I hate it, but over the past few years my view has come to be pretty much this post. I’m a black man with a black wife and a black son. My wife and I grew up in $ neighborhoods, and now we’re raising our son in a $$$ neighborhood.
When I look at our current neighborhood and compare it to where I grew up, I see cleaner streets, better public transportation, nicer parks, cooler police, higher quality schools, breweries that serve to-go, etc., etc., etc., and I can’t help but think “I wish me and my friends had had some of these nice things when we were kids, that would’ve been good.”
So, my dream these days is to hit the Powerball and start an endowment that funds a team of smart lobbyists who write model bills that funnel $ to the ten poorest poverty areas (a Census Bureau designation) in the US, so that the people who live in those places can have nice things too.
The reason the ten poorest poverty areas in the US are the ten poorest poverty areas in the US is probably racism (hedging because I haven’t done the research to have an internet argument on this very specific assertion…), and five years ago I would’ve made myself hoarse shouting “we MUST fight racism in all its forms to make people’s lives better!”
I suppose that's not really wrong, but these days I’d rather make myself hoarse shouting “we MUST fight to ensure that the buses in Washington Highlands in DC are reliable in case someone’s car breaks down and they have to get to work on time!”
I hit this point quickly in the article (because this article is about other things), but I'm glad you highlighted the "money/resources really matter" point, because it's a key point and very real. I think, on an intuitive level, most people basically get this, but the advantages can be difficult to quantify. Probably the best way to internalize the "money really helps" point is to go through a period of your life in which you don't have money, and then go through a period in which you do, and realize that B is much, much easier than A for a multitude of reasons.
I used to argue that the government should issue everyone a Corolla when they turned 16. Over my career, I have worked with many people who were good workers and valuable employees, but when their cars broke down, they were stuck. It was sometimes the beginning of a slide down to unemployment, poverty, and lots of other bad things.
'I can think of many situations — some of them enormously consequential, like applying for a loan or facing a criminal charge — where, if I got to pick my race, gender, and sexual orientation, I would pick “straight white guy”.'
Now THAT would be an interesting quiz. We'll know we've made (more) progress when the the majority of people select "whatevs" as their response.
Jeff writes: "And why does the average white person have more money? Many reasons, historical racism first among them."
This is a rare moment where Jeff and I disagree!
I think race is far too often conflated with culture, with good reason: race + culture = ethnicity. I think a far more accurate statement would be: "Many reasons, historical ethnocentric preferences first among them."
Why the distinction? Because while America is truly designed to be a multi-ethnic country, it's simply impossible to be blind to the fact that Protestant European ethnic culture and values underpin our societal values, our legal system, and methods of remuneration.
And why would that be? Because this faction is what had the original power in the founding of America. There's nothing evil or wrong with a specific ethnicity having the vast majority of power in the creation of America. But, no ethnicity's culture comes without its very precise set of preferences, biases, priorities, beliefs, etc.
These Protestant European values are what, naturally, give people who come from this culture a distinct alignment advantage as they navigate. The further away other cultures are from this default, the harder it is to navigate effectively... and milk the value out of the system optimally.
Being a literal slave to a Protestant European is probably the furthest from the Protestant European cultural identity and related biases and preferences.
But if we look at the variety of other ethnicities and cultures in America, I think you could draw a line and plot out how each different minority group succeeds/fails based on how close their own cultural identity maps to the dominant Protestant European ethnicity.
I share all of this in case it helps us better characterize what the core drivers of the problems we're experiencing are. The better we accurately identify the core issues, the better the chances we'll address the problems these issues create effectively.
I'm not sure that we're really in sharp disagreement here (sorry, maybe next article!). I take your point about the world being easier to navigate when you share the dominant culture, and I think I can cut to the most important part of what I believe by simply saying: Culture matters. Often a lot. But is it THE LARGEST reason why white people, on average, have more money than Black people? It's hard to say; honestly, I'd still give the title to historical racism. There are just so, so many ways that people were cut out of opportunities to accrue wealth and develop the tools that lead to higher income. Of course, that wealth and those tools are components of...wait for it...culture, so the two variables are difficult to separate.
Of course, as I said in the article, I mostly look at things from a policy perspective, so the question of precisely how current circumstances came to be is the less interesting question to me. If someone puts culture #1 and historical racism #2, I'm not going to expend much effort trying to prove them wrong. The more interesting question is: What is a fair and efficient way to steer more resources to people who are disadvantaged (for whatever reason)?
You write: "The more interesting question is: What is a fair and efficient way to steer more resources to people who are disadvantaged (for whatever reason)?"
This is the problem with not agreeing with the core issue (race vs. culture / combo-of-both): I feel that there's an entirely different prescription if it's culturally-based vs. racially-based!
If it's indeed culturally based biases, then we need to learn to accept that different, minority cultures will fair differently in a European Protestant-biased power culture. And that the best way to go forward is not to repair anything, but rather, to educate minority/low-power cultures on the very nature of the European Protestant power culture in which they live, and how to effectively navigate it.
Knowledge is power. KNOW YOUR ECOSYSTEM. Right now, I feel like certain cultures simply scrape against each other regularly, creating all kinds of friction due to a lack of a common cultural language and cultural priorities and values.
I think it's 100% absolutely fine for people to keep the values and priorities of their native culture. But there's a cost to that in a dominant culture that doesn't match your personal values. The original sentiment of America was to be "the great melting pot" -- which was essentially an instruction manual to *fit in* to get the most out of this country.
But we're also a libertarian, individualist society, so we need to allow people to fit in or not based on their own desires. But teaching people at an early age of the costs and benefits of holding dear to your minority cultural values would at least give each individual the opportunity to choose their preferred path in life, and do so with eyes wide open. Just being aware that people's situation was primarily a function of their own personal choice may drastically reduce the amount of victimization people tend to feel today for bumping up against a foreign culture and getting hit hard (legally, economically, etc.) as a result.
But if the core issue happens to be race, and that race and slavery created a permanent underclass that will never be resolved without intervention, then we will need to intervene. Notice I use the term intervention, not reparations. Big difference. The intervention will need to be an education bolus focused on both black and white Americans (notice now that we're talking about the theory of race being at the core, I can now refer to people by color of their skin -- which feels very bad and reductive to me tbh), where white people are deprogrammed of their racial animus and black people are deprogrammed of their feeling of victimization based on their history. We'll need essentially hardcore reeducation courses early in school (5th grade) that stop the pattern from repeating as it has since the dawn of America.
So, it looks like my prescriptions going forward are both education-based. But the nature and approach (and target audience) for the education varies greatly depending on if the core issue is culture or if the core issue is race.
Perhaps these proposed solutions are not really all that great, and that I'm way off from the reality that's out there. But you did ask about what resources should be steered where, so I felt compelled to at least start the conversation with some initial ideas.
I still think we disagree! :) I think by pointing at race, we actually *accurately* diagnose the problem. There are studies that show, pretty clearly, that conservative minds are actually less racist than progressive minds. Rather, conservative minds have innate fear and loathing of "otherness" - no matter the race, color, gender, or creed.
Yet, we had slavery. How can we square this circle?
Well, we need to zoom out from our own US history and look at the development of mankind. There are plenty of accounts of sub-populations being enslaved by other, more powerful, populations.
As a Jew, every single year, I'm re-taught during Passover Seder how the Jews were enslaved by Egyptians. And of course there are plenty other historical conditions where the powerful ethnicity "raped" the less powerful tribe by exploiting them for whatever they wanted.
Now, it does seem quite likely that America's slavery of Africans was, like most American exploits, far and beyond the largest scale slavery project in human history (although, I wouldn't ignore Chinese history). And that scale and scope does matter!
But if we look at American slavery first and foremost as the exploit of a less powerful culture by a more powerful culture, it keeps better with the history of slavery in mankind's history.
With all that said, I will absolutely acknowledge that the American Slavery Project had a cult-like component to it where many (most?) slave owners and related folk were essentially brainwashed into believing that black people were sub-human biologically. I view this as more of a sociological disease than anything else (similar to how Germans viewed Jews during the 1920s-1940s). We obviously see far less sub-human beliefs amongst European Protestants in America as we did 75-250 years ago, just as we see far less sub-human beliefs about Jews in the German culture now than we did 100 years ago.
My final culture-over-race anecdote (which I acknowledge does not substitute for statistics): How on earth did such a supposedly deeply racist country twice-elect a black-looking guy for President? Simple: Behind that black coating (race), there was a man who was raised by culturally European Protestant (and, as such, white) parents.
Barack Obama's so-called unlikely success in national politics, to me, is just another notch in the culture-over-color debate. This country would never elect a culturally black President (yet), but we had a much easier time electing someone who appeared racially black, yet was mostly culturally European Protestant.
America, writ large, put culture above race with President Obama. And I'd argue that's really all we've ever done (with the notable exceptions of actual racists, who will always make up ~5-10% of any population).
A related topic that riles people up are hate crimes. If some neo-nazi murders my aunt, vs some psycho serial-killer, why have more severe punishment for the former? Same if they burn down my place of worship, or paint nasty things on my storefront. Mens rea matters, but once you get down to "malicious intent," do we really need to quibble?
Similarly, the evils of historical racism are beside the point. You can find horror stories amongst all sorts of people in poverty. And you can banal stories, and self-inflicted dumbass stories. But the key problem is current disadvantage, and there is no reason to believe that righting past wrongs will actually remove that disadvantage, even if it might balance some cosmic scale of justice.
Great piece. One thing that might be missing here is that many advocates who make the case for race based material distribution make 2 points.
1.) The goal is not necessarily to ensure some kind of statistical erasure of group disparities. The question of redressing historical harms and having a more equitable society require different although often overlapping strategies.
2.) State and Federal Government have historically encoded racism into law. Therefore there is a legal and moral obligation to redress the material harms perpetuated by these entities. (Since these institutions still exist).
I offer two arguments pushing back on these claims:
1.) How would you even begin to quantify this harm on a group level much less an individual level? (Response: We can and have an obligation to try even if we can’t be as precise as we would wish. If we know historical racism echoes into the present why not focus some substantial effort on redressing it?)
2.) It’s not politically viable in the current environment. (This is where I fall. Proponents would argue their goal is to continue to persuade the public while also pushing for race-based redistribution policies in the present where they DO have the political support.)
In short, I think your point that the way we got into the mess isn’t likely the same way we get out is correct. But what would you say to those who would point out you are commenting on a single solution while conflating two different problems to solve?
My response would be that: 1) "The state" is comprised of the citizens of this country, so you can say that "the state" should pay for what it did, but you're actually saying that the people of this country -- including, at this point, large numbers of people who not only didn't commit the crimes but who are not even descended from people who committed the crimes -- should pay for crimes that someone else committed; 2) We have limited resources, so we should try to steer resources to people who need them as efficiently as possible. #2 is the same reasons why I oppose across-the-board student loan forgiveness; as I type this, the poverty-reducing Child Tax Credit expansion is being cut out of BBB because money isn't infinite and we have to make cuts, and in that environment, some people still want to enact loan forgiveness that overwhelmingly benefits the upper middle-class. Priorities, folks.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this movement talks about social “justice.” They want justice in every sense of the word—not just giving POC the wealth and opportunity they deserve, but emphasizing that white people are responsible for disparities.
However, none of us were alive when racism started. Some white people benefit from privilege going back generations, but it’s not something they chose. If white liberals are willing to be part of a movement to make things better, I’m happy with that.
But for many that’s not enough. That’s why there is so much obsession with the causes of disparities (historical racism) and calling people racist in the present day (sometimes true, sometimes not).
Personally I don’t think much good comes from seeking justice for systems of oppression. It rarely works, and it’s often counterproductive. And it’s pretty much impossible to go after without inflicting more division and pain.
Freddie deBoer has a good piece that has influenced my thinking on this.
You're suggesting here that most/all of the disparities caused by past racism manifest as the knock-on effects of lower generational wealth building opportunities. But what about the disparities in outcomes between Black Americans and white Americans of equal wealth? For example, controlling for other variables (including wealth) Black students score lower on the SAT. Similar effects show up in outcome metrics as fundamental as health and lifespan.
I'm saying wealth is a big factor, but I'm not saying it's the only factor. Though I do focus mostly on wealth in this piece because: 1) It's what's usually (or at least often) focused on in the dialogue about systemic racism, and 2) It's something measurable that the government can actually do something about.
You make good points. Also if we start talking about present-day systemic racism, we could certainly make a case for, say, sentencing disparities. But that only affects black and white people who *are in trouble with the law.* That is not all black and white people, not by a long shot, the way Jim Crow clearly WAS. We could even make a case for racism as an explanation for why there's disproportionate numbers of black and white prisoners (but that case is less straightforward and ironclad). But again, that is not even close to affecting most people. Money affects everyone. It makes the world go round.
Sentencing disparities are actually a good example of the type of error and correction I'm talking about. To take a pretty-clean example: The disparities in sentences for violations involving crack and powder cocaine were largely (though not entirely) the product of racism, and regardless of motives, they certainly had a wildly-disparate impact. The House has passed a bill to end the disparity and the Senate will likely soon follow suit. So, sentencing guidelines will probably soon be changed, and some people who were sentenced under the old guidelines -- many but not all of whom are Black -- will have their sentences adjusted. That, obviously, is the logical way to do things. An ILLOGICAL way to do things would be to say "this policy disproportionately affected Black people, therefore we are adjusting the sentences of Black people." That would loop in some people whose sentence had nothing to do with our crack cocaine policy and cut out many people whose sentence had everything to do with that policy! It seems likely an obviously-bad way to do things. But I feel that this is basically the approach that some people take questions of material resources.
I hate it, but over the past few years my view has come to be pretty much this post. I’m a black man with a black wife and a black son. My wife and I grew up in $ neighborhoods, and now we’re raising our son in a $$$ neighborhood.
When I look at our current neighborhood and compare it to where I grew up, I see cleaner streets, better public transportation, nicer parks, cooler police, higher quality schools, breweries that serve to-go, etc., etc., etc., and I can’t help but think “I wish me and my friends had had some of these nice things when we were kids, that would’ve been good.”
So, my dream these days is to hit the Powerball and start an endowment that funds a team of smart lobbyists who write model bills that funnel $ to the ten poorest poverty areas (a Census Bureau designation) in the US, so that the people who live in those places can have nice things too.
The reason the ten poorest poverty areas in the US are the ten poorest poverty areas in the US is probably racism (hedging because I haven’t done the research to have an internet argument on this very specific assertion…), and five years ago I would’ve made myself hoarse shouting “we MUST fight racism in all its forms to make people’s lives better!”
I suppose that's not really wrong, but these days I’d rather make myself hoarse shouting “we MUST fight to ensure that the buses in Washington Highlands in DC are reliable in case someone’s car breaks down and they have to get to work on time!”
I hit this point quickly in the article (because this article is about other things), but I'm glad you highlighted the "money/resources really matter" point, because it's a key point and very real. I think, on an intuitive level, most people basically get this, but the advantages can be difficult to quantify. Probably the best way to internalize the "money really helps" point is to go through a period of your life in which you don't have money, and then go through a period in which you do, and realize that B is much, much easier than A for a multitude of reasons.
I used to argue that the government should issue everyone a Corolla when they turned 16. Over my career, I have worked with many people who were good workers and valuable employees, but when their cars broke down, they were stuck. It was sometimes the beginning of a slide down to unemployment, poverty, and lots of other bad things.
'I can think of many situations — some of them enormously consequential, like applying for a loan or facing a criminal charge — where, if I got to pick my race, gender, and sexual orientation, I would pick “straight white guy”.'
Now THAT would be an interesting quiz. We'll know we've made (more) progress when the the majority of people select "whatevs" as their response.
Jeff writes: "And why does the average white person have more money? Many reasons, historical racism first among them."
This is a rare moment where Jeff and I disagree!
I think race is far too often conflated with culture, with good reason: race + culture = ethnicity. I think a far more accurate statement would be: "Many reasons, historical ethnocentric preferences first among them."
Why the distinction? Because while America is truly designed to be a multi-ethnic country, it's simply impossible to be blind to the fact that Protestant European ethnic culture and values underpin our societal values, our legal system, and methods of remuneration.
And why would that be? Because this faction is what had the original power in the founding of America. There's nothing evil or wrong with a specific ethnicity having the vast majority of power in the creation of America. But, no ethnicity's culture comes without its very precise set of preferences, biases, priorities, beliefs, etc.
These Protestant European values are what, naturally, give people who come from this culture a distinct alignment advantage as they navigate. The further away other cultures are from this default, the harder it is to navigate effectively... and milk the value out of the system optimally.
Being a literal slave to a Protestant European is probably the furthest from the Protestant European cultural identity and related biases and preferences.
But if we look at the variety of other ethnicities and cultures in America, I think you could draw a line and plot out how each different minority group succeeds/fails based on how close their own cultural identity maps to the dominant Protestant European ethnicity.
I share all of this in case it helps us better characterize what the core drivers of the problems we're experiencing are. The better we accurately identify the core issues, the better the chances we'll address the problems these issues create effectively.
I'm not sure that we're really in sharp disagreement here (sorry, maybe next article!). I take your point about the world being easier to navigate when you share the dominant culture, and I think I can cut to the most important part of what I believe by simply saying: Culture matters. Often a lot. But is it THE LARGEST reason why white people, on average, have more money than Black people? It's hard to say; honestly, I'd still give the title to historical racism. There are just so, so many ways that people were cut out of opportunities to accrue wealth and develop the tools that lead to higher income. Of course, that wealth and those tools are components of...wait for it...culture, so the two variables are difficult to separate.
Of course, as I said in the article, I mostly look at things from a policy perspective, so the question of precisely how current circumstances came to be is the less interesting question to me. If someone puts culture #1 and historical racism #2, I'm not going to expend much effort trying to prove them wrong. The more interesting question is: What is a fair and efficient way to steer more resources to people who are disadvantaged (for whatever reason)?
You write: "The more interesting question is: What is a fair and efficient way to steer more resources to people who are disadvantaged (for whatever reason)?"
This is the problem with not agreeing with the core issue (race vs. culture / combo-of-both): I feel that there's an entirely different prescription if it's culturally-based vs. racially-based!
If it's indeed culturally based biases, then we need to learn to accept that different, minority cultures will fair differently in a European Protestant-biased power culture. And that the best way to go forward is not to repair anything, but rather, to educate minority/low-power cultures on the very nature of the European Protestant power culture in which they live, and how to effectively navigate it.
Knowledge is power. KNOW YOUR ECOSYSTEM. Right now, I feel like certain cultures simply scrape against each other regularly, creating all kinds of friction due to a lack of a common cultural language and cultural priorities and values.
I think it's 100% absolutely fine for people to keep the values and priorities of their native culture. But there's a cost to that in a dominant culture that doesn't match your personal values. The original sentiment of America was to be "the great melting pot" -- which was essentially an instruction manual to *fit in* to get the most out of this country.
But we're also a libertarian, individualist society, so we need to allow people to fit in or not based on their own desires. But teaching people at an early age of the costs and benefits of holding dear to your minority cultural values would at least give each individual the opportunity to choose their preferred path in life, and do so with eyes wide open. Just being aware that people's situation was primarily a function of their own personal choice may drastically reduce the amount of victimization people tend to feel today for bumping up against a foreign culture and getting hit hard (legally, economically, etc.) as a result.
But if the core issue happens to be race, and that race and slavery created a permanent underclass that will never be resolved without intervention, then we will need to intervene. Notice I use the term intervention, not reparations. Big difference. The intervention will need to be an education bolus focused on both black and white Americans (notice now that we're talking about the theory of race being at the core, I can now refer to people by color of their skin -- which feels very bad and reductive to me tbh), where white people are deprogrammed of their racial animus and black people are deprogrammed of their feeling of victimization based on their history. We'll need essentially hardcore reeducation courses early in school (5th grade) that stop the pattern from repeating as it has since the dawn of America.
So, it looks like my prescriptions going forward are both education-based. But the nature and approach (and target audience) for the education varies greatly depending on if the core issue is culture or if the core issue is race.
Perhaps these proposed solutions are not really all that great, and that I'm way off from the reality that's out there. But you did ask about what resources should be steered where, so I felt compelled to at least start the conversation with some initial ideas.
Cheers!
I still think we disagree! :) I think by pointing at race, we actually *accurately* diagnose the problem. There are studies that show, pretty clearly, that conservative minds are actually less racist than progressive minds. Rather, conservative minds have innate fear and loathing of "otherness" - no matter the race, color, gender, or creed.
Yet, we had slavery. How can we square this circle?
Well, we need to zoom out from our own US history and look at the development of mankind. There are plenty of accounts of sub-populations being enslaved by other, more powerful, populations.
As a Jew, every single year, I'm re-taught during Passover Seder how the Jews were enslaved by Egyptians. And of course there are plenty other historical conditions where the powerful ethnicity "raped" the less powerful tribe by exploiting them for whatever they wanted.
Now, it does seem quite likely that America's slavery of Africans was, like most American exploits, far and beyond the largest scale slavery project in human history (although, I wouldn't ignore Chinese history). And that scale and scope does matter!
But if we look at American slavery first and foremost as the exploit of a less powerful culture by a more powerful culture, it keeps better with the history of slavery in mankind's history.
With all that said, I will absolutely acknowledge that the American Slavery Project had a cult-like component to it where many (most?) slave owners and related folk were essentially brainwashed into believing that black people were sub-human biologically. I view this as more of a sociological disease than anything else (similar to how Germans viewed Jews during the 1920s-1940s). We obviously see far less sub-human beliefs amongst European Protestants in America as we did 75-250 years ago, just as we see far less sub-human beliefs about Jews in the German culture now than we did 100 years ago.
My final culture-over-race anecdote (which I acknowledge does not substitute for statistics): How on earth did such a supposedly deeply racist country twice-elect a black-looking guy for President? Simple: Behind that black coating (race), there was a man who was raised by culturally European Protestant (and, as such, white) parents.
Barack Obama's so-called unlikely success in national politics, to me, is just another notch in the culture-over-color debate. This country would never elect a culturally black President (yet), but we had a much easier time electing someone who appeared racially black, yet was mostly culturally European Protestant.
America, writ large, put culture above race with President Obama. And I'd argue that's really all we've ever done (with the notable exceptions of actual racists, who will always make up ~5-10% of any population).
A related topic that riles people up are hate crimes. If some neo-nazi murders my aunt, vs some psycho serial-killer, why have more severe punishment for the former? Same if they burn down my place of worship, or paint nasty things on my storefront. Mens rea matters, but once you get down to "malicious intent," do we really need to quibble?
Similarly, the evils of historical racism are beside the point. You can find horror stories amongst all sorts of people in poverty. And you can banal stories, and self-inflicted dumbass stories. But the key problem is current disadvantage, and there is no reason to believe that righting past wrongs will actually remove that disadvantage, even if it might balance some cosmic scale of justice.
Great piece. One thing that might be missing here is that many advocates who make the case for race based material distribution make 2 points.
1.) The goal is not necessarily to ensure some kind of statistical erasure of group disparities. The question of redressing historical harms and having a more equitable society require different although often overlapping strategies.
2.) State and Federal Government have historically encoded racism into law. Therefore there is a legal and moral obligation to redress the material harms perpetuated by these entities. (Since these institutions still exist).
I offer two arguments pushing back on these claims:
1.) How would you even begin to quantify this harm on a group level much less an individual level? (Response: We can and have an obligation to try even if we can’t be as precise as we would wish. If we know historical racism echoes into the present why not focus some substantial effort on redressing it?)
2.) It’s not politically viable in the current environment. (This is where I fall. Proponents would argue their goal is to continue to persuade the public while also pushing for race-based redistribution policies in the present where they DO have the political support.)
In short, I think your point that the way we got into the mess isn’t likely the same way we get out is correct. But what would you say to those who would point out you are commenting on a single solution while conflating two different problems to solve?
My response would be that: 1) "The state" is comprised of the citizens of this country, so you can say that "the state" should pay for what it did, but you're actually saying that the people of this country -- including, at this point, large numbers of people who not only didn't commit the crimes but who are not even descended from people who committed the crimes -- should pay for crimes that someone else committed; 2) We have limited resources, so we should try to steer resources to people who need them as efficiently as possible. #2 is the same reasons why I oppose across-the-board student loan forgiveness; as I type this, the poverty-reducing Child Tax Credit expansion is being cut out of BBB because money isn't infinite and we have to make cuts, and in that environment, some people still want to enact loan forgiveness that overwhelmingly benefits the upper middle-class. Priorities, folks.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this movement talks about social “justice.” They want justice in every sense of the word—not just giving POC the wealth and opportunity they deserve, but emphasizing that white people are responsible for disparities.
However, none of us were alive when racism started. Some white people benefit from privilege going back generations, but it’s not something they chose. If white liberals are willing to be part of a movement to make things better, I’m happy with that.
But for many that’s not enough. That’s why there is so much obsession with the causes of disparities (historical racism) and calling people racist in the present day (sometimes true, sometimes not).
Personally I don’t think much good comes from seeking justice for systems of oppression. It rarely works, and it’s often counterproductive. And it’s pretty much impossible to go after without inflicting more division and pain.
Freddie deBoer has a good piece that has influenced my thinking on this.
https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/there-is-no-such-thing-as-justice
You're suggesting here that most/all of the disparities caused by past racism manifest as the knock-on effects of lower generational wealth building opportunities. But what about the disparities in outcomes between Black Americans and white Americans of equal wealth? For example, controlling for other variables (including wealth) Black students score lower on the SAT. Similar effects show up in outcome metrics as fundamental as health and lifespan.
I'm saying wealth is a big factor, but I'm not saying it's the only factor. Though I do focus mostly on wealth in this piece because: 1) It's what's usually (or at least often) focused on in the dialogue about systemic racism, and 2) It's something measurable that the government can actually do something about.
You make good points. Also if we start talking about present-day systemic racism, we could certainly make a case for, say, sentencing disparities. But that only affects black and white people who *are in trouble with the law.* That is not all black and white people, not by a long shot, the way Jim Crow clearly WAS. We could even make a case for racism as an explanation for why there's disproportionate numbers of black and white prisoners (but that case is less straightforward and ironclad). But again, that is not even close to affecting most people. Money affects everyone. It makes the world go round.
Sentencing disparities are actually a good example of the type of error and correction I'm talking about. To take a pretty-clean example: The disparities in sentences for violations involving crack and powder cocaine were largely (though not entirely) the product of racism, and regardless of motives, they certainly had a wildly-disparate impact. The House has passed a bill to end the disparity and the Senate will likely soon follow suit. So, sentencing guidelines will probably soon be changed, and some people who were sentenced under the old guidelines -- many but not all of whom are Black -- will have their sentences adjusted. That, obviously, is the logical way to do things. An ILLOGICAL way to do things would be to say "this policy disproportionately affected Black people, therefore we are adjusting the sentences of Black people." That would loop in some people whose sentence had nothing to do with our crack cocaine policy and cut out many people whose sentence had everything to do with that policy! It seems likely an obviously-bad way to do things. But I feel that this is basically the approach that some people take questions of material resources.