I would argue "systemic racism" can actually be tested, statistically. Systemic racism typically implies that a policy was intentionally or subconsciously implemented to harm black people without directly discriminating against black people (a control example might be literacy tests for voting in Jim Crow South). We can get an idea of th…
I would argue "systemic racism" can actually be tested, statistically. Systemic racism typically implies that a policy was intentionally or subconsciously implemented to harm black people without directly discriminating against black people (a control example might be literacy tests for voting in Jim Crow South). We can get an idea of the plausibility of systemic racism as an explanation for a policy by seeing if it is associated with racial composition or racial animosity across societies and time periods.
So take drug laws, which are often said to be systemic racism because offenders are disproportionately black. We can see though that drugs outlawed in the US are pretty much universally illegal, including in countries that are ethnically homogeneous, and in countries that are overwhelmingly black. The fact that the illegality of narcotics is basically invariant to whether racism is even a plausible motive for it in a society pretty strongly suggests are drug laws would still exist in the US in fairly similar form even if no American was ever racist or even if black people were never brought to America.
IOW, to demonstrate a policy is an instance of systemic racism, one must show that the policy tends to be absent when it wouldn't serve a racist purpose, e.g., it's as common in countries or states lacking the supposedly targeted racial group, or significant racial minorities in general. Not that I expect proponents of systemic racism as an explanation for disparities will adopt this test, but it is to an extent a statistically testable claim.
> We can see though that drugs outlawed in the US are pretty much universally illegal, including in countries that are ethnically homogeneous, and in countries that are overwhelmingly black. The fact that the illegality of narcotics is basically invariant to whether racism is even a plausible motive for it in a society pretty strongly suggests are drug laws would still exist in the US in fairly similar form even if no American was ever racist or even if black people were never brought to America.
Another interpretation is that America is so influential internationally that a lot of other countries are willing to follow its lead on drug policy.
China outlawed opium way before the US dud. Only one data point but the outlawing of opiates certainly goes back a long way in most countries, before America’s postwar hegemony.
I would argue "systemic racism" can actually be tested, statistically. Systemic racism typically implies that a policy was intentionally or subconsciously implemented to harm black people without directly discriminating against black people (a control example might be literacy tests for voting in Jim Crow South). We can get an idea of the plausibility of systemic racism as an explanation for a policy by seeing if it is associated with racial composition or racial animosity across societies and time periods.
So take drug laws, which are often said to be systemic racism because offenders are disproportionately black. We can see though that drugs outlawed in the US are pretty much universally illegal, including in countries that are ethnically homogeneous, and in countries that are overwhelmingly black. The fact that the illegality of narcotics is basically invariant to whether racism is even a plausible motive for it in a society pretty strongly suggests are drug laws would still exist in the US in fairly similar form even if no American was ever racist or even if black people were never brought to America.
IOW, to demonstrate a policy is an instance of systemic racism, one must show that the policy tends to be absent when it wouldn't serve a racist purpose, e.g., it's as common in countries or states lacking the supposedly targeted racial group, or significant racial minorities in general. Not that I expect proponents of systemic racism as an explanation for disparities will adopt this test, but it is to an extent a statistically testable claim.
> We can see though that drugs outlawed in the US are pretty much universally illegal, including in countries that are ethnically homogeneous, and in countries that are overwhelmingly black. The fact that the illegality of narcotics is basically invariant to whether racism is even a plausible motive for it in a society pretty strongly suggests are drug laws would still exist in the US in fairly similar form even if no American was ever racist or even if black people were never brought to America.
Another interpretation is that America is so influential internationally that a lot of other countries are willing to follow its lead on drug policy.
China outlawed opium way before the US dud. Only one data point but the outlawing of opiates certainly goes back a long way in most countries, before America’s postwar hegemony.