# Data, facts, and institutional/systemic racism/bigotry/bias **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 16, 2018, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/data-facts-and-institutional-systemic-racism-bigotry-bias/814278 "2018-05-16T12:05:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/data-facts-and-institutional-systemic-racism-bigotry-bias/814278/41 "2018-05-16T19:57:28Z")
> [@Ashtura](#): > > Everyone’s part of the institution. > > It’s “institutional racism” if the underlings don’t keep note and report descrimination by people in power? I really don’t think so, and that actually makes it harder to do anything about, because then you’re just saying “it’s everybody’s fault” and easier to shrug off. Nope, it’s only the fault of the people doing the damage. > > Plus, at a corporate level, it’s just plain harder to observe. At my last company (tech), there were like 2 black people in a company of 150 people. That sounds wrong, right? But at what level were the black candidates filtered out? > > Were there not enough technical black people in the area where the job was advertised? Did the headhunters and referrers ignore them? Did they not make it past the phone interview? I was pretty observant of unfamiliar faces coming in for interviews, and very few black people made it that far. A lot of our recruits came straight out of the local university. Out of pack you had mostly whites, some asians, some indians. Never a black person. Were they filtered out in college? Were they filtered out BEFORE college? > > That’s the problem when you put the blame on the “non-whistleblowers”. It is usually not cut and dry where the biased people are. It’s easier with judges and cops, because you could theoretically look at their records. You just perfectly described the results of institutional racism. No one person is at fault, but minorities are still harmed by the collective action. ---
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/data-facts-and-institutional-systemic-racism-bigotry-bias/814278/42 "2018-05-16T20:02:54Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > You just perfectly described the results of institutional racism. No one person is at fault, but minorities are still harmed by the collective action. Oh, I thought institutional racism, if it existed, was something you could actually address. I mean it’s a nice thing to talk about, but if you can’t point at any one person at fault, I really don’t see what can be done. Did somewhere, a long the line, somebody either consciously or unconsciously filter out a black person from the process? Maybe…? But I definitely don’t know who it was or if they even realized they did it, so it kind of seems like chasing after ghosts. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/data-facts-and-institutional-systemic-racism-bigotry-bias/814278/43 "2018-05-16T20:07:03Z")
> [@Ashtura](#): > > Oh, I thought institutional racism, if it existed, was something you could actually address. If you can’t point at any one person at fault, I really don’t see what can be done. Training on implicit bias. Acceptance that there is such a thing as bias and that you don’t have to be aware of it to perpetuate it. Honest self reflection is a good idea, as is being open to the idea that racial bias is incredibly common, and that the vast majority of people (if not all) are going to fall prey to it at some point. Instead, people just shrug and say they aren’t racist because they haven’t lynched anyone lately. ---
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/data-facts-and-institutional-systemic-racism-bigotry-bias/814278/44 "2018-05-16T20:16:05Z")
> [@](#): > > Training on implicit bias. Acceptance that there is such a thing as bias and that you don’t have to be aware of it to perpetuate it. Honest self reflection is a good idea, as is being open to the idea that racial bias is incredibly common, and that the vast majority of people (if not all) are going to fall prey to it at some point. > > Instead, people just shrug and say they aren’t racist because they haven’t lynched anyone lately. That’s fine and dandy. But it’s really only going to affect the decision makers, not the peons. And a vast majority of people are peons. And I think the jury’s still out if implicit bias training even has a positive effect. [Some studies](https://hbr.org/2016/07/why-diversity-programs-fail) show it has the opposite of the intended effect. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/data-facts-and-institutional-systemic-racism-bigotry-bias/814278/45 "2018-05-16T20:23:56Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I’m not trying to prove anything in this thread. The only purpose of this thread is so I can better understand your views and the views of others who don’t believe systemic/institutional bias is still significant. My view is that the significance of institutional racism in the US in 2018 has not been demonstrated. It has been demonstrated to exist in 1965. > [@](#): > > I’ll try and rephrase my question. Do you believe that there was significant systemic/institutional racism/bias/bigotry in the years after Jim Crow laws were struck down (let’s say 1968), and if so, what data and facts from that time motivate this belief? [ol][li]I will limit my response only to institutional racism, because I would prefer to deal with one thing to be proven at a time.[/li][li]Jim Crow is institutional racism by definition. Government and the laws are institutions, Jim Crow was racist, Jim Crow was law, therefore Jim Crow was institutional racism.[/li][li]No. As Jim Crow died, and it was gradual and not abrupt, then to the same extent, institutional racism died with it. Other forms of racism persisted, but the institutions of racism no longer existed. [/li][li]The data and facts that motivate the belief is seeing the laws being struck down, and seeing that people were no longer subject to them.[/ol][/li] > [@](#): > > I’m just trying to determine your standards for believing in the existence of systemic/institutional bias/bigotry/racism. I need evidence. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/data-facts-and-institutional-systemic-racism-bigotry-bias/814278/46 "2018-05-16T20:27:28Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > My view is that the significance of institutional racism in the US in 2018 has not been demonstrated. It has been demonstrated to exist in 1965. > [ol] > [li]I will limit my response only to institutional racism, because I would prefer to deal with one thing to be proven at a time.[/li][li]Jim Crow is institutional racism by definition. Government and the laws are institutions, Jim Crow was racist, Jim Crow was law, therefore Jim Crow was institutional racism.[/li][li]No. As Jim Crow died, and it was gradual and not abrupt, then to the same extent, institutional racism died with it. Other forms of racism persisted, but the institutions of racism no longer existed. [/li][li]The data and facts that motivate the belief is seeing the laws being struck down, and seeing that people were no longer subject to them.[/li][/ol] > > I need evidence. > > Regards, > Shodan Thanks for answering. I’ll keep this in mind next time the topic comes up in another discussion. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/data-facts-and-institutional-systemic-racism-bigotry-bias/814278/47 "2018-05-16T20:33:09Z")
> [@Ashtura](#): > > That’s fine and dandy. But it’s really only going to affect the decision makers, not the peons. Why do you say this? As for the studies, saying that some diversity training doesn’t work doesn’t mean that a good implicit bias training can’t. From your article, it appears some techniques work better than others. This is true of most training. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/data-facts-and-institutional-systemic-racism-bigotry-bias/814278/48 "2018-05-16T21:38:38Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > What about the [disparity between the rate of arrest and the rate of use for white and black Americans](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/06/04/the-blackwhite-marijuana-arrest-gap-in-nine-charts/?utm_term=.5eb1eceaae81)? > > Is that worth anything? Not until you control for other factors such as: (1) Economic status - Rich people do their drugs out of sight (2) Frequency of marijuana use (3) Other concurrent criminality - Possession is an easy crime to prove and cops might be using that as a proxy for punishing other activity (4) Higher crime areas -\> more police -\> more arrests (5) Attitude. Someone with a “fuck da police” attitude is more likely to be arrested for trivial things than someone who shows deference > [@llcoolby77](#): > > All participants had greater difficulty (measured by longer latencies) responding to stereotype-incongruent targets, i.e., unarmed black men, and armed white men. This bias was present in all three samples, however it increased for civilians and officers from areas that had larger black communities. And if you take this a step further and put cops in a realistic simulator they shoot black people at a lower rate. If you carefully look at police records they are less likely to shoot black people on a per incident basis. The issue isn’t that cops shoot black people for no reason. They do that to people of every race. The issue is that they have more interactions with black people (and a cop shooting a black person is national news while them shooting a white person isn’t). ---
**Author:** ![Delayed\_Reflex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/delayed_reflex/32/3172_2.png) [@Delayed\_Reflex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Delayed_Reflex)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/data-facts-and-institutional-systemic-racism-bigotry-bias/814278/49 "2018-05-16T22:13:37Z")
I think it would be useful to separate the different kinds of systemic racism that can exist, as each type has a different sort of evidence that could be presented in support of it: **1) Racism enshrined in explicit rules** - Jim crow laws, government or company policies with explicit reference to race, etc. This type is the easiest to prove (as noted by Shodan), but is likely extremely rare, if existent at all, today. **2) Widespread ingrained individual bias** - For example, the tendency for cops to shoot black men at a higher rate than might be expected given rates of criminality between races. I can’t see police organizations ordering cops to shoot black people - this phenomenon seems best explained through many cops having similar individual biases towards black men. This could simply be due to how human brains are wired - if a cop’s personal experience is that proportionally more black people they encounter have committed a violent crime than the white people they encounter (say it’s 20% vs 10%), they will inevitably be more cagey around a random black encounter than a random white encounter. My understanding is that black people do commit violent crimes/homicides at a much greater rate compared to other races in the US, so it would be expected that the bias would be widespread amongst cops, and arguably justified (not that it is morally correct to have that bias, but that statistically it makes sense). The problem with this type of bias is twofold: one, “false positives” - the vast majority of black people are not criminals, but police might be more inclined to act like any random black person is a criminal due to their exposure to black criminals, and their subsequently developed bias. Two, a person’s response to this bias is likely not proportionate to the underlying statistical difference - perhaps a random encounter with an unarmed black man is has a 10% chance to result in a cop being assaulted compared to 5% for a random encounter with an unarmed white man, but the cop is has a 0.05% chance to shoot the black man compared to 0.01% chance to shoot the white man. These numbers are just made up, but if we had these statistics, it would shed light on to the extent of the existence of this form of systemic bias. I think this is the sort of phenomenon that sometimes you should be able to demonstrate exists - however, I would say that it is debatable as to whether certain forms of it is an actual problem or not. For example, take police shootings. Are black people shot by cops at a higher rate than would be expected based on the general population? The stats I’ve seen show this to be an unequivocal yes. Are they shot at a greater proportion than the proportion of violent criminals by race? I haven’t seen stats that support that notion. But if the stats do show this, I would consider it as evidence towards the existence of systemic bias. **3) “Collateral” racism** - apparent unequal outcomes by race that people attribute to racism, when it could be caused by some other factor (possibly correlated). For example, are disproportionately negative outcomes for blacks a result of racism, or because they are disproportionately poor? The disproportionate economic situation between races may be evidence of historical systemic racism, but IMO it is not evidence of _current_ systemic racism. I feel things in this category some people would see _is_ racism, while others would see this as NOT being racism. Somewhat related, it would be helpful to see the differences in how, say, black immigrants to America fare and are treated compared to blacks in America whose heritage dates back to several generations in America, controlling for income levels. If outcomes and attitudes towards them are similar, I would think that would provide evidence that disparity between blacks and other races in the US could be attributed to societal racism against blacks. However, if the outcomes and attitudes are different, wouldn’t that suggest culturally-driven, rather than racially-driven reasons for such disparity? ---
**Author:** ![Delayed\_Reflex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/delayed_reflex/32/3172_2.png) [@Delayed\_Reflex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Delayed_Reflex)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/data-facts-and-institutional-systemic-racism-bigotry-bias/814278/50 "2018-05-16T22:44:46Z")
> [@wonky](#): > > I think a component of the recent move toward restrictive work policies in Medicaid is illustrative. Depending on the state, these are either statutory or regulatory. > > In Michigan, they’ve decided to put a requirement in place that people have to demonstrate they are working or volunteering a set number of hours to be eligible for Medicaid. The legislature, aware that finding work can be harder under some circumstances, voted to exempt certain counties from this requirement, so people who live there do not have to demonstrate they are working or volunteering. The counties have high unemployment in general. Other places in the state have higher unemployment, like the city of Detroit, but Detroit is part of a county that has lower unemployment as a whole because unemployment is low in Detroit’s suburbs. Residents of Detroit will not get an exemption. > > Now, it turns out that the counties (I think ALL of the counties) they are planning to exempt are very white. The city of Detroit is not very white. > > So how do we account for something like this? One person looks at it and says “They are doing it by county, so it can’t be biased/racist.” Another looks at it and says “People in the rural area are assumed to be unemployed because of circumstances while people in the urban area are assumed to be unemployed because of their choices.” > > I look at it and say “This may be either an intended or an unintended consequence, but either way it’s not okay.” > > What does this illustrate? If we can’t agree on what the data are, it’s hard to agree on what they show, and if we can’t agree on what they show, it’s hard to agree about what are systemic issues and what are not. This is a good example of what I categorized as “collateral racism” - it might result in disparate outcomes for different races, but it may or may not be driven by any racist thought. The problem is it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for anyone to prove any racist intent behind such policies. I think this is one of the fundamental disconnects between how different people view racism - for some, it is the intent that determines if something is racist, while for others, it is the outcome. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/data-facts-and-institutional-systemic-racism-bigotry-bias/814278/51 "2018-05-17T01:37:59Z")
Systemic racism exists in government. Harmless generalized preferences among groups for similar looking people also exist, but I would not call that systemic racism. Besides the serious problem of government racism, the claims often point to an economic systemic racism. If systemic racism existed in today’s labor markets, there would be a killing to be made employing “minorities” for higher than the racists, but less than their marginal revenue product. Do you have evidence that entrepreneurs are taking advantage of this disparity? Or are the capitalists more racist than slaveowners who had no problem making money off the labor of “black” Americans? ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/data-facts-and-institutional-systemic-racism-bigotry-bias/814278/52 "2018-05-17T02:04:31Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Systemic racism exists in government. This is simply your assertion. Thje OP asked for “Data, facts…”. Do you have some specific example(s) of this that we can discuss? ---
**Author:** ![nachtmusick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ac91a4/32.png) [@nachtmusick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nachtmusick)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/data-facts-and-institutional-systemic-racism-bigotry-bias/814278/53 "2018-05-17T06:13:13Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![nachtmusick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ac91a4/32.png) [@nachtmusick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nachtmusick)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/data-facts-and-institutional-systemic-racism-bigotry-bias/814278/54 "2018-05-17T07:50:13Z")
I’m not convinced by the evidence I’ve seen so far for “institutional” racial bias. Most of the evidence is based on poorer outcomes for minorities, but I seldom see much effort made to demonstrate a link between the poor outcomes and institutional racial bias. The bias is just assumed, even when credible alternate explanations suggest themselves. One explanation that doesn’t suggest itself is direct discrimination, particularly in government institutions. The repeal of Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Act, and the numerous anti-discrimination laws and measures adopted since must count for something, right? It is still actually illegal to discriminate based on race, last I checked, and I don’t see any lack of people who are willing to uncover lingering racial bias in our institutions and use the legal system to remedy the problem. I’m sure that racial bias still lurks in some “institutions”, but consider how much work has to be accomplished before a conclusion can be drawn that institutional racial bias is still a “significant force” in American society. How many institutions have to be riddled with racists before we decide that all society is tainted? If one police force, government agency, school district, media outlet, or company is revealed to still be institutionally biased, is it reasonable to then assume that all, or even the next one over, must be? As I said above, many of the claims of institutional racism that i see are unconvincing, and even when a genuine racist policy or nest of individual racists is discovered, it takes more than that to convince me that institutional racial bias is a significant force affecting all of society. There might be evidence for systemic racial bias, on the other hand, that I could be convinced by. I’ve done no research, but it seems credible to me that the reason minorities are underemployed and underrepresented in higher learning is not that they are actively selected against by institutions, but that there is a lack of qualified minority candidates for the jobs and colleges. Similarly, the reason minorities are over-represented in crime statistics and incarceration is not institutional bias, but that too many of them are disaffected and poorly prepared, and thus more inclined to fall into crime and poverty. The reasons for these trends may or may not be systemic racism. Maybe minorities just suffer from being part of social networks that do not offer the kinds of opportunities and support that white social networks do. In short, whites are more likely to be offered rich opportunities by their friends and family than are minorities, because whites are already established. Have we reached systemic racism yet?, Not necessarily, since you can’t fault whites for favoring their friends and family, or expect them to just dismantle their social and economic networks. But then you have to drill down to the next level and ask why minority opportunities are so limited and their communities so lacking in their own internal resources compared to whites. I think the deeper you drill down, the more chance that you might uncover something that can be called either systemic racism, a legacy of historic racism, or both. I don’t know that systemic racism exists right now, or to what extent, or what effects it has, but that drilling-down process is the kind of evidence that might convince me. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/data-facts-and-institutional-systemic-racism-bigotry-bias/814278/55 "2018-05-17T10:18:23Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > This is simply your assertion. > Thje OP asked for “Data, facts…”. Do you have some specific example(s) of this that we can discuss? The government kills, kidnaps, and harasses non-“whites” at a higher rate than “whites”. If you need cites for this, come out from under the rock. Korean War Vietnam War Mass incarceration Iraqi Sanctions Iraq Wars Black codes Japanese internment War in Yemen Libyan intervention Jim Crow War in Afghanistan Drone wars Stop and Frisk Various police actions and coups in South America Native American genocide Fugitive slave law Harassment of black political leaders ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/data-facts-and-institutional-systemic-racism-bigotry-bias/814278/56 "2018-05-17T14:26:58Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > The government kills, kidnaps, and harasses non-“whites” at a higher rate than “whites”. If you need cites for this, come out from under the rock. > > Korean War > Vietnam War > Mass incarceration > Iraqi Sanctions > Iraq Wars > Black codes > Japanese internment > War in Yemen > Libyan intervention > Jim Crow > War in Afghanistan > Drone wars > Stop and Frisk > Various police actions and coups in South America > Native American genocide > Fugitive slave law > Harassment of black political leaders Nearly all of these took place in foreign nations, or a long time ago. I think the OP means current-day things in America. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/data-facts-and-institutional-systemic-racism-bigotry-bias/814278/57 "2018-05-17T14:36:39Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Nearly all of these took place in foreign nations, or a long time ago. I think the OP means current-day things in America. Mass incarceration not good enough for you? How about affirmative action? Mass deportation? I clearly stated that the US government is systematically racist. The point that their victims are on “foreign” soil is rather pedantic. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/data-facts-and-institutional-systemic-racism-bigotry-bias/814278/58 "2018-05-17T14:43:51Z")
\*Systematically and systemically ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/data-facts-and-institutional-systemic-racism-bigotry-bias/814278/59 "2018-05-17T14:51:32Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > How about affirmative action? Not sure what you mean by this. Affirmative action specifically benefits black and Hispanic students, so it is a counter-example to what you seem to be arguing - unless you mean that affirmative action discriminates against Asians (which it does,) so if by that, you mean that it is a racist policy, then yes, it is. > [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Mass deportation? When the majority of illegal immigrants coming into the nation are Hispanic, it makes sense that the majority of deportees would be Hispanic. But I wouldn’t be surprised if brown-skinned illegal immigrants are deported at a higher % rate than light-skinned illegal immigrants. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2018, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/data-facts-and-institutional-systemic-racism-bigotry-bias/814278/60 "2018-05-17T14:55:18Z")
> [@Delayed\_Reflex](#): > > This is a good example of what I categorized as “collateral racism” - it might result in disparate outcomes for different races, but it may or may not be driven by any racist thought. The problem is it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for anyone to prove any racist intent behind such policies. > > I think this is one of the fundamental disconnects between how different people view racism - for some, it is the intent that determines if something is racist, while for others, it is the outcome. Outcome determining racism is incoherent. For example is it racist to refuse to hire convicted sex offenders to babysit your kids? If neutral rules that affect races differently are racist then that is a racist rule. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/data-facts-and-institutional-systemic-racism-bigotry-bias/814278.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/data-facts-and-institutional-systemic-racism-bigotry-bias/814278.md?page=4)