Removing “Systemic Racism” from the Vocabulary

I wanted to draw a post by John McWhorter to your attention. In it he analyzes and criticizes the term “systemic racism”. I recommend reading the post in full as it defines systemic racism, gives education as an example, and identifies the implications and limitations of the term. Here is a telling snippet:

Our racial “reckoning” could use a reckoning about the term systemic racism. It is often used with an implication, a resonance, a tacit assumption, that to question is unthinkable. Uttered by a certain kind of person, often with a hint of emphasis or an eyeroll, we are to assume that the argumentation behind it has been long accomplished; the heavy lifting was taken care of long ago and we can now just decide what we’re going to do about this “racism” so clearly in our faces.

The problem is that this heavy lifting has not occurred. This usage of systemic racism is more rhetorical bludgeon than a simple term of reference. For all of the pungent redolence of the word racism in general when uttered by a certain kind of person, complete with the inherent threat to whites that they are racists to have anything to say but Amen, we must learn to listen past this theatrical aspect of the word and think for ourselves.

My own view is that the term is a catch-all, meaning whatever the speaker wants it to mean at the time. It has the advantage of being a bitter criticism while absolving the speaker of any responsibility to act.