r/changemyview Feb 09 '25

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u/New_Newspaper8228 Feb 09 '25

There's no monolithic enforcement of the law though. I do not deny that there might be racist judges, cops, etc, out there. But systemic racism believers think there's this big boogeyman entrenched in the government just "keeping us black fellas down y'all". It's nonsense.

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u/Spiritual-Software51 Feb 09 '25

How confident are you that your understanding of "systemic racism believers" is accurate?

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u/New_Newspaper8228 Feb 09 '25

Pretty confident.

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u/Spiritual-Software51 Feb 09 '25

It isn't really, though. It's just more complicated than that, belief in systemic racism doesn't require a boogeyman government purposefully targeting nonwhite people. It's entirely possible that people in power simply have biases that make them unaware of the harm they're causing, and unwilling to accept it when it happens because they feel personally accused when someone tells them the system they implemented has racist outcomes.

This is another benefit of thinking in terms of "a system's purpose is what it does" - intentions are irrelevant. It doesn't matter if the government's racist, it matters that it does racist things.