Institutional racism does not impugn any person. It is a term that indicates a social situation that needs to be addressed. When any group is being persistently treated unfairly, it makes sense to look for the reasons and try to address them.
Efforts to address institutional racism have nothing to do with “eradicating” personal prejudice and as to the question of eradication, you would need to address that question to someone who has made the claim to which you object. I am not that person.
In the case of the drug treatment program that is suffering from institutional racism, as highlighted in this report from the PlainDealer, one need not attack the various judges and prosecutors as “racist.” The program could have specific guidelines set up to offer it to all persons convicted of specific crimes rather than relying on personal judgment calls by the authorities involved, then establish specific protocols to determine eligibility, again removing the process from a series of gut feelings to an objective evaluation.
I’m not seeing that. The OP asked about racism. Institutional racism was mentioned in the second and fourth posts. My first post was the eighth and I mentioned institutional racism in it. So I don’t feel it’s fair to accuse me of changing the topic.
You don’t really have institutional power because a 13% minority has all the power of a 25% minority. The fact of the matter is that American democracy includes the concept of minority rights. The founding fathers were wary of tyrannies of the majority but only a footnote to the more obvious threat of tyranny of the majority.
The topic of this discussion is whether minorities can be racist against whites. Not whether they historically have been.
The context of discussions of institutional racism here is in the notion that institutional racism is the only racism that really counts, and that African-Americans cannot be guilty of institutional racism because they don’t have institutional power. And the point of my disagreement has been over whether it is true that AA don’t have institutional power.
So yes, there has been discussion of institutional racism in this thread. However, the argument at this point is whether it’s impossible for AA to be guilty of this, based on whether they have institutional power or not.
In that context, your saying that “institutional racism against whites has never been a problem in America and therefore has never needed a solution” amounts to changing the subject. Because if right now AA have institutional power, then right now they are capable of institutional racism - regardless of whether this has been historically a problem in America - and the answer to the OP is: “yes”.
[This is granting the (IMHO, ridiculous) notion that the only racism that counts is institutional racism.]
I feel you’re ignoring most of what I’ve been saying.
I made it very clear in my first post that there are several forms of racism. And I’ve said more than once that institutional racism is the least common form of racism. So if anybody has been saying institutional racism is the only form of racism that counts, it hasn’t been me.
I’ve also explicitly said that black people can be racist to white people. So don’t imply that I’ve said otherwise.
I also deny your claims that I’m changing the subject. The subject is racism and that’s what I’ve been talking about. My posts have been in direct response to issues you and other have raised.
You are correct as to both of these. My apologies for implying otherwise.
I disagree here. What you said in your initial post was “But I can’t think of any examples of black people in America engaging in institutional racism. There just aren’t any parts of American society where black people collectively have that kind of power.” So your point at that time was that black people couldn’t engage in institutional racism because they didn’t have institutional power. So the relevance is in whether black people currently have institutional power anywhere, such that they could currently engage in institutional racism. You later changed to a new claim that “institutional racism against whites has never been a problem in America and therefore has never needed a solution” - not that it couldn’t currently happen because they don’t have the power but just that it historically hasn’t been a problem.
There is one example. Black owned banks are more likely to turn down Blacks for prime mortgage loans than white owned banks. I realize it isn’t discriminating against whites but it’s a start right?
Institutional racism, to me, is the big stuff. It’s things like black codes and Jim Crow and lynch mobs. It’s holding open klan rallies. It’s saying black people can’t serve in front line combat units or play major league baseball. It’s where people openly discriminate because they know that nobody will intervene. Even if their acts are technically illegal, they had no concern that the law will be enforced against them. That requires you have a lot of power. Institutional racism requires that you have a lot of institutional power.
To use an example that’s been given, let’s use Gary, Indiana. Gary is 85% black. The mayor is black. I’m going to guess most of the elected officials and city employees in Gary are black. Blacks clearly have institutional power in Gary.
Now suppose the mayor decided to use this institutional power to enact institutional racism. Suppose he (I’ll use he even though the actual mayor is a woman - I’m being hypothetical here) set forth a policy that the city government would only hire black employees and give contracts to black-owned businesses.
Do you think he’d be able to get away with that just because black people are the majority in Gary? My belief is he wouldn’t. Black people might have institutional power in Gary but they’re still accountable to authorities outside of the city. If the white minority in Gary were the victims of institutional racism, they would have the ability to appeal to higher authorities in Indianapolis and Washington. My belief is the black majority has institutional power but not enough institutional power to enact institutional racism.
We don’t. Unless it is possible to eradicate it, then we can’t declare victory. As long as racism still exists, we fight it.
That’s like saying we have to eventually give up on stopping murder, and declare victory when only a certain number of murders happen. No, as long as there are murders, we prosecute them.
And, no, I’m not equating murder with racism. It’s a simile. I picked something really bad because it’s something we all agee we shouldn’t stop fighting. You don’t stop fighting the bad thing unless somehow the bad things stops happening.
A whole lot of things are like this. There’s no level of general knowledge where we can declare victory and say we no longer have to learn. There’s no point where we decide “everyone has enough wealth” and we stop producing. There’s no point where we say “people are happy enough. Let’s stop making the world better.”
And, of course, this is my opinion, albeit one I believe in very, very strongly. To the point that I am surprised anyone thinks there should be a limit.
I think they could get away with it in Gary, to some extent, but the city culture (for lack of a better term) while black-dominated is not institutionally anti-white - we did have a white mayor for 10 years, 1996-2006, while the city was 85% black and we do have non-black people participating in city government and things like police and fire roughly proportional to their numbers in the general population. One reason he was elected initially was the perception he was an outside to entrenched factions dominated by black politicians. (Arguably, he was just as corrupt, or became as corrupt, as any other politician around here.) I’ve lived in Gary for 18 years now and while I have encountered individual racism (as noted in my prior example) I don’t perceive any institutional racism on the part of the city. Mostly what happens when someone spouts off like that someone else gives them a disappointed look and says “Girl, you whack” or “Man, just shut the hell up.” Maybe white privilege extends to when whites are only about 13% of a city population? Or maybe the city as a whole is relatively free of that sort of bias. I dunno, maybe most of the folks in Gary sincerely don’t want that sort of shit for anyone, and/or have more immediate concerns than the color of their neighbor’s skin.
But yes, such institutions could arise in Gary simply because blacks are an overwhelming majority. I think it takes a couple generations for that sort of thing to become entrenched, and probably a bunch of factors enter into it. I don’t perceive it as existing at this point in time.
We never stop fighting, but we do not have a goal as a society of eliminating murder, and we actually seem pretty darn satisfied with the fact that there are a lot fewer murders than there used to be.
White-controlled cities couldn’t get away with that kind of institutional racism either. Maybe they did in the past, but by that definition of institutional racism, there is no institutional racism in America.
I was going to post what Shodan said. But since he already said it, I’ll just add that to the extent that institutional racism is still possible these days - though not to the level that you suggest - it’s more possible for AA controlled institutions than for white controlled ones. Because there is enormous sensitivity to discrimination against AA these days, and far less so for the same against white people.
I’ve been saying institutional racism is in decline and uncommon.
Is it gone completely? I’m not sure. I think it depends on where you draw the line between a low level of institutional racism and a high level of situational racism.
We disagree. I agree with you that anti-discrimination programs have made it difficult (and maybe impossible) for white people to practice institutional racism against black people. But I don’t feel the reverse has become true. I don’t see fighting institutional racism as a zero-sum situation, where one race gains the ability to practice institutional racism as another race loses it. I feel rather that we are reducing institutional racism overall; it is now more difficult for any group with power, black or white, to misuse that power in order to practice institutional racism.
I agree with you that it’s not a zero sum game, and I’ve not suggested that it is.
The reason what I wrote is true is the one that I actually gave, which was, again: Because there is enormous sensitivity to discrimination against AA these days, and far less so for the same against white people.