In the first post on this topic, I did not give a definition of systemic racism. That was intentional. What I did was describe, briefly, how those who are for and against systemic racism, typically, justify their position. In this article, I’m going to explain why a definition of systemic racism is harder to define than people on both sides are willing to admit.
Context vs. Dictionary definitions
Interpersonal communication has drastically changed in the 21st Century. Gif’s, emojis, abbreviations in texts by phone, or social media, and misspellings from things like autocorrect, have transformed the way we think about communication. Without even knowing it, we have learned to use pictures, and brief video clips, that often contain no actual words to speak for us. This style of communication is a “context versus dictionary defined” hermeneutic that permeates the way we communicate today. Which means, a word in context may have a different meaning based on the context than a standard definition might have.
It’s kind of like slang. You can understand certain words based on the context in which it is being used. For instance, when someone says, “That’s sick!” Most of us don’t think the subject the word sick is modifying has a medical condition. We understand it to mean, the person who said that’s sick really liked what they saw, heard, etc. So, this is not a new phenomenon. Context always matters. But nowadays even more so. Because of social media and technology, we are, in many ways, all speaking Ebonics. Especially with terms that are newer (like Christian Nationalism), we tend to take a more, “You’ll know it when you see it” approach to defining it. Or a definition is described in context, often saying what the word is not, rather than what it is.
Gifs, emojis, abbreviated words in text on cellphones (OMW is on my way/ Though is now tho/People is now ppl) or for places like Twitter, have trained us to communicate and understand communication primarily based on the context we’re using. On the other hand, there are people who still refer to a Webster Dictionary type definition of words. So when two people are speaking about systemic racism per se’, it’s quite possible they are using the same words but one is speaking from an Oxford’s Dictionary standpoint. And the other is speaking from the standpoint of a contextualized understanding of the word. As it relates to there not being clarity on definitions, as Christians we believe that God is not the author of confusion. Therefore believers, more than any other people, should fight for clarity when defining terms both by definition and context when possible.
The Origin of “Systemic/Institutional” racism
The term “Institutional Racism” was coined by Black Power activists Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton in 1967. In the book, “Tackling the roots of racism,” authors, Reena Bhavnavi, Heidi Safai Mirza, and Veena Meetoo explain the reason for the usage of the words “Institutional Racism.” “They (Carmichael and Hamilton) made the distinction between ‘Individual’ and ‘Institutional’ racism—the latter being more covert and associated with respectable societal institutions. Both stressed the historical nature of its origins and the way it was reproduced by interconnected relationships across all of societies institutions. They used the concept as a way of understanding the consequences (their emphasis not mine) of institutional racism rather than to analyze its operation. The term did not denote an ideology, rather a range of other processes. These include decisions and policies which had been designed to subordinate/control blacks; active and pervasive anti black attitudes and attitudes which are said to result (Their emphasis not mine) in racial inequalities.”
There is a lot to unpack here but I’m just going to make 3 brief observations from the quote above, that further demonstrate why systemic racism is hard to define.
First, the people who coined the term (Carmichael and Hamilton) were the ones were oppressed by it. They weren’t the oppressors, or the ones observing it from a distance, meaning those who aren’t oppressed or doing the oppressing, they were the ones experiencing it. So if we are trying to define the terms of systemic/institutional racism, and if we’re using the historic process in which it was first presented, then it must be defined by the ones experiencing the consequences of the racism. That presents a problem in our day and age. It’s called Standpoint Epistemology. This is a term that says a persons “lived experience” is not authoritative. And while that’s definitely true, the direction of this correction is usually aimed at black people who appeal to their lived experience as evidence of racism. Ironically, appealing to experience is what Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton did that established the term in the first place. In light of this, it may be better to ponder the extent of the damage that racism has done, rather than what the definition of a particular racism is. More on this in the third and final post on this topic.
Second, the term “Institutional Racism” was never describing a philosophy. Or as the quote from the book above stated, it wasn’t describing an ideology but the consequences of the ideology. In other words, they were defining racism by its scope, in that it infiltrated American Institutions. It didn’t linger in the realm of lynchings, beatings, and fear tactics. It infiltrated public policy. Again, at least from those who coined the term, institutional racism is not describing a philosophy of thinking, but the consequences that came from racist thinking. So the question becomes, how did it infiltrate American Institutions? And if it’s gone, how did it leave? More on this in the next post.
Third, and interestingly, the term “Institutional Racism” though not defining an ideology, gives an even greater scope of the problem of racism, when a different usage of the word institutional is given. If we use a derivative of the word institutional, such as institutionalized, we see something more insidious about racism. Especially when we compare it to people in prison.
When I was in the streets, we all knew guys who had been locked up more than they were out in the streets with us. I knew a dude that was 29 years old but had been locked up since he was 13. We would call him and others like him institutionalized, because he had been locked up so long that he didn’t know how to function as well when he wasn’t. Like Brooks from Shawshank Redemption who hung himself, he had been locked up for so long, he was too institutionalized to make it on the outside. If we take institutional racism and think of it more as institutionalized racism, then we’re saying America has been involved in racism for so long, that Americans find it difficult to live in a society without it being a fundamental reality. It may very well be that we don’t know how to function without those racial categories in place. If for no other reason, because, at the inception of our country, racism, in particularly, whites against blacks, was in the DNA to varying degrees.
The flaw of Systemic Racism meaning Laws
It is pretty popular to describe systemic racism as laws that were passed that were designed to hold black people back. “But those laws ended with Civil Rights Legislation in 1964 etc., so systemic racism ceases to exist in 2021.” So the saying goes. In other words, nothing is holding black people back, today, from making capital. Without repeating what I said above, a strict adherence to the claim also proves faulty. Here are a few questions to consider.
If systemic racism ended in the 1964 Civil Rights Acts, why was there a Voting Rights Acts in 1965, a Fair Housing Act in 1968, COINTELPRO lasting into the 70’s, Voting Rights Act Amendment of 1970, Voting Rights Act Amendment of 1975, Voting Rights Act Amendment of 1982, Civil Rights Act of Restoration Act of 1987, Fair Housing Amendment Act 1988, and Civil Rights Act of 1991. I know some of these are amendments to earlier Acts but they reveal that the Acts, themselves, did not solve the problem as initially claimed by some. These “Acts” that, supposedly, did away with systemic racism were incomplete in their premise. In fact, the 1991 Civil Rights Act apparently had this intention, “The 1991 Act expanded the remedies available to victims of discrimination by amending Title VII of the 1964 Act.”
Another problem with the Civil Rights laws ending systemic racism came from Martin Luther King Jr., himself. Or to put it in question form, if systemic racism ended in the 1964 Civil Rights Act, why was MLK still marching in 1968? What he says below may give us the answer:
Lastly, if laws on the books are what constitute systemic racism, and their being gone are what make systemic racism gone, then Virginia and eight other states are keeping hope dead instead of alive. In a news wise article connected to the University of Arizona, dated 2/24/2004, a sobering observation was made. “Fifty years after the United States Supreme Court found the principle of "separate but equal" educational facilities to be unconstitutional, laws passed to ensure racial segregation in public schools are still on the books. At least eight southern states have kept segregationist laws and those statutes continue to influence educational policy, according to a group of law and public policy researchers. A report released today by the Jim Crow Study Group at the University of Arizona, "Still on the Books: Jim Crow and Segregation Laws Fifty Years After Brown v. Board of Education," calls for legislative review and repeal of provisions in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia.”
As well, a Washington Post article dated 12/5/2019, penned these words. “One law in Virginia declares that “no child shall be required to attend integrated schools.” Others dictate that white and black Virginians live in separate neighborhoods, and that the races be kept apart on trains, playgrounds and steamboats. Those are among nearly 100 antiquated and mostly defunct laws that the former capital of the Confederacy needs to wipe off its books to move beyond its fraught racial history, a state commission announced Thursday in a report.”
Now you might say, “But no one is applying those laws though!” You’re right! But then that would mean the definition of systemic racism isn’t just laws on the books. It would mean that someone has to apply those laws. Which then means we have to at least consider, if those laws don’t exist but people still commit racists attitudes and actions in the system/institution where the laws and actions were formerly acted out, is it not possible that systemic/institutional racism can still exist? If the laws on the books need to be applied for it to be legitimate, can the heart that still applies racism in those systems, even if the law has changed, not be considered systemic as well? Especially since we are talking about the consequences of racism and not the ideology of it. If systemic racism were an ideology then I would say it is gone. Because America has definitely made significant progress in race relations. But I agree with Carmichael and Hamilton. The philosophy of racism and the consequences of racism are two different things. More on this in part 3’s post.
A universally accepted definition, when?
If we’re being honest, there has never been a unified definition of “systemic racism,” or racism for that matter, in the time when it was actually happening. During slavery, there was no universal agreement or condemnation of slavery as being evil. In fact, groups like the United Daughters of the Confederacy, went out of their way to paint slavery as something tame and desirable. It took being away from the acts of it, and hearing the experiences of slaves like Frederick Douglass and others, to get a grip on how wrong it was. And even then, it’s not enough for a universal condemnation of slavery and the Confederates who fought to maintain it.
As well, during Jim Crow, many were unable to define racism, as evil as it was, nor the scope to which it was affecting black people. Somehow, for many, including those in the “Orthodox/Sound Doctrine” churches, a universal definition and understanding of its influence wasn’t accepted. For the most part, it’s been an “After-the-Fact Philosophy,” that has named these sins, not an in the moment philosophy. So if we can easily define systemic racism, and get a universal definition, it might be the first time in American History when that happens in the current cultural moment, where the racism is said to still be taking place. It might be better to ask, “What will people think about race relations in America now, 50 years from now?”
So what, then, should we call Systemic Racism? Well, we have to remember that systemic and institutional are describing how deep the racism went, not describing the ideology of it, or what it actually was. What slavery and Jim Crow were is more “Historical Legalized Racism.” And if that’s describing what it was, then that racism no longer exists. Systemic and Institutional speak to the consequences, meaning the effects, of the historically legalized racism. And those still exist. The actual ideology/philosophy, I contend, is Capitalistic Epistemology. And in the third and final post on this topic, I’ll explain why. As well as, the two main flaws that Capitalistic Epistemology has instituted, that have had devastating consequences on both the believer and unbeliever alike.
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