Systemic Racism

Both tribes have a point in the debate over systemic racism. It’s clear that institutions can have inertia and consequences independent of human will meaning there can be racism without racist intentions. Ivy League quotas on admitting Jews, for instance, were racist and had racist consequences, even if nobody at those schools was anti-Semitic. The problem is that once we invoke “systemic racism” it is often used as a blanket statement to indicate that “racism is everywhere” like the air we breathe, and this reduces evidentiary standards. Is there systemic racism? Certainly. But that should start the inquiry and not stop it. Using evidence to locate precisely where institutional disadvantages exist (as in current systemic Ivy League discriminations against Asian Americans) so that they can be corrected is the appropriate response. Saying we don’t need evidence because systemic racism is “everywhere” seems to me a superstition (like witches being everywhere in 1690’s Salem).