Race and Racism
I am mostly familiar with this topic as it related to the United States. While I know that other nations have their own specific issues with race, I am not well-versed enough to discuss them at this time.
Systemic Racism
Systemic racism is a demonstrable, provable facet of life for racial minorities in the United States, especially for Black Americans, Latin Americans, and Native Americans. These groups face disproportionate disadvantages in almost every aspect of American society: income, hiring, political power, education, housing, lending, healthcare, criminal justice; even in romance and interpersonal relationships.
When we say “systemic racism” (which can generally be used interchangeably with the term “institutional racism”) we mean that discrimination and oppression is inherent to the very systems and institutions that our society is founded upon. So systemic racism does not necessarily require any individual to be racist, because it is the systems themselves that need to be overhauled. For example, because minorities are more likely to be poor and less educated, they tend to be less qualified for high paying jobs, which in turn causes them to be more likely to be poor and less educated—and the cycle continues. Solving this problem will involve taking a look at the root cause of this deadly system. Teaching employers to be “less racist” is unlikely to be the answer.
However, systemic racism is often upheld and enforced by racist actions and policies executed by individuals with power. For example, a judge who mistrusts black people may inflict a harsher sentence on a black defendant, thus reinforcing the systemic oppression of black people within the criminal justice institution.
I believe that implicit bias plays a large role in upholding systemic racism. Various surveys and studies indicate that racial minorities (especially black people) are more likely to be perceived as threatening, untrustworthy, unkind, or unattractive. This does not necessarily mean that people with these prejudices are evil, many of these biases are a result of social conditioning through media and our upbringing. Nevertheless, these biases when applied at a macro level may play a role in systemic racism. Employers, cops, judges, lenders, and voters are all individuals with biases; and as they go about life and make important decisions that affect other people, the prejudicial effect potentially adds up.
The word “Racist”
Many people become extremely defensive when the word “racist” is thrown out. Some argue that the word has lost all meaning due to overuse, and that we should instead use terms like “insensitive” or “racially charged”. My view is that we should normalize the use of words like “racist” and “racism” so as not to sugar coat and risk muddying the message. Doing so may help people understand that all these things are related, and all these things are part of the problem. When I say that someone has done something racist, I am not implying that that person is an evil neo-Nazi KKK member. I am simply pointing out how even the average person can contribute to a culture that oppresses racial minorities. In some ways racism is inevitable for members of a dominant racial group. Since it is impossible for a White American to have the lived experience of a racial minority, it is likewise impossible for them to be 100% sensitive to the plight of other groups.
Additionally, I tend not to use the word “Racist” as a noun, as in, “That guy is a racist!” To me that seems to involve attempting to read someone’s heart and mind, which I have no interest in doing. A person who is not a racist can still perform actions that are racist; so I find it much more useful to discuss racist actions or racist policies rather than racist people. This is not to say that there are no racists, though. Some people very clearly act as if other races/ethnicities are either inferior, unpleasant, or undeserving of equal treatment/respect; and have a very obvious pattern of public behavior to prove it. Examples of such people are Jared Taylor and Donald Trump.