Systemic Racism in America

George Rebane

Systemic racism is alive and well in America, and it has been in a fine fettle for most of the last fifty years.  We have our progressive and Marxist neighbors to thank for bringing it to our attention, only not in the way that they have massaged the national message.  All of our divers ethnic groups are aware of what the euphemistically labeled ‘Section 8’ promotions, admissions, awards, distributions, recognitions, … have been all about.  (I believe the origin of this label generalized from 'Section 8 set asides' in a HUD regulation that would assure minorities and low income applicants would get their share in certain kinds of contracting and allocations.)  Black intellectuals like Shelby Steele, Thomas Sowell, and the late Walter Williams deplored Section 8 advancements, not only for their racism, but for the explicit message that our African-Americans are somehow intellectually inferior and need special favorable dispensations to enable them to approach par with the other racial groups that participate in our public forums.

In our land over the years Section 8 advancements have been brought to bear to a fare-thee-well.  We all have seen it, and now witness its application in steroids.  (Un/fortunately, my professional experiences also abound in this realm.  And these have obviously shaped my socio-political beliefs.) Today even the simplest of statistical tests will confirm that the public face of our society is racially composed and biased.  The histrionics of the current ‘woke culture’ daily exposes a bevy of new insane interpretations of our language, America’s traditional culture, along with lunatic efforts to amplify systemic racism to bring about ‘equity’, the new scourge of progressive social engineering.

The resulting intellectual rot our Left is rapidly inducing into all of our institutions has, of course, already swept through academe, wreaked havoc in transforming capitalism into corporatism, seeped into the very fiber of our military, and today is finally broaching the formerly secure intellectual ramparts of our technical disciplines.  As we now see, equity is Section 8’s bastard issue.

A specific example that clearly illustrates the above is found in today’s academe – specifically, in math education.  Powerline presents the evidence in ‘Math is hard – hardest of all for the Left’.  From there we learn “that certain Virginia public school districts (and others elsewhere in the country) will discontinue advanced math classes, because (of) ‘equity’, and the University of California will permanently discontinue using the SAT for admission purposes.”  The graphic below explains the Left’s concern.  (Click on image for a larger presentation.)

The article by Steven Hayward goes on to explain, “If there’s one thing the left can’t abide at the moment, it is unequal racial results in achievement tests—tests that, let us recall, were largely invented by the liberal establishment decades ago as a means of making meritocracy count for more than family connections, private school pedigree, and so forth. It is not surprising that the left is turning on meritocracy right now.”

To further emphasize the extent of African-American and Hispanic academic deficits, which must be hidden/ignored, take a look at the graphic below that contains a SAT performance data matrix from the DoJ’s recent investigation of Yale’s admission practices.  Note the obvious bias in the admission of blacks and Latinos.  Only 20.18% of whites in the 10th decile (the top 10% of students’ SAT scores) were admitted, whereas 60% of similarly scoring blacks were admitted.  The admission rate for blacks did not sink to the level of the top admission rate for whites until the black students’ scores were in the 5^th decile (in the lower half of test scores) where their admission rate was still 20.85%, higher than that of the highest scoring whites.

Here then we see one of the actual faces of existential systemic racism that has been resurrected in America.  This is the decades-long fruit of Democrat public policies, especially those promoted by their virulent Marxist anti-American wing under the new cynical rubric of ‘equity’.  To continue in power and our country on the road to autocratic socialist mediocrity, the Democrats cannot afford to have America’s blacks and Hispanics understand what has been done to them since the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  With the Left’s control of our educational institutions and the media, there is little chance for them to enjoy any ethnic and/or racial epiphanies anytime soon.  Thus, America’s systemic racism is not only sustained, but also assured growth.

Comments

[The Estonian Fox]

From Tom Gallatin in today's Patriot Post:

"California recently decided to scrap the SAT and ACT tests for its 10-university application system, asserting that the exams are essentially racist.

...The irony here is that now California’s admissions officials won’t have to attempt to cover up their racially discriminatory admission practices that target Asian and white students for exclusion.

California isn’t interested in promoting and preserving equality of opportunity, where individuals succeed or fail based on merit. Rather, the state has chosen to ignore the individual, and instead focus on outcomes where everyone is measured against a quota system that determines “fairness”."

My mantra is, if I get to determine what's fair, then I know it will be fair. If you get to determine what's fair, then I know it won't be fair at all. My pronouncement - Banning SAT is not a fair system.

[Bill Tozer]

How Liberal Elites Use Race to Keep Workers Divided—And Justify Class-Based Inequities

“Liberals have abandoned history, because they have to believe they are superior to both elites of the past and the contemporary working class, at the same time. Members of the PMC believe themselves to be virtuous vanguardists, floating above historical forms and conditions, transgressing boundaries and inventing new ways of being and seeing. It is hard to argue with them, because they do not accept debate as a meaningful form of the advancement of knowledge. For them, every conflict is moral, not intellectual or political. In 1996, Sokal failed to stop the proliferation of Americanized ahistorical poststructuralist lines of research in the humanities. I have no illusions about the power of my critique against the dominant tendencies in academia today, but I will not stop criticizing opportunistic forms of anti-historical, and anti-materialist, anti-professional work in my field.“

https://quillette.com/2021/05/20/how-liberal-elites-use-race-to-keep-workers-divided-and-justify-class-based-inequities/

[Barry Pruett]

Add Robert Woodson to the patriot list.

https://1776unites.com/

[Bill Tozer]

Education Insanity: Top 10 Stories Of The Week (Vol. 16)

https://www.dailywire.com/news/education-insanity-top-10-stories-of-the-week-vol-16

[Bill Tozer]

Might be on topic. Good long read. It starts off with....

The Rise of Corporate-State Tyranny

“In explaining his shift away from Maoist economics, Deng Xiao Ping, chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, described his market-oriented changes as “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” Today, American businesses, as well as the media and academic establishments that serve them, increasingly embrace what can best be described as “Chinese capitalism with American characteristics.”

A convergence between the world’s two superpowers is taking place. In the United States, as property and power further consolidate, the “diffusion of power,” so critical to democracy, erodes and autocracy develops naturally. Only players at the highest level possess the heft and the motivation to influence policy.[1] This powerful front consists of a new alliance between large corporate powers, Wall Street, and the progressive clerisy in government and media.

Its agenda consists of several goals. On the corporate front we have the emergence of “stakeholder” capitalism, which embraces the state’s priorities implicitly and those of the progressives generally, as a way to please regulators, the woke among their employers, and, to some extent, their own consciences. In this they resemble companies in authoritarian states—like Mussolini’s Italy, Hitler’s Germany, and today’s China—where private capital accumulation is permitted but dissent from the agreed norms of the media-government-academy, once the privilege of individuals and corporations, is now largely verboten.

Yet complicity in the West differs from fascist or corporate socialist standards in one important way. In wealthy societies, a large part of the corporate elite does not see widespread economic growth or rising living standards as a goal but as an impediment to meeting the demands of the “stakeholders,” who are largely defined by the clerisy, their orbit of nonprofits, cowed media, and their academic mentors. Profits are fine in this arrangement but only if they do not increase the material consumption of the populace while allowing new advantages to select racial or lifestyle minorities. The new corporatism is not bad for established capitalists but offers little to the middle or working classes, or, for that matter, to smaller independent businesses.”

https://dc.claremont.org/the-rise-of-corporate-state-tyranny/

[George Rebane]

BillT 953pm - An excellent find Mr Tozer, thank you. Joel Kotkin's expansive essay from the Claremont Institute sums up what is going on in our formerly fair land, and also where this is taking us. It's a strongly recommended read, especially to our blindered leftists who continue to be introduced to such ideas on these pages, thereby by concluding their radical and limited purview.

[Don Bessee]

Just plain old propaganda as approved by the ministry of truth -

In my new book, Breaking the News: Exposing the Establishment Media’s Hidden Deals and Secret Corruption, I explain in detail that the New York Times’ “1619 Project” was never an accurate historical account, but in fact it was a part of a concerted effort by the Times to pivot the newsroom’s focus from the Trump/Russia collusion hoax to race hysteria.

I also argue that in our current “cancel culture” moment, the “1619 Project” easily meets the definition of “fake news” and fits the textbook definition of disinformation.

After the Mueller Report, the New York Times was in trouble. The paper of record needed a replacement for RussiaGate, into which the Times had (profitably) poured millions of dollars. The Times rode the Trump wave to record highs, reporting $24 million in profit in 2018. But when the Russia narrative finally flamed out, the newsroom was without a clear direction.

At an internal town hall meeting in 2019, New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet told the newsroom that, going forward, their primary focus would be on “what it means to be an American in 2019,” which “requires imaginative use of all our muscles to write about race and class in a deeper way than we have in years.” Race would be the new issue to enrapture the Times’ core audience of card-carrying members of the anti-Trump “Resistance.”

The pivot has literally been measurable. According to Tablet Magazine, the Times’ use of the terms “racist,” “racists,” and “racism” increased 700 percent between 2011 to 2019. Use of “whiteness” increased approximately 500 to 700 percent since 2015, while instances of “white privilege” and “racial privilege” leapt about 1,200 percent between 2013 and 2019.

https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2021/05/24/alex-marlow-cancel-the-new-york-times-1619-project-for-disinformation/

;-)

[Barry Pruett]

Love is the answer to the question of race. Not. More. Hate.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CPE1iOFlB8l/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=3dd90227-3336-4ae0-b4f5-cf205421dc6c&ig_mid=DE44CFE8-B0D6-472A-BE75-704AF6C7A28C