There's context missing here. I'm not going to even pretend to know about New Zealand culture or it's history in relation to racism.
But in the US, institutional racism is very much a thing. It does not mean "only white people can be racist". It means, in simple terms, that the historical treatment of people of color - particularly black people - in the US has led to a structural imbalance when it comes to white people in power in comparison to black people in power (wealth, careers, politics, even media). Same with men in comparison to women.
Again, that does not mean black people can't be racist or women can't be sexist. They're two different things.
Can you give examples of modern institutional racism? I definitely agree it has existed in America in the past, and I also agree that some of the products of insitutional racism in the past have affected certain aspects of modern life (wealth distribution, availability of education, etc), but can you give me examples of laws/rules/directives that exist today that explicitly favour one race over another? Remembering that insitutionalised racism is not one person in power acting with racist motives, but instead a defined protocol (usually clearly stated and written down) which favours one race over another. I have had a very hard time finding any examples of this in modern America, but your search might prove more fruitful than my own.
There's not a lot of "clearly stated and written down" policy that can be pointed to that exists now that disenfranchises people of color, but keep in mind these things nowadays are often not officially written down. I don't think that's an assumption you can make. Do some research into how black men are disproportionately sentenced to prison more than whites committing the same crime, the institutional racism baked into the US prison system despite no official written policy is shocking. It could be as simple as preferentially enforcing laws on some but not others--for example white kids getting off with a warning for smoking weed, but black kids getting thrown into the pipeline to prison. I don't have any statistics about this so you'd have to dig for them to see exactly how large the effect is, but I think the policing and prison system is where most of the conversations about institutional racism focus nowadays.
some of the products of institutional racism in the past have affected certain aspects of modern life (wealth distribution, availability of education, etc),
This probably has a bigger effect than you think. Even if everything were perfectly racism-free starting today and moving forward, black populations would still be at a disadvantage. Statistically parent's wealth is the best predictor for how a child's life will turn out. If your parents and grandparents were forcibly kept in poverty, they have nothing to pass down to you and you fall behind your peers who reap the benefits of their family being successful, even if you both work as hard and go to the same school. Now look up institutional racism that happened in the near past, like the destruction of black wall street and redlining policies, and imagine how that could affect black families and keep them trapped in poverty.
1.7k
u/Clarice_Ferguson Dec 11 '19
There's context missing here. I'm not going to even pretend to know about New Zealand culture or it's history in relation to racism.
But in the US, institutional racism is very much a thing. It does not mean "only white people can be racist". It means, in simple terms, that the historical treatment of people of color - particularly black people - in the US has led to a structural imbalance when it comes to white people in power in comparison to black people in power (wealth, careers, politics, even media). Same with men in comparison to women.
Again, that does not mean black people can't be racist or women can't be sexist. They're two different things.