"You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,” Ehrlichman said. “We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

[–] sangle_of_flame@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

man, I guess the annual (at least) police killings of unarmed black people (including at least 2-3 children) just didn't happen?

[–] Zippy@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Do you know what the definition of systemic racism means? I think few people here do. It means there are laws and policies that are racist.

You will always have racist cops and neighbors and teachers. That is not systemic. That is just shitty people. Once you identify them and can prove it, then you can take action. Some always slip thru.

[–] sangle_of_flame@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

this is a weird take; aren't police literally the arbiters of said systemically racist policies and laws?

like isn't that their colloquial job definition?

[–] Zippy@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Systemic or institutional racism is defined as having official policy in place to encourage racism. That was certainly the case in the 60s. Systemic being the key word I don't think people understand.

We have the opposite of that now in that we have all kinds of laws to l that can be used against those that are proven to be racist within their job. Key world is that it has to be proven and often that is not obvious to after an incident.

But if you think we have a problem with systemic racism, tell me one policy or law that is encourages racism.

[–] sangle_of_flame@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

you're really not going to accept that systematic racism (gentrification, the War on Drugs, racial profiling, job discrimination, etc.) exists unless there's like literally a law that says "you should be racist" in big colorful letters, are you?

I'm honestly in disbelief that people like you, who think that racism was completely solved in the 60s when King did the famous speech, still exist

[–] 133arc585@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You will always have racist cops and neighbors and teachers. That is not systemic.

If the system does not prevent, stop, or punish the racist constituent actors (cops, neighbors, teachers), is it not racist? Is it not systemic racism to not stop individual acts of racism, especially when they're performed by agents of the state (e.g., cops, lawmakers, judges, teachers)? Just because it's not a top-down demand by the state of "you, agent of the state, must act racist" does not mean it's not systemic racism.

That is just shitty people.

There is no such thing as a system as such. It's just people. If the members are racist, and their collective doesn't do anything to address (or even occasionally rewards) that behavior, the system is racist.