Note: This is written for my overseas readers mainly. If you live in the US, you will probably find that you already know most of what I am writing about. A couple of days ago, a police officer shot to death a black man in full daylight in Charlotte, North Carolina, very much the Old … Continue reading Another Race Riot
You heard it from me first: The scandal at the University of Missouri that led to the resignation of its president recently (11/8/15) stinks to high heaven. It’s a phony. It’s fabricated. How do I know? The real redneck racists being evoked, outlined, sketched in the story would have been proud just to find the … Continue reading A Phony Race Scandal
My Facebook friend, VXA who is a disgruntled Afghan immigrant but quite smart some of the time asks this question: What’s the difference between race and ethnicity? I am a sociologist by trade and I think I know the answer. Both are vague terms. Race is a well established habit to classify people according to … Continue reading Race and Ethnicity
I live in Northern California where Indian restaurant food and French restaurant food taste alike. That’s because the first is Mexican Indian food and the second is Mexican French food. All the cooks are Mexican. That’s an interesting economic fact. That’s not the whole story by a long shot. America is a great country where … Continue reading Race in America Right Now
Warning: Some parts of this essay may be considered pornographic. (I sure hope so because I need another source of income.) It is mostly addressed to adult women but you should feel free to read it whatever your sex, or sexual orientation, or sexual orientations. If a young girl happens to read it, I am … Continue reading Contraception and Perversions: Dr D’s Brutal Reminders
Rush Limbaugh called the President’s appointee for Supreme Court Justice a “reverse racist.” He is wrong; she is simply a racist. If you discriminate against anyone because he belongs to a racial group (whatever that means, see below), you are a racist. There is no definitional exception depending on the race of the discriminator. Got … Continue reading Race, Racism, and the Law in America
Are you a racist? Anyone can feel free to answer this question any way it/she/he wishes; they wish. And that’s the problem. In this short essay, I aim first to do a little vocabulary house-keeping. Second, I try to trace three distinct origins of racism. I operate from thin authority. My main sources are sundry … Continue reading Three Roads to Racism
Conclusions Systemic racism is hard to find. Its most obvious and most widespread instance seems to me to be affirmative action in all its forms. It’s a device that discriminates against many to the benefit of others, based on ascribed, unchangeable characteristics such as sex and race. It was originally designed to favor African Americans … Continue reading Systemic Racism: a Rationalist Take (Part 9 of 9)
Reparations To my mind, the inheritance of slavery, segregation, and other forms of discrimination against African-Americans means that something is owed to the descendants of slaves irrespective of the current reality or existence of “systemic racism.” All emotions carefully kept aside, refusing to subscribe to present-day irrationality, I am persuaded that if I looked into … Continue reading Systemic Racism: a Rationalist Take (Part 8 of 9)
Do blacks have more police encounters than whites? In 2015, the percentages of whites and blacks who experiences police initiated encounters with the police were equal, a little over 10% each. (Bureau of Justice Statistics.) These rates seem to debunk a popular alternative narrative appearing in the Boston Globe, among other liberal sources, that claims that … Continue reading Systemic Racism: a Rationalist Take (Part 7 of 9)
The Justice System; Police Brutality I will mostly bypass now the important issue of possible systemic racism in the in administration of justice itself. I mean charging, convicting and sentencing, which may or may not each involve a systematic (systematic) racial component. Here again, I think the relevant research exists and it has not caught … Continue reading Systemic Racism: a Rationalist Take (Part 6 of 9)
Finding Systemic Racism in Employment, Housing, Education, Access to Government. It seems to me that systemic racism should (almost by definition or lack of it) bear upon all aspects of life, with four having special importance. First, I see employment, which affects often profoundly, the quality of one’s life. Second, I would consider housing, same … Continue reading Systemic Racism: a Rationalist Take (Part 5 of 9)
A Public Torture-Killing What directly prompted this essay (actually, several years in gestation) is a barbarous act that took place on May 25th 2020 in Minneapolis, that was thoroughly filmed by bystanders, and that triggered several weeks of peaceful protest nation-wide, but also of arson, of looting, and of other acts of rioting. Here is … Continue reading Systemic Racism: a Rationalist Take (Part 4 of 9)
The Vanishing of Personalized Racism Not long ago, in my lifetime, racism in America consisted of tangible actions against members of a given physically recognizable group motivated by their belonging to that group. The actions could be individual, such as slurs proffered by a stranger in the street, or variously collective like a company’s deliberate … Continue reading Systemic Racism: a Rationalist Take (Part 2 of 9)
by Jacques Delacroix jdelacroixliberty@gmail.com Foreword This is a freewheeling and personal essay on the term “systemic racism.” It’s not an empirical study but it’s mindful of facts. It blends my observations as a rationalist with my frankly conservative leanings. I am a religiously indifferent conservative of the constitutionalist, small government breed. I judge representative government … Continue reading Systemic Racism: a Rationalist Take
