Educating DMarks about systemic racism

Once again, correspondent DMarks disagreed with one of my postings: The Myth of Reverse Racism. Once again, he's wrong and I'm right.

DMarks wrote:There is no reverse racism. It is all racism, and it does indeed include instances such as affirmative action denying white people of jobs just due to their skin color.Tim Wise addressed your affirmation action "argument" in the passage I quoted. Go ahead and dispute his points if you can.

Simply declaring that he's wrong--that affirmative action is racist--isn't an argument. It's an assertion of your beliefs. It's the opposite of what I'm looking for and a waste of our time.

DMarks also disagreed with the cartoon I posted:

The final comic, by the way is completely invalid, since it doesn't look at people as individuals, but only generalizes on race.No, this cartoon is completely valid as a generalization about the ongoing racism in America, which is perpetuated by institutions that no one person can change. Your ignorance of this structural, systemic racism doesn't change the fact of it. You obviously can't touch it with anything resembling an argument, so you simply wish it out of (your) existence.

As a white man, you're a perfect example of white privilege in action. You don't experience racism against your entire social group, so you can't imagine such a thing. You can't imagine laws or policies that discriminate against an entire race. The only racism you recognize is on the individual level.

Poor whites, rich blacks?Downtrodden, poor whites almost outnumber Blacks... a reality ignored in this comic.Tim Wise talks about the "downtrodden, poor whites" in many of his essays on race. As he's noted many times, blacks face discrimination beyond that faced by poor whites.

Again, your ignorance of his arguments, despite his making them repeatedly, says more about your obtuseness than anything. You're literally ignoring anything that doesn't fit your white worldview.

And who's trying to help poor whites as well as poor blacks? By extending unemployment benefits, food stamps, and other parts of the social safety net? Liberals, that's who.

Conservatives don't care about poor whites much more than they care about poor blacks. They'd be okay if the world's poor people shriveled up and died. That way, rich people wouldn't have to deal with them.



Rich and upper middle class blacks exist in large numbers, another reality ignored.Which numbers would those be? Quit making fact-free assertions and provide the evidence to back your claims.

I've addressed the idiotic claim that Obama proves we're in a post-racial world many times. Mostly recently, in The Obama/Oprah Myth.

Go ahead and address the myth if you can--again, using facts and evidence to support your claims. Your faith-based belief in the goodness of white-majority institutions doesn't interest me.

Returning to the cartoon, my basic response to you is...so? Poor whites need help despite the lack of racism against them. Rich blacks don't need help despite the racism against them. And...?

What does the existence of these two groups have to do with racism against the third group: poor blacks who don't have the means to overcome racism? Nothing whatsoever?

It's like saying, "Dogs have fleas, but cats also have fleas, and fish don't have fleas. Therefore, dogs having fleas isn't a valid concern." Apparently you don't realize how ridiculous your "argument" sounds.

Systemic racism > individual racism

This posting is a typical example of how you conservatives deny, defend, or excuse the racism in our midst. Talking about how individual whites discriminate against individual blacks is missing the forest for the trees.

For every example of "individual" racism you could come up with, I could come up with several of institutional, structural, or systemic racism. By seeing only one kind of racism and ignoring others, you're missing most of America's racism.Any individual denied opportunity due to skin color is a victim of real racism.Yes, and any group denied opportunities due to skin color is a victim of real racism also. Institutions such as governments, businesses, and universities discriminate against racial groups as a whole, dummy, not just against individuals.

Are you even aware of these laws and policies? Was the South's Jim Crow legal structure just a matter of individuals discriminating against individuals? How about corporations such as the Washington Redskins, Urban Outfitters, or Victoria's Secret that use racist marketing techniques? How about Supreme Court decisions that refuse to recognize tribal sovereignty because white Christians "discovered" America? How are any of these racist examples a matter of denying opportunities to individuals?

They aren't, obviously. They're all example of institutional racism against groups. You've seen such examples in this blog--thousands of them--yet you don't understand them. Worse, as this posting proves, you ignore them. Hence the proper use of the term "ignoramus" to describe you.

P.S. to Anonymous: No, I'm not going to ban DMarks. But I may set some of my postings on racism to "no comments"--including this one. Any content-free comments that amount to "I disagree" or "You're wrong" are a waste of everyone's time.

If anyone wants to respond to this, you can e-mail me. If you come up with a valid argument--one I haven't addressed and dismissed already--I'll post it.