Freddie Gray, a 25-year old black man, died in April of 2015. His spine was severed while in police custody in Baltimore. Not long after, I read a column written by Chicago Tribune columnist, Clarence Page, in which he used the words Systemic Discrimination. I believe it was my first introduction to the term.
The day before I read Page’s column, I happened to read Václav Havel’s 1965 speech, “On Evasive Thinking.” Havel—the Czech playwright, Communist dissident, and eventual first President of the new Czech Republic—spoke about the distortion of language:
“(This distortion has a) special capacity to dissolve—in the vagueness of all the possible wider contexts—everything particular in that reality. Thus what looks like an attempt to see something in a complex way in fact results in a complex form of blindness. …When we lose touch with reality, we inevitably lose the capacity to influence reality effectively. …I would call it something like ‘evasive thinking.’ That is, a way of thinking that turns away from the core of the matter to something else…”
I wrote to Mr. Page:
“Systemic Discrimination is a concept. Concepts cannot sever spines. Freddie Gray’s spine was severed because of the actions, premeditated or spontaneous, intentional or accidental, of individual police officers. The law should hold those responsible accountable for their actions, regardless of their personal beliefs. It does not matter to Freddie Gray if their brutality and callous indifference to human life was driven by racism, or sadism, or stupidity.
To paraphrase Václav Havel, evasive thinking is a way of thinking that turns away from the core of the matter (e.g., severing the spine of a man in police custody) to something else—from…the concrete fact of personal guilt to the abstract category (e.g., Systemic Discrimination).
If Baltimore’s mayor and members of the City Council spend their efforts attempting to end Systemic Discrimination, they will fail. They will fail because they cannot control the hearts and minds of the individuals in their police force. On the other hand, if they focus on holding individual officers, and their superiors, accountable for specific actions, whether that means a criminal trial or removal from the police force or other, and if they don’t allow themselves to get side-tracked and hide under the evasive cover of Systemic Discrimination, they will make a step toward atonement.”
And here we are five years later. Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on George Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes, and George Floyd died. As with Freddie Gray, it does not matter to George Floyd if Chauvin’s brutality and callous indifference were motivated by racism, sadism, stupidity, ego, machismo, or a combination of all. Yet Systemic Discrimination, Systemic Racism, and Structural Racism are the synonyms that permeate our public discourse in the wake of this outrage.
The Aspen Institute defines Systemic Racism as:
“A system in which public policies, institutional practices, cultural representations, and other norms work in various, often reinforcing ways to perpetuate racial group inequity. It identifies dimensions of our history and culture that have allowed privileges associated with “whiteness” and disadvantages associated with “color” to endure and adapt over time. Systemic racism is not something that a few people or institutions choose to practice. Instead it has been a feature of the social, economic and political systems in which we all exist.”
Good grief. What am I supposed to do with that? What are any of us supposed to do with that? This is evasive thinking. It’s a complex form of blindness. It turns us away from the core of the matter to something else.
We have systems. And we have racism. I believe that when we merge the two into Systemic Racism, we neither improve the systems nor diminish the racism. We just blather on and on and on, evading the core issues. Let me use the U.S. Department of Agriculture as an example.
Tom Vilsack and Dan Glickman, both former Secretaries of Agriculture, recently wrote a retrospective article about their roles administering the settlements of the class action lawsuit, Pigford v. Glickman. Vilsack and Glickman contend that Systemic Racism existed in the USDA farm loan programs. But the more I read about the Pigford case, the more it seems to be a good example of why we need to be clear in our thinking about what’s systemic and what’s racist. (Note: if you choose to go down the Pigford rabbit hole, you will discover that the settlement itself is highly controversial. It is thick with fraud, racial politics, pandering politicians, and taxpayers on the hook for more than $1B. Talk about a snarl to be untangled…)
Although the settlement itself is a complicated mess, the actual facts that led Timothy Pigford to file the lawsuit are not disputed. In the 1980’s and 90’s the USDA farm loan program offered operating loans to buy livestock, seed, and equipment, ownership loans to purchase land, and emergency loans to cover losses from natural disasters. The loan programs were administered at the county level by a committee of three to five elected members. There was nothing discriminatory written into these loan programs. The farm loan system itself was not racist.
However, in certain counties the elected committee members routinely discriminated against black farmers. They delayed the loans until it was too late in the season to plant. They “lost” the loan applications. They denied disaster relief, yet granted it to white farmers hit with the same natural disaster.
Was the USDA farm loan program Systemically Racist, or were racists operating in the USDA farm loan system? The way we answer that question determines the approach we take to making things better.
Glickman and Vilsack focused on improving the policies and laws written into the USDA programs. To be clear, I am in favor of evaluating and improving systems, recognizing previously unintended consequences, adapting to changing realities, learning from our mistakes, etc. It’s laborious, tedious and often thankless policy wonk work. In the olden days it was called Legislation, and required diligence and compromise. It was the duty of Congress.
But all the policy tweaks in the world will not prevent voters from electing racist committee members, nor stop racists from discriminating against those who are different from themselves. If we want a less racist society, then we have to have fewer people act on racist beliefs. Racism is a matter of the heart and mind. Individuals choose to discriminate—or not. Individuals choose to stereotype—or not. Individuals choose to broaden their circle of friends—or not. Individuals choose to consider other viewpoints—or not. That’s one of the reasons I find the definition of Systemic Racism so nonsensical: “…it’s not something a few people…choose to practice.” Nonsense.
I am not a helpless lump of carbon, tossed about by the great systems of our time, unable to control my discriminatory behavior and hateful rhetoric. I am the master of my own choices and viewpoints and decisions. But…it is a struggle to be responsible for myself. It is hard work to improve. It is uncomfortable to consider new things.
I think that’s why we yammer on about the vague concept of Systemic Racism. It’s too difficult to hold ourselves and each other accountable for our personal behavior, and we don’t seem to know how to hold our elected legislators accountable for workable laws and policies. It seems to be easier to dissolve disturbing realities into the impotency of Systemic Racism.
