I feel like I am repeating myself now, but what you are saying about inherentness still does not conflict with what I am apparently failing to convey. Yes, society has a systematic racist problem, wholly independent of individual people, which would be "permanent" if no one were to radically alter how society works and/or replace the entire system with a new one. I am not saying civilization is racist, and I am not saying we cant have a not racist society, I am saying the one we currently have IS very concretely racist. And just because the current system is inherently racist doesn't mean we have no power to replace said system with a better one.
I just disagree that racism is independent of individuals. Society itself cannot be independent of individuals. It's the individuals who carry out the racist actions by choice. No matter how written into the law it is, racism cannot be inherent in society because it comes down to the people. It's the things we do that are racist, such as writing laws discriminating in the workplace. I think that saying it's society that is racist takes the sense of responsibility away from the people. If I'm racist then I'm guilty and it is not society's fault. It is not inevitably inherent in the system; it is my own jerkish racist ideals. In the sense that people make up society and therefore society is racist while people are racist, I do see where you're coming from. But I don't agree with signing our responsibility for our racism in favor of blaming the system. If my manager fires me because I'm white (not that I think that happens often) he is a part of the system and he is being racist. But his own personal racism is not necessarily in inherent in the system. If he's a governor and he passes a racist law, we happen to be a country whose legal system is based around the idea of editing itself. That law can be repealed without otherwise changing the legal system, and therefore its own racism is inherent in that specific law but not in all of our government and certainly not in society as a whole.
I think we are at an impasse about definitions... but what I can say is that I do sort of have a specific policy agenda behind the way I am interpreting this question; so even if you don't agree with it semantically the reason I need people to see this as a "blaming the system" issue as you put it, is that I believe to do otherwise is to at least partially ignore the systematic problems in favor of focussing on individuals. Yes, focusing on racism on a case by case basis is better than nothing, at least its being addressed, but doing this leaves very wide gaps in practice. It is more productive and efficient to focus on the whole system, treating the organizations as the problem, and then letting that sort of blanket attack on institutions cover all of the individuals at once within those system rather than one at a time.
I think it's more effective to deal with racist individuals one at a time while simultaneously remodeling the system. Why should we even have to choose between the two?
Thanks Dilly for a genuinely thoughtful discussion (as usual I might add), but I need to avoid being triggered by some of the other clearly less cognizant individuals and/or unfortunate trolls who are so helplessly removed from reality, and leave this thread before I say something regrettable in response to them.
Hey man, thanks for the provocative thoughts. It really made me reconsider what I formerly took for granted.
