising and, we should of course add, welcome. Also surprising is the commitment to oppose systemic racism. This is a relatively new term and it is worth a bit of time trying to figure out what it means.

What makes racism systemic?

The phrase suggests that the injuries black Americans complain of are not inflicted by individuals but by systems – social, economic and other systems. That sounds as if racist injuries are not perpetrated by individual persons, by you and me, but by this whole other kind of entity, a system. If that is true I do not have to feel guilty about racism because I am not responsible. It's the system, stupid.

But what are these systems?

Perhaps if we look at a concrete example, we can figure this out. In the town where I live, sociologists at a state college studied the rates at which children of different backgrounds are punished and are sent home from school. They found that black children and Latinx children were suspended at a much higher rate relative to their numbers in this school population, than the white children.

Clearly the suspensions were imposed on specific students by specific teachers. So far the racist situation – that children of color were suspended much more frequently than white children – was brought about through the action of individual teachers. We have not found the system yet.

We encounter the systemic nature of this racist situation only when we look at the entire school department, the popularly elected school committee and their reaction to this crisis. It turns out that both the school administration and the elected school committee are not troubled by the uneven rates of suspension of children of color and white children. They accept this as perfectly normal.

The standards for punishment and specifically for suspension from school applied to different groups of children are different for children of color than for white children. The educational system – the School Department and the elected School Committee – accepts racial inequities as fair and normal. Racist disadvantages are built in to the educational system in our town. The actions of individual teachers in applying these unequal standards are simply executing the disadvantages the educational system imposes on children of color.

These individual teachers are, of course, responsible for following the racist rules set by the educational system. They cannot deny their responsibility. They are responsible for not seeing the injustices they perpetrate, for not speaking up, and resisting. But they are only partially responsible. They say "I don't make the rules--I just work here."

In order to address the systemic racism, the rules of the system need to be addressed and changed. Most likely the process by which the rules are produced also needs to come under scrutiny and be improved.

But where do these systems come from? We have schools, we have businesses. Cities must be run and for each of those there are administrative systems. What makes them racist? Why are there so few teachers of color in our schools? Why is City Hall lily white? Why do our businesses have so few leaders of color?

Why are rules applied more harshly to children of color than to white children? Why are black children perceived as threatening where the same behaviors of white children are not? White teachers and administrators read black children differently from how they interpret stances and attitudes of children of color. Whites share a subtle and complex method of interpretation specific to children of color which they often are not fully aware of.

Our present situation is remarkable because white people – some white people – are beginning to be willing to give a frank answer to all these questions: it is because white people believe that they are superior, that they are entitled to privileges that most persons of color do not deserve. Because white people are superior, they should have the leadership positions, they should have the jobs you can do from home, and people of color should have the hands-on jobs and should be the people who are ordered around by white supervisors. Given their beliefs in their superiority, white people – all white people – support racist rules in their different institutional systems.

The members of each of these systems need to reflect carefully about the ways in which they have supported in the past and still support rules that are clearly unjust and that do not acknowledge the full equality of all citizens regardless of the color of their skin or their origin from different parts of the globe.

From the very beginning of our history, we have been officially committed to the equality of all persons. At the same time we have treated persons with dark skin as inferior. They have with admirable tenacity gained a certain amount of recognition for their full humanity. White people have been persuaded to see the justice of their cause. We need to continue the work to make real our guiding principle that "all men [and women] are created equal."