The Problem Of When White Liberals Talk About Systemic Racism

I love Jon Stewart. I have since the 90's. So I'm glad that he's doing his shows again.
However, his latest episode The Problem With White People, really got on my nerves. In case you didn't get the message from Jon Steward, Leslie Jones did The Racist Spectrum on Stewart's show (which I watched about 10 seconds).

Here's the thing, there IS systemic racism in this country. There's been systemic racism here since the 17th Century. That's not up for debate.
The Problem Of When Liberals Talk About Systemic Racism is that they don't really understand the word "systemic". Liberals are in such a rush to signal their virtue so that they can get to their favorite thing - feeling superior - that they skip the part that actually matters (systemic) to focus on the perceived racism of people with less power.

Here's what it comes down to: Systemic means "system". As in the political and economic system has built in racism.
So who had the ability of designing a system with racism in it? I'll give you a hint: It sure as Hell wasn't poor white people!
Despite whatever wealthy liberals might tell you, poor people (white, black, or other) don't have a say in the configuration of the political and economic system. In fact, if you look at places, like say an inner-city ghetto, you'll find that it is far more racially diverse than, say a wealthy gated community. Poor whites live around and with poor blacks much more often than wealthy white liberals live around people of other races.

So when white liberals talk about real systemic racism, like RedLining, they fail to make the most basic observation: RedLining was mostly racism by the upper-middle and wealthy classes, not the working class. The working class usually couldn't just move.
I shouldn't have to tell you that the Hollywood, and media stereotype of a white racist is someone in the white working class. It's almost never someone who is wealthy. This narrative is so generally understood that it doesn't even need to be spoken out loud.
Yet who is more likely to be racist - the poor person living next to the family of another race, or the wealthy white person who moves to another community just to get away from black people?

Then there is the racist laws, such as the War On Drugs. Guess who wrote those laws? It wasn't the white working class. The working class, white or otherwise, has zero influence on the decisions of the lawmakers. Poor whites were also victims of the War on Drugs (albeit to a lesser degree).

Let's not overlook the importance of the systemic part. For instance, the under-funding of public school in poor neighborhoods. It's the upper classes that do this, both because they don't want their taxes to go help poor people, and because the wealthy want to privatize public schools so they can get more profit.
Poor white people don't want this. They get hurt by these policies to. Not just blacks.
And let's not forget health care, where the white working class overwhelmingly wants a single-payer health care system. Even Republicans voting white working class wants this. The black working class wants it to. Our health care system would not be able to discriminate via racism or classism, if we had universal health care.
Do you know who doesn't want everyone to get health care? The mostly white upper-classes.

It was the black community that insisted that the word "systemic" be added to the conversation about racism, and they were right to do so. White liberals pretended to understand why blacks included that word, but didn't really. To them it's just an adjective that makes them sound smarter.

The real problem is that liberals will not, under any circumstances, talk about class. And as long as everyone refuses to talk about class, then systemic racism will never even be addressed. Instead all that is happening is wealthy white liberals signaling their virtue, saying "Look at the systemic racism in our public schools, housing and prisons. If everyone stopped being racist like me, this would go away."
Wealthy white liberals are willfully ignorant and wrong on this issue. Because to acknowledge and tackle this problem honestly, they would have to question the very systems that have served them so well.

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studentofearth's picture

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Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.

In this system we have gone from government enacting programs and laws that apply to all citizens to rewarding and controlling numerous factions. The Capitalist Party excels at this. The wealthy want redlining, so local government, the banks, real estate agents all fall in line. Whatever they want there is a whole industry of enablers ready to fall in line.

Poor whites have as much chance in a wealthy gated community as POC. So much of American government is based on political propaganda and watching the little people fight over crumbs all the while bemoaning how "those lazy uncouth people" don't really deserve those crumbs. So much of this is class warfare fought with manufactured resentment as a smoke screen.

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The Liberal Moonbat's picture

What if I don't believe in "systems" to begin with?

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
― Philip K. Dick

The problem is that MOST of what's being talked about - "systems", "race", "countries", "government", "gender", "economy", et cetera ad nauseam - FAILS THE DICK TEST (and yes, I think I do endorse calling it "The Dick Test", because let's face it, prurience has legs).

This is just another example of how science and politics DO NOT MIX. The solutions in one field are literally the opposite of the solutions in the other: In the former field, awareness of facts must be accepted if they are to be solved, in the latter, acceptance of "reality" is exclusively for chumps (e.g. "vote for me because I'M MORE ELECTABLE").

This all just reinforces my thesis that the entire concept of "social science" - putatively instigated by Adam Smith, ratified by Marx and Engels, doubly ratified by "capitalist" reactionaries who accepted Marx's lingo then took ownership of it - has been a devolutionary catastrophe for the entire world, and needs to start getting shitcanned. Smith and Marx did both have a few interesting things to say, but for the most part, their legacies are an ENORMOUS step down from their 18th-Century predecessors. Thomas Paine and Voltaire in particular said most of what they had to say, and without the pseudoscience/religion. Enlightenment liberalism works like a dream, and it is what we need right now.

And yes, there is nothing "liberal" about these people you're talking about - they literally don't even believe in freedom of speech anymore. Call them what they are, why not?: Petty aristocrats. They have abandoned both middle-class values, and the very concept of the middle-class...but THAT is a polemic for another day.

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!