What to do about Systemic Racism

It is a new century. Being anti-racist has changed.
Sure in the late 1700's just saying slavery is bad was good enough.
Then in the late 1800's giving people the right to vote was all in vogue.
By the late 1900's integrating schools, and diners was progressive.
Now we are in the 2000's. What is anti-racism today?

Recognizing and rooting out systemic racism


Except too many people have no idea what that is.
Feagin defines systemic racism in the introduction to the book:
Systemic racism includes the complex array of antiblack practices, the unjustly gained political-economic power of whites, the continuing economic and other resource inequalities along racial lines, and the white racist ideologies and attitudes created to maintain and rationalize white privilege and power. Systemic here means that the core racist realities are manifested in each of society’s major parts [...] each major part of U.S. society--the economy, politics, education, religion, the family--reflects the fundamental reality of systemic racism.
So how do we fix it? A woefully incomplete list so please add
  • Require police forces to take deescalation and cultural competence training 
  • Changing the way we evaluate and test students
  • Changing the way we discipline students
  • Changing hiring practices
  • An overhaul of the financial system
  • An overhaul of the mortgage and home owner what ever
  • Prison reform
  • Voting reform
  • Changes in drug laws
  • Sentencing reform
  • Teaching cultural competence to doctors
  • Actually doing something about racial profiling
  • Add yours here
So many people think ending racism is just stopping their own individual actions. It isn't. Not anymore. We have to actively work to make changes in the systems and the processes around us. We have to make our friends a uncomfortable. We have to make our jobs a uncomfortable. We have to put our own necks out there.

We have three choices.
  1. We can be an active racist,
  2. We can be a passive racist, or
  3. We can be anti-racist.


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