A continuation of "Wanted: facts to destroy racism (and sexism as well)"

[xxxxxx666666]

Hi all,

This is a continuation of "Wanted: facts to destroy racism (and sexism as well)" that I've had started in discrimination and will continue here: (and apologies for not starting the thread here instead of there)

Anyway, here are my questions: does institutional racism still exist, and if so where?

From the above mentioned thread:


Are you familiar with the crack cocaine/powder cocaine laws in the United States? Prison statistics? Things like that represent institutional racism.

That Rwanda argument could be turned around and be part of a history of race as a social construct, explaining how the ruling class creates the idea of race and how different groups are different races at different times for political purposes.

You seem like you're really new to radical politics, and that's nothing to be ashamed of, but I think you're not being bold enough in your ideas here.

Personally, I don't see the point in arguing with a white supremacist. If you really want to practice for that debate, buy a punching bag

I must admit, no, I am not aware of the laws, and (from my knowledge) the crack cocaine/powder cocaine laws could be applied to Whites as well.

Again I admit I'm ignorant so feel free to disprove me.

And how am I not begin bold?

And how are we going to bring about "in real social change" if we can't convince people, Takayuki?

(Then again I admit I'm new to this so feel free to enlighten me)

And of course my idea for "real social change" would be along the ideas of Project Cybersyn (it's a former Chile computer that controlled the economy during the time the Communist were in power, in case anyone is curious) and have a similar project control the economy and so on.

But I'm curious as to how you all are planning to bring about your social change and what your ideas are.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Anyway, here are my questions: does institutional racism still exist, and if so where?I'd say in capitalism oppression is systemic, so in the US racism is systemic in nature or inseperable from the order of capitalism here specifically. Racism is systemic in the US because this is part of how the ruling class manages the class dynamics here: certain groups are ideological scapegoats ("they cause crime and abuse serives that cause working class life to be chaotic and miserable") and legal inequalities and employment inequalities help create a lower rung of the working class which ends up dividing people on class lines making it harder for workers to find common cause (crudely: white workers struggle and so they try and cling to what little they have, black workers are excluded more and so blame the white people and then there is no solidarity from either group on a class basis... again this is a very crude oversimplification). If unemployement, repressive policing, etc were done equally throught the class, it would be much easier to see that we have common cause.

Institutional racism (and maybe I'm wrong on this connotation) suggests to me, regular specific practices that are racist. So companies that regurlarly do not hire black people would be "institutional racism", bank practices where black people or other groups are specifically targeted for bad loans (or in the past were red-lined due to business interests as well as the way the government advised bank policies).

For the sake of clarity, I'm just going to talk about anti-black racism in order to simplify things here. Currently the biggest example of institutional racism is in the justic system. It takes little effort to scratch the surface and see that objectivly black people are targeted by policing (stop and frisk is a glaring example, but it exists throughout US policing). Drug crimes are the biggest part of the justice system resulting in disproportionate rates of blacks being caught up in some level of the justice system (parole or prison) and yet blacks and whites use drugs in equal rates. Crime is generally segregated (as most of US society is informally) and so white suburbanites buy drugs from white suburbanites, rich college kids buy drugs from other college kids and people in urban black neighborhoods buy drugs from other people in that neighborhood. But college dorms are not targeted by SWAT operations and heavy drug busts and searches whereas black people are stoped in "pretext" stops while driving or (increasingly) stop and frisk policies while walking. The Supreme Court has aknowledged racial inequalities in policing, sentancing, and the death penalty... but since the late 90s has ruled that explicit intent of racial oppression is needed in order to challenge these things in court... in other words, stop and frisk policies that target black people are fine unless the officer says, "we want to patrol this neighborhood because of black people". If they do the same thing but say, "we want to patrol this neighborhood because there is drug dealing" then that is fine by the courts even if they regularly target that black neighborhood and never do the same thing in a white yuppie/hipster neighborhood where there is also a lot of black market selling.

It goes much much deeper and broader than that just in the justice system just for black males... it is difficult to sum up because it is so broad and exists in so many different institutions than just the police/prison system. This is because it's not just specific institutions but a much larger problem of systemic racial oppression in US capitalism which gets reflected in or is connected to various specific institutions.