Systemic Racism

 Systemic racism is certainly one of the buzz words of 2020. I hadn't heard of the term before. And like many, I initially needed some education when the topic came up. Much as I did on what was expected by "defunding the police".

I think the biggest problem with systemic racism remains that most people don't actually understand what it is, or its implications. And the fault lies both with it's deniers and its supporters.

Systemic racism, or at the least systemic discrimination exists everywhere. That is a big part of what makes it systemic. So, anyone saying it is isn't in a particular country, industry or whatever is lying, unaware, or attempting to mislead.

But, equally, any one pushing for action against systemic racism and expecting change on any quick, measurable scale is also seemingly lost about the roots of systemic racism. And often makes mistakes when calling it out.

Many of the recent deaths for instance. Those weren't directly caused by systemic racism. If anything they were simply overt, pure racism. Sure, systemic racism plays a role. It affects of the mentality of those profiling people. And it can lead to people committing crimes, who, under other circumstances might not have. But, it is NOT the direct act of crushing a person's windpipe with you knee.

So, what IS systemic racism? Well, fundamentally, it just means that certain groups of people are living with circumstances which put them at an intrinsic disadvantage in society.

The best example I can think of to highlight this was an article I read some year back on an AI trained to find the best candidates for a job. Ultimately, the algorithm ended up finding trends in the data, and using them, which indicated a gender preference, regional preferences and so on. The training data was not made by people discriminating against these factors directly. And yet, these trends were pronounced enough that they outweighed more traditional hiring metrics in training the neural net.

The problem is that the trend existed. Even without anyone directly, or intentionally acting with prejudice, a bias which also cut along racial lines emerged. And, removing the data which helped turn the AI racist may have solved the racism inherent in the AI, but it wouldn't have addressed the systemic issue. 

Put another way; even if you removed the data points which helped it become biased against a person because of, say, their gender, then the algorithm would no longer be making determination directly on that factor. But would still learn to do so indirectly. And that is for the simple reason that the data contained that bias originally and systemic issues have deep tendrils. It may instead detect a trend in majors which women favor more heavily than men instead. Or trends in past employment which are more consistent with that gender.

And trust me, you WILL find that these patterns exist. And this is why I say that systemic racism is everywhere.

Systemic racism is as much to blame for who is arrested as it is for events which didn't happen. If the elements of society, such as wealth, education and health (to name just a few) were distributed across all people in a uniform, normalized fashion then you would end up with a uniform distribution across racial, gender, political and religious lines (along with any other discriminating factor you can think of) for things like jobs and crimes as well. THIS is the only way to address systemic racism. THIS is why I say it isn't going anywhere fast.

If we switch back to something like police treatment of visible minorities, there is not much contention that the same groups which are currently making a lot of noise about systemic racism, are also on average poorer, unhealthier and generally afforded fewer opportunities in life to advance. It is also generally accepted that factors such as these can be contributors as to the sort of lifestyle people have available to choose from.

Honestly, I don't like the term "systemic racism". As you can see, it isn't so much that there is a "system" which is racist. The wording makes it sound like there are machinations which can be changed which would address the issue. But, that isn't the case. It is really more of a "background racism" in the same way we have a universal, background radiation. Or a form of organic, social racism. 

This isn't to say that the problem is impossible to address or that we shouldn't try. It is more to say that the rhetoric about eliminating it at times is as daft as the claims that it doesn't exist in the first place as it would be impossible to eliminate it in living generations of people, and some of the underlying causes are almost impossible to address entirely.

In the generations of people already alive, it is hard to retroactively give them things like years of working experience, and equivalent educations. And, even if you made the education available, those beyond a certain age would be unlikely to accept it.

Furthermore, while there certainly ARE things we can address for future generations, there are other problems. Like immigration. When a person comes to a new country, they are often unfamiliar with the language, cultures and customs. This can lead to a life of poverty which can extend multiple generations. While countries can certainly put more effort into integrating these members into society, it is impossible to MAKE people successful at it, and while the numbers couldn't be improved, it would still far short of eliminating the systemic racism caused by this effect.

In addition to that, almost all remedies would be seemingly expensive social policies which are unlikely to last all that long. People have a hard time accepting long term benefit calculations. I still see people arguing against expanding coverage of our universal healthcare system. People seem blissfully unaware that we spend far more money being reactive to a number of problems than we would if we addressed problems proactively. And, removing funding for these sorts of programs takes years, even decades to be felt leaving those who call for their removal feeling vindicated when the sky doesn't immediately fall. 

Not to mention, it is often very difficult to measure what impact such policies would have specifically on systemic racism. We often only discover after we start administering such policies which groups are most impacted by them. 

But yes. Systemic racism is real. And yes, we can improve. But, without an acceptance of the facts above on a broad scale we are unlikely to make much progress.