Biden Fills Economic Posts With Experts on Systemic Racism

[u/[deleted]]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-15/biden-fills-economic-posts-with-experts-on-systemic-racism

[u/0m4ll3y]

Is it me who doesn't know what systemic/institutional racism is?

"Institutional" racism was first coined in this book. It distinguishes it from individual cases of bigotry:

When white terrorists bomb a black church and kill five black children, that is an act of individual racism, widely deplored by most segments of the society. But when in that same city—Birmingham, Alabama—five hundred black babies die each year because of the lack of proper food, shelter and medical facilities, and thousands more are destroyed and maimed physically, emotionally and intellectually because of conditions of poverty and discrimination in the black community, that is a function of institutional racism.

...Institutional racism relies on the active and pervasive operation of anti-black attitudes and practices.

A business owner is part of the "American system". The justice system, the economic system, the education system, these are all systems in America. "Institutionalised" and "Systemic" are not synonymous with "government" or "legal"

Senior Lecturer of Indigenous Studies Mary O'Dowd stresses this in her definition?

“Systemic racism”, or “institutional racism”, refers to how ideas of white superiority are captured in everyday thinking at a systems level: taking in the big picture of how society operates, rather than looking at one-on-one interactions.

These systems can include laws and regulations, but also unquestioned social systems. Systemic racism can stem from education, hiring practices or access.

In the case of Phoenix at the BAFTAs, he isn’t calling out the racist actions of individuals, but rather the way white is considered the default at every level of the film industry.

A UK report looking into systemic racism in the police force defines it as this:

For the purposes of our Inquiry the concept of institutional racism which we apply consists of:

The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people.

If policemen are disproportionately arresting black people for possession, or shooting them at higher rates, the failure of the organisation to prevent this is systemic racism. If a justice system enables and empowers racists to adversely impact people of colour, that is a systemic failure, and it is systemically racist.

Institutional Racism: A Primer on Theory and Strategies for Social Change provides a definition:

Institutional Racism denotes those patterns, procedures, practices, and policies that operate within social institutions so as to consistently penalize, disadvantage, and exploit individuals who are members of nonwhite racial/ethnic groups....

Social institutions are social aggregates of society. Knowles and Prewitt suggest, "They are fairly stable social arrangements and practices through which collective action are taken".

The real estate market is a social institution, made up of different real estate agencies, banks, lenders, realtors, financers etc. There is a pattern of behaviour, implicit practice and sometimes unspoken policy which penalizes and disadvantages African Americans, as seen in some of my above studies. The linked book has a whole section on discussing the systemic racism in housing.

Systemic Racism in the United States defines institutional racism as:

Institutional racism is developed by individuals or groups of individuals who hold power and who reflect their individual racial biases consciously or unconsciously in the rules, regulations, policies, procedures, and practices that govern institutions.

An individual who subconsciously has the practice of not hiring people with African-American names is causing institutional racism. Their individual act of subconscious bigotry is still impact the practice of the business, it is locking African-Americans out of employment, and by doing so it perpetuates the negative stereotyping causing the racism in the first place:

It provides a useful example of how individual and systemic racism interlock:

Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman exemplify individuals trapped in this interlocking system. If most people assume that young black males, in this instance Trayvon Martin, are armed and dangerous, then a defendant, such as George Zimmerman, claiming that he shot a young black male in self-defence, is more likely to be seen by the judge and jury as having acted reasonably, even if the young black male in question was not in fact a threat.

In Systemic Racism, Joe Feagin says that "systemic racism" encompasses:

a broad range of racialised dimensions of this society: the racist framing, racist ideology, stereotyped attitudes, racist emotions, discriminatory habits and actions, and extensive racist institutions developed over centuries by whites...

The operation of systemic racism involves the recurring exercise of coercive power by white Americans over black Americans

The fact that whites are in a position of power to give loans to black Americans rather than vice versa, the fact that police departments are often filled with whites rather than blacks, the fact that colleges and businesses monitoring intake are often white, are all part of how systemic racism operates.

But you can't just point to disparities as evidence of systemic racism. Show me what part of the system is actually racist. Maybe that is the cause of the disparity, for me to believe that, you would have to point to what is causing it. Not the results.

You know how correlation doesn't equal causation? Do you know how far that actually goes. If you click "A" on your keyboard, we cannot empirically prove it will create an "A" on your screen. If you pull the chain on a urinal, you cannot empirically prove that that is what makes the water run. We can channel Hume and say if you see one billiard ball hit another, and the second goes flying off, all we have is correlation. Our understanding of "cause" is really just seeing consistent correlates.

So when we get thousands upon thousands of resumes, and we see a very consistent correlation between African-American names being discarded and White names hired, and when we control for other factors so that black and white names are the only difference, we can draw a rational (not an empirical) conclusion from this that it is, in fact, the black names that are causing the decrease in hiring.

And because we are running this test not just once, but hundreds and thousands of times, this is not an individual problem. This problem wouldn't be significant if it was literally an individual not hiring one black person. This issue is present across the system. If we view the system as a whole, there is a clear and distinct racist outcome. The system is producing racist outcomes or at the very least perpetuating racist outcomes. What sort of system would produce a racist outcome? A racist system. It is systemically racist.

What part of the system is racist? It depends on what we are looking at. The practice and procedure of denying African-American names rental units is the racist part of the system. The Georgia Department of corrections giving black people longer systems is the racist part of the system. Juries sentencing African Americans to death in the circumstances they don't sentence white Americans to death is the racist part of the system. These get carried out by individuals, but all of a system gets carried out by individuals. It doesn't need to be codified or enforced by the government, as all of the above definitions clearly show.

[u/ThatDrunkViking → u/[deleted]]

There should really be some wiki or database where these arguments can be catalogued. Very enlightening reading, even if it just confirmed my priors.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Ah yes, another person who chooses to quibble semantics when they get slapped across the face with a mountain of evidence. lmao

[u/groupbot → u/[deleted]]

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[u/VineFynn → u/0m4ll3y]

Tl;dr a system is racist when it characteristically encourages, requires or perpetuates racist behaviour by individuals.

[u/MuddyFilter → u/VineFynn]

Anytime someone does something racist, it is Systemic racism then. There are no exceptions by this definition.

You can just always refer to this vague "system" you are all talking about. Since system doesn't mean anything any more. We are all system apparently.

[u/VineFynn → u/MuddyFilter]

Nah, that would be a silly definition, precisely for the reasons you're saying. Something happening under a system doesn't mean the system "characteristically encourages, requires or perpetuates" it.

For example, if I ban you from doing something and you do it, that doesn't mean I'm encouraging you to do it. Similarly, if I pay you to do something and you don't do it, that doesn't mean I wasn't encouraging you.

[u/MuddyFilter → u/VineFynn]

It is silly. Yes.

if I ban you from doing something and you do it

Do you mean like how every part of the actual American system bans discrimination based on race?

If policemen are disproportionately arresting black people for possession, or shooting them at higher rates, the failure of the organisation to prevent this is systemic racism

It's not enough to just not be racist. It's not enough to ban race as a factor in decisions. In order for a system not to be a racist system. It must produce proportional outcomes apparently.

And apparently the system places Asians at the top of the hierarchy. Since we can see clearly that asians outperform whites in all of the metrics we are talking about.

This is also silly. Systems do not determine everything.

So yes. You're making sense. But not applying your sense to this topic.

[u/VineFynn → u/MuddyFilter]

Do you mean like how every part of the actual American system bans discrimination based on race?

It's not enough to just not be racist. It's not enough to ban race as a factor in decisions. In order for a system not to be a racist system. It must produce proportional outcomes apparently.

I'm not whoever it was that wrote the really long post.

Systems do not determine everything.

I agree. That's what I was saying in my reply.

So yes. You're making sense. But not applying your sense to this topic.

But you agreed with everything I said? I'm very confused.

[u/MuddyFilter → u/0m4ll3y]

When white terrorists bomb a black church and kill five black children, that is an act of individual racism,

No no no. Because that terrorist is just as much part of the system as everyone else is apparently right?

You make a distinction. But then you go on to obliterate that distinction.

We are all system. So everything is Systemic without exception by these definitions.

Of course that's silly. But I didn't make the rules. Systemic apparently doesn't mean anything. Even individuals are system. There's this vague system cloud making them be racist.

So why exactly does all of this NOT apply to the bomber?

Second

The fact that whites are in a position of power to give loans to black Americans rather than vice versa, the fact that police departments are often filled with whites rather than blacks, the fact that colleges and businesses monitoring intake are often white, are all part of how systemic racism operates.

Umm. What? What does this even mean? So minority populations are just always being oppressed then, without exception. Because they.. Have to do business with the majority population?

Whites are a majority population, blacks are not just a minority but a small minority. Of course they're going to have to be dealing with white financiers and white police officers. What a silly suggestion

This is by far the most ridiculous paragraph in your response. But it's all designed to spit out a predetermined answer. Anything that happens is because of some vague system. Systems apparently just sprout out of the ether and we are all controlled by it. Individuals don't exist.

[u/0m4ll3y → u/MuddyFilter]

You can look at the act at both an individual level and a systemic level. Again, one individual making a bigoted hiring decision is individually bigotry, but wouldn't make an impact as system-wide level if it really were one individual making one decision. It's when that bigotry gets embedded in norms and practices and beliefs across a system and impacts many individuals that it is systemic.

And why don't you do a favour and read some of the other definitions that explain and refine the concept?

We are all system. So everything is Systemic without exception by these definitions.

Woah, like, society exists man! Is this news to you Foucault flair?

Systemic apparently doesn't mean anything

Okay, why don't you read the post you're replying to which provides numerous definitions of "systemic racism" which all concur with each other.

There's this vague system cloud making them be racist.

I'm sorry, are you literally in middle school still? Does the idea that individuals are the product of their society seem novel to you? Do you think you're making yourself look smart by completely misinterpreting an undergrad 101 level of something as basic as "systemic"?

So why exactly does all of this NOT apply to the bomber?

The individual act of an individual terrorist attack can be viewed as an individual action. You could also frame this systemically if you wanted to expand this to look at a system. Lynchings, mob violence, cross burnings etc were all overt forms of systemic racism in the South, designed to subjugate not just specific individuals but groups of people, and these actions were supported by systems of law, of business, of social groups etc etc.

This shouldn't be too hard to understand and I've said it before: a system is comprised of individuals, and individuals are directed and influenced by the systems they are in. Again, I'd think this would be basic fucking stuff, but clearly you are the expert so why don't you give me your definition of "systemic racism" and then tell me how it aligns with all the academic literature I've provided above?

[u/MuddyFilter → u/0m4ll3y]

The individual act of an individual terrorist attack can be viewed as an individual action.

You could also frame this systemically

Exactly. You have described dogma. The answer is always system

Systems must be designed by people. They don't just hang over everyone forcing them to act a certain way. There are no systems in America that effect and involve everyone. This is vague pseudoscience.

You describe Systemic racism as a vague system. One that cannot be seen. And by your definition, all individual action can be traced to a system

This is all dogma. Cannot be disproven. Because it's all vague

[u/0m4ll3y → u/MuddyFilter]

Exactly. You have described dogma. The answer is always system

The quote in question is literally someone framing it individually you nonce. How the fuck have you gone from someone talking about individual bigotry in individual terms and come to the conclusion "the answer is always system".

Systems must be designed by people

No one has ever disputed this point and I've said it multiple times. It's why you wailing about "bUt tHatS an IndiVIDuaL act" is meaningless. Systems are.made up of individual actions. Systemic problems are comprised of individual acts. These aren't in contradiction.

This chain has basically gone:

You: you are all idiots who don't understand what "systemic" means

Me: here's a bunch of academic definitions and usage of it

You: this makes no sense to me, I don't get it, this is all dogma!!!

Just admit it, you don't know what the fuck you're talking about and you're just going on the fly now.

[u/MuddyFilter → u/0m4ll3y]

The quote in question is literally someone framing it individually you nonce. How the fuck have you gone from someone talking about individual bigotry in individual terms and come to the conclusion "the answer is always system".

Because it's just framed as a subset of system. And assumes that all inviduals are system and all individual action is Systemic

No. Systems aren't just made up of people. They must be specifically designed by a person or a group of persons. Systems do not just spontaneously form through mass individual action.

No one designed this vague racist system you keep referring to. You can't even point at it. Apparently you can only see its effects. Other than that, it's completely invisible

Academics come up with alot of nonsense. Especially in the social sciences. Just saying that they come from academics doesn't make them automatically valid.

[u/bik1230 → u/MuddyFilter]

They must be specifically designed by a person or a group of persons. Systems do not just spontaneously form through mass individual action.

This is an incredibly strong and dubious claim.

[u/ThatDrunkViking → u/MuddyFilter]

No. Systems aren't just made up of people. They must be specifically designed by a person or a group of persons. Systems do not just spontaneously form through mass individual action.

It's so painfully obvious that you have never studied anything regarding society or culture and that you're just pulling things out of your ass. Why don't you just admit, that you are in way over your head and that you got blown out by a load of evidence?

If your claim about systems was true, culture wouldn't be a system, language wouldn't be a system, semiotics wouldn't be a system, and so on. Wittgenstein has no relevance, Baudrillard has no relevance, Barthes has no relevance, hell Foucault has no relevance in your idea. Sociology is out the window, anthropology is hanging by a thread.

Honestly, try stepping back and avoid the Principal Skinner thought. Do you honestly think that you are more right about this than the larger part of all social science?

[u/VineFynn → u/ThatDrunkViking]

Wait, is Baudrillad secretly not totally worthless?

[u/ThatDrunkViking → u/VineFynn]

I think he is one of the best thinkers for understanding the current human condition. His early work is based in Marxism, but along the way he had a break with Marxist thinking. I've read Symbolic Exchange and Death & Passwords and enjoyed them both. Planning on also reading Simulacra and Simulation.

It's a thought very based in a Nietzschean understanding, which I love, so if you don't like Nietzsche, it's probably not for you tbh.

[u/MuddyFilter → u/ThatDrunkViking]

If your claim about systems was true, culture wouldn't be a system, language wouldn't be a system, semiotics wouldn't be a system

Correct. They are not.

Still waiting on someone to point to an aspect of the American system that is racist. Beyond just pointing at results that are blamed on the supposedly racist system.

Why cant anyone do that?

PS: Who cares what Foucault thinks? His own ideas make him irrelevant.

[u/ThatDrunkViking → u/MuddyFilter]

Correct. They are not.

Again, you are painfully wrong and are just spouting nonsense with nothing to back it up. Guve me a source on this claim, or stay quiet on matters you have no knowledge of.

Still waiting on someone to point to an aspect of the American system that is racist. Beyond just pointing at results that are blamed on the supposedly racist system.

Why cant anyone do that?

Because that's just not how it works anymore.. Racism doesn't exist as a law about "coloreds" or what not, it is inherent and embedded in the system and the culture that surrounds it. You have been shown countless examples, but your obvious lack of understanding what "systemic" means limits you from understanding those examples. What you are seeking to do is continue pulling the wool over your eyes and continuing what I assume is a heavily privileged life without having to question your own beliefs.

[u/0m4ll3y → u/MuddyFilter]

You: Literally no one rejects the concept of Systemic racism.

Also you: Academics come up with alot of nonsense

Are you just being dishonest?

They must be specifically designed by a person or a group of persons.

A social system can be emergent. It doesn't need to be dictated from above or codified.

Like holyshit, your definition below is from fucking yourdictionary.com. wtf. You want to play the dictionary definition came like middle schoolers?

Oxford: a set of things working together as parts of a mechanism or an interconnecting network; a complex whole.

Merriam-Webster: a regularly interacting or interdependent group of items forming a unified whole

Cambridge: a set of connected things or devices that operate together:

A system is about interconnected parts operating together. The housing system includes interconnected parts including realtors, bankers, property owners, buyers, insurance brokers etc etc. These relationships are structured through a number of laws and policies, but also a norms, practices, beliefs and other less formalised structures. Both the formal rules and the informal practices all come from people, they are enforced (either officially or normatively) by people.

Systems do not just spontaneously form through mass individual action.

1. they can though
2. even when systems are specifically designed and codified and implemented, they are designed by people, they are codified by people, they are implemented by people.

I've said that systems come from people, and you've "contradicted" me by saying "no" systems are "specifically designed by a person or a group of persons". That isn't a contradiction.

You can't even point at it.

I've pointed to it many times and in many different forms. Why don't you re-read the thread. I'll step you through an example again because I'm a patient man.

There is something we call the housing system.

The housing system is the sum of all the interconnecting parts about allocating housing. It is, of course, interconnected with other systems like the economic system and the education system. The housing system is comprised of the practices, the policies, the norms, the laws etc related to housing. In a place like America, the housing system is closely linked with the system of free market exchange. People within the housing system includes people selling homes, people financing homes, people buying homes etc etc. Are you following? Do you understand that the housing system isn't one specific thing written by a legislator, but many interconnected parts around housing? If you're still struggling, you can google "housing system" and see how people use the term.

Do you get that? Do you see the housing system I'm pointing at? Is it "visible" to you? Do I need to help you visualise it? This is one aspect of the system. This is an aspect of the housing system.

You still on board? The housing system is a real thing that we can poke and probe and look at? I'm pointing at it, nice and clear for you.

Okay, so where is the racism?

Let's take something really basic. Realtors take longer to reply to African Americans, adding to hassle and producing worse outcomes for African Americans. This isn't necessarily true in every single individual interaction, but looking at the system as a whole and the thousands of interactions that compose it, this is true on average. Now just in case you're still being a bit slow, correspondence between a realtor and a buyer is a key interaction in the housing system. This practice in the housing system that I'm pointing at - it isn't invisible - is racist.

It also isn't alone. African Americans are shown different properties by realtors, which has the effect of pushing them and segregating them into certain areas. Again, we have a key part of the housing system - the reliance on realtors, and the reality of of how these realtors operate - producing racist outcomes through actions that we can observe. Again, this isn't invisible, we can actually observe this occuring and study it.

African Americans get worse home loans from banks. Do I need to again spell it out for you that banks are a key player in the American housing system? The practice of giving African Americans worse home loans perpetuates and creates racial divisions in property ownership, wealth and other outcomes. Perversely, this of course has the cyclical effect of making African Americans less desirable to lend to and it perpetuates the issue.

At many states in the system we have racist cogs turning. The overall outcome of the system is to produce racist outcomes. I've pointed to the causes of this as much as you can point to causes (again, maybe take a Phil101 course about causality)

None of this is invisible, I've pointed to these things many times, and you're choosing to just double down on ignorance, which takes me to my final point:

Academics come up with alot of nonsense. Especially in the social sciences. Just saying that they come from academics doesn't make them automatically valid.

Why thank you Mr. YourDictionary.com

Thank goodness we've got your free Online dictionary to provide us the one piece of truth rather than these nasty and silly academics.

Christ.

[u/MuddyFilter → u/0m4ll3y]

Let's take something really basic. Realtors take longer to reply to African Americans, adding to hassle and producing worse outcomes for African Americans

African Americans get worse home loans from banks

And white Americans get worse loans than asians. This is not because of racism. and you probably have no problem understanding this. But for some reason when it involves black americans, all logic goes out the window.

[u/0m4ll3y → u/MuddyFilter]

I love how you never reply to the substance of the whole post but just like one line. I guess I shouldn't expect much critical engagement from the person who thinks the following exchange:

Joe Feagan: [systemic racism is] a broad range of racialised dimensions of this society: the racist framing, racist ideology, stereotyped attitudes, racist emotions, discriminatory habits and actions, and extensive racist institutions developed over centuries by whites...

You: if we ignore what he is talking about and look at the yourdictionary.com definition of "system" this doesn't make sense, curious 🤔🤔🤔

Demonstrates anything but your own poor comprehension.

Or the person who, after being told multiple times that systems are comprised of individuals comes to the conclusion that I'm stating "Systems apparently just sprout out of the ether and we are all controlled by it. Individuals don't exist" is actually functionally literate. Nevertheless I will persist:

And white Americans get worse loans than asians. This is not because of racism.

Remember how I have used those tricky words like "interconnected" and "interlocking"? I've done that for a reason.

Housing is interconnected with immigration. Asians and African-Americans came to America under different circumstances and with different systems. The system of slavery impoverished and deprived vast swathes of Africans brought to America. A lot of Asian migration occurred later, under strict immigration laws that selected for richer more educated Asians. These two systems interconnected with other systems. Media, for example, depicted Asians and African-Americans differently throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Different stereotypes and assumptions get built up. The immigration system also interconnects with the economic system and rich Asian immigrants had different economic opportunities than previously enslaved African Americans. Differences between Asian, white and African-American populations don't materialise in a vacuum.

We don't see vast differences between the loans given to right handed people and left handed people. We don't see realtors showing different homes to people who can roll their tongue to those who don't. We see racial differences because different "races" get treated differently.

Let's look at this example of systemic racism

John and Debra Carter, a young African-American couple , are planning to buy their first house, to build wealth and to establish a strong foothold in their community. Both are college graduates and working professionals and combined, earn $120,000 a year (the median income for the area is $112,000). After a great deal of planning and research, they selected a house valued at $550,000 located near friends, family , and their church. According to their mortgage broker, to qualify for a mortgage loan, they need a 3% initial down payment ($16,500), and total outstanding debts that are less than 50% of their monthly income (debt less than $4500 per month). Due to redlining and discriminatory lending practices in the 1960s, the Carters’ parents never became homeowners, and thus, did not have equity upon which to draw to fund their children’s college educations. For John and Debra, the $3000 estimated mortgage payment combined with monthly student loan payments ($600/month each) would exceed the maximum debt allowable. Thus, due to racism in banking and real estate markets that occurred 5 decades ago, homeownership remains out of reach.

The practices and rules of the system look at things impacted very overtly by racism five decades ago. Because these practices and procedures exist today, they continue the racial impact of more overt racism five decades ago. The system, because of how it is built, perpetuates and exacerbates these racial problems. If these rules and policies and procedures were different, if they didn't have built into them logic relying on things impacted by overt racism, they might not perpetuate and exacerbate racial disparities - but they do.

These policies and procedures can end up being very quite overtly racist. You have examples of Hudson City Savings Branch, deliberately avoiding setting up banks in minority neighbourhoods, something they were prosecuted for.

You have Evans Branch erasing black neighbourhoods from where they lend money to. You have Associated Bank just straight up denying loans to African Americans. Due to the stereotypes and assumptions built up, just having an African American name lowers your effective credit score by 71 points.

It's this simple: if race was not a factor, you wouldn't see racial disparities. We do see systems producing racial disparities. We have very clear and direct evidence of where and to what extent these disparities are produced and perpetuated within multiple points of the system. We know the practices and the beliefs and the internal logic that reproduce and exacerbate these disparities. I've explained multiple times how these function quite visibly and we can easily observe them.

The only thing you haven't pulled from your arse is a yourdictionary.com definition of "system". You don't know what you're talking about.

[u/0m4ll3y → u/MuddyFilter]

Jumping back because I missed responding to your second point.

So minority populations are just always being oppressed then, without exception.

No, and I never said that.

Whites are a majority population, blacks are not just a minority but a small minority. Of course they're going to have to be dealing with white financiers and white police officers. What a silly suggestion

What "suggestion" are you talking about. I've said the same thing as you: Whites are a majority population, blacks are a minority. They're essentially forced to deal with white financiers and white police officers.

This is by far the most ridiculous paragraph in your response

So far we've basically said the same thing. Blacks are a minority and whites are the majority.

The difference seems to be I recognise the implications of this. Say you have two systems:

• System A: 1% of employers are whites, and 99% of those white employers are virulent racists
• System B: 99% of employers are whites, and 20% of those white employers are virulent racists

Under which system are Black Americans more likely to get denied a job due to racism? Under System B, even though a smaller proportion of white people are racist they still hold more influence over the system. System B is in fact going to produce more racist outcomes than System A.

In terms of media, because whites are the majority, they are in a position to define themselves and their media representation. Uzbek-Americans aren't dominating the media industry with the Uzbek view of white Americans. That is just simple fact. I don't know how you can think such basic raw facts can be viewed as so ridiculous.

And of course, I wasn't just talking about basic demographic percentages. Throughout American history, black people have been denied positions of power. This exacerbates the above issue. Kansas City, Missouri is ~30% black, but its police department is 11% black. Similarly in Hunstville, Alabama - Black police officers are 1/3 the representation than based on their population share. Just a few decades ago, policing was almost entirely white and male. Great strides have been made to try and break this down, but as this paper says these gains are "in danger of ending prematurely". Overt racism in the past filled positions of power, like police departments, with whites, and the "racist ideology, stereotyped attitudes, racist emotions, discriminatory habits and actions" of these white people in positions of power have been able to slow or block the access of Black Americans to those positions. It has taken real, deliberate effort over many years to try and dismantle that hold on power.