Systemic Racism: Is It Based On An Inadequate Analogy?
In 1967 Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton coined the term “institutional racism” in their book Black Power. The authors stated: Racism takes two forms. Individual racism, individual whites acting against individual blacks, and institutional racism, acts by the total white community against the black community. The second type originates in the operation of established and respected forces of society and relies on the active and pervasive operation of anti-black attitudes and practices.
The explanation for the second type of racism was vague.
Therefore, the term institutional racism didn’t enter the national discourse as a working definition, it entered as a concept that was self-explanatory. Over the decades the synonym — systemic racism — emerged because people started to defend American institutions against the charge of institutional racism. The skeptics asked how could the institutions be racist with policies like affirmative action? The rebuttal was these institutions may have equalized opportunity but there were still disparate outcomes like the wealth gap between blacks and whites. Historian Ibram X. Kendi, author of — How to be an Antiracist — stated, when he sees disparities, he sees racism. Therefore, disparity statistics reveal the existence of systemic racism, but there’s an obvious problem, that doesn’t…