Today in the Washington Post, Nick Anderson showed how the Advanced Placement course on African American studies changed between February 2022, when its prototype first appeared, and February 2023, when the official version was released. One word, in particular, had vanished: the word “systemic.” In February 2022, “systemic” appeared before “marginalization; in April 2022, “systemic” came before “discrimination, oppression, inequality, disempowerment and racism.”
"The far right opposes the idea that the United States has ever practiced systemic racism."
I see this as about the same as "The far right opposes the idea that the sun rises in the east."
Since when did verified reality (of centuries of history, in the case of systemic racism) become an "idea" or a "claim"? I see journalists doing this all too often, too. Thank you, Heather, for helping those of us in the "reality-based community" remain in this community -- and sane.
For being the world's richest and most powerful superpower, we sure panic easily, don't we? The "Yellow Peril" and the "Red Scare" and the "Pinkos" and the problems with Blacks and Browns and "Redskins" ...
Like all racially-segregated US Army units before 1948, the 442nd RCT had white officers. In their case, these officers were Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Italian, Greek, Irish and Jewish in ancestry - all the ethnicities not considered "white" in America prior to December 7, 1941, when they were made "honorary white people." After World War II, all those ethnicities - which also happened to not be Protestants - became "white" on the basis of their service in World War II.
Interestingly, the men of the 442nd, who came out of concentration camps, were the first unit to liberate the concentration camp at Dachau 78 years ago this coming April 29.
One of the Jewish officers in the regiment was by his own description a "secular" Jew. He had little Brownie camera and took three rolls of film of what he saw in the camp that day of liberation. After that experience, he had a religious awakening and came home and became a Rabbi. In 1958, he was the Rabbi of Temple Emmanuel in Denver, the first Jewish religious building raised in South Denver, when everyone knew the Jews lived in East Denver. That summer a young Congregational minister asked him to come to the church's camp, to speak of his experience. He came and he told me and the other kids that story, and then he showed us the photographs - which were *very* explicit - and that is how I learned about the Holocaust.
As Rachel Maddow shows in her podcast Ulta, some German Americans plotted to overthrow the US government and to turn over the US to the German government. They even distributed Nazi propaganda using franking (free postage) by Congress critters. But the actual seditionists weren’t rounded up in internment camps—they looked like the founding fathers, unlike the Japanese. It was a very clear case of systemic racism.
Thank you Heather. It's clear that this country was founded on the sad and systemic belief that white people are superior to all others and far too many Americans cling to that belief like drowning sailors cling to a piece of wooden spar. We can only rectify our past systemic racism with systemic inclusion. Let's get started.
On Ayman Mohyeldi's show on MSNBC this evening, the conversation was on "drawbridge" people, i.e. those who immigrate and then say no one else should be allowed into the country. Nikki Haley's parents arrived in 1966, after a new immigration law passed in 1965 allowing people from India to immigrate to the US. Her mother supposedly has taken a stance against immigration, therefore the "drawbridge" discussion. But the part I thought most ironic is apparently this law passed after activists fought for a number of years for this right to allow people from Asia to settle on the US. The panelists pointed out that "Woke Activists" were the reason Haley's family were allowed to become citizens of the US.
Systemic? Absolutely. In the US, we are so quick to point fingers at other countries for their failures,,but we easily turn a blind eye to our own. Denying does not make it untrue-it only embeds the sickness further into our culture. The only way we can eradicate the poison of systemic racism is to recognize if, name if, and take steps to purge it. Systemic indeed. And in my opinion, those who deny it are HOPING to repeat atrocities of the past. Desantis can NEVER attain higher office. He is a blight on humanity.
What would DeSatan do, Heather, if we had daily meetings after school all over Florida, parents invited, to give the REAL history of the United States? We could simply read one of Heather’s Letters and discuss. Nothing he can do to us retirees, right?? It could also be done online with large groups.
Thank you! This really lays it out there with some detail of which I was unaware. We have a rather torrid past which many want to erase rather than face.
The word "systemic" certainly applies to past and current racist practice in this country. Although I don't want to divert the emphasis of this Letter from malevolet systemic racism, it seems a future Letter might explore whether "systemic" should be employed with equal validity and integrity to acts of malevolent institutionalized classism.
It is difficult to describe the game of keepaway from citizens of universal healthcare as other than systemic. It maintains a murderous for-profit health care system that enriches a particular economic class as it denies equitable access to health care to a less privileged economic class. Class privilege is also held in place by design and deliberately maintained through political power. It is certainly no product of random violation of ethical behavior or random acts of malfeasance.
It is such a stubborn problem and carries so much emotional baggage, that it is hard to maintain rational discussion, and so much easier to deny the facts to the point of banning mention of them. The facts are important. I appreciate learning so much from these letters. How to handle the dismissal of all the facts about systemic racism by some parties; and how to calm the growing emotionalism and polarization, I am just not sure how feasible it is if we continue with the idea that making money at all social costs is worth it.
Dr Richardson shows us that judicial originalism isn’t a new concept; it is rather a clever workaround to an amendment that was an acknowledgment of America’s inequality and established the groundwork to a solution of inequality. It is the stinking head of the SYSTEM fish that still lingers throughout America’s public record.
Frankly I’m surprised that members of the GOP and MAGA devotees do not dominate international gymnastics or find steady, lucrative employment in circus side shows and freak shows given the degree of mental gymnastics and contorted thinking required to conclude that US was free from “systemic” racism.
There was an incisive Slate article about the College Board this week, which included numerous disturbing, eye-opening facts, including this:
“The College Board not only hired but promoted to the executive level the speaker of the House in Indiana, Todd Huston, who supported state legislation that limited discussion of race in school classrooms, all while working at the company.”
Well, there you have it, and there’s more. You can read the entire article here:
The College Board, even though it claims to be non profit, is a billion dollar business. Whether it is run by right wing racist scum or caved to right wing racist scum does not matter. Its actions define it as right wing racist scum. It has already lost half its revenue over the last ten years as more and more colleges and universities are choosing to minimize or ignore SAT scores. Good riddance.
"The far right opposes the idea that the United States has ever practiced systemic racism."
I see this as about the same as "The far right opposes the idea that the sun rises in the east."
Since when did verified reality (of centuries of history, in the case of systemic racism) become an "idea" or a "claim"? I see journalists doing this all too often, too. Thank you, Heather, for helping those of us in the "reality-based community" remain in this community -- and sane.
For being the world's richest and most powerful superpower, we sure panic easily, don't we? The "Yellow Peril" and the "Red Scare" and the "Pinkos" and the problems with Blacks and Browns and "Redskins" ...
Maybe we're just afraid of colors.
Like all racially-segregated US Army units before 1948, the 442nd RCT had white officers. In their case, these officers were Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Italian, Greek, Irish and Jewish in ancestry - all the ethnicities not considered "white" in America prior to December 7, 1941, when they were made "honorary white people." After World War II, all those ethnicities - which also happened to not be Protestants - became "white" on the basis of their service in World War II.
Interestingly, the men of the 442nd, who came out of concentration camps, were the first unit to liberate the concentration camp at Dachau 78 years ago this coming April 29.
One of the Jewish officers in the regiment was by his own description a "secular" Jew. He had little Brownie camera and took three rolls of film of what he saw in the camp that day of liberation. After that experience, he had a religious awakening and came home and became a Rabbi. In 1958, he was the Rabbi of Temple Emmanuel in Denver, the first Jewish religious building raised in South Denver, when everyone knew the Jews lived in East Denver. That summer a young Congregational minister asked him to come to the church's camp, to speak of his experience. He came and he told me and the other kids that story, and then he showed us the photographs - which were *very* explicit - and that is how I learned about the Holocaust.
As Rachel Maddow shows in her podcast Ulta, some German Americans plotted to overthrow the US government and to turn over the US to the German government. They even distributed Nazi propaganda using franking (free postage) by Congress critters. But the actual seditionists weren’t rounded up in internment camps—they looked like the founding fathers, unlike the Japanese. It was a very clear case of systemic racism.
Thank you Heather. It's clear that this country was founded on the sad and systemic belief that white people are superior to all others and far too many Americans cling to that belief like drowning sailors cling to a piece of wooden spar. We can only rectify our past systemic racism with systemic inclusion. Let's get started.
On Ayman Mohyeldi's show on MSNBC this evening, the conversation was on "drawbridge" people, i.e. those who immigrate and then say no one else should be allowed into the country. Nikki Haley's parents arrived in 1966, after a new immigration law passed in 1965 allowing people from India to immigrate to the US. Her mother supposedly has taken a stance against immigration, therefore the "drawbridge" discussion. But the part I thought most ironic is apparently this law passed after activists fought for a number of years for this right to allow people from Asia to settle on the US. The panelists pointed out that "Woke Activists" were the reason Haley's family were allowed to become citizens of the US.
Systemic? Absolutely. In the US, we are so quick to point fingers at other countries for their failures,,but we easily turn a blind eye to our own. Denying does not make it untrue-it only embeds the sickness further into our culture. The only way we can eradicate the poison of systemic racism is to recognize if, name if, and take steps to purge it. Systemic indeed. And in my opinion, those who deny it are HOPING to repeat atrocities of the past. Desantis can NEVER attain higher office. He is a blight on humanity.
What would DeSatan do, Heather, if we had daily meetings after school all over Florida, parents invited, to give the REAL history of the United States? We could simply read one of Heather’s Letters and discuss. Nothing he can do to us retirees, right?? It could also be done online with large groups.
Thank you! This really lays it out there with some detail of which I was unaware. We have a rather torrid past which many want to erase rather than face.
The word "systemic" certainly applies to past and current racist practice in this country. Although I don't want to divert the emphasis of this Letter from malevolet systemic racism, it seems a future Letter might explore whether "systemic" should be employed with equal validity and integrity to acts of malevolent institutionalized classism.
It is difficult to describe the game of keepaway from citizens of universal healthcare as other than systemic. It maintains a murderous for-profit health care system that enriches a particular economic class as it denies equitable access to health care to a less privileged economic class. Class privilege is also held in place by design and deliberately maintained through political power. It is certainly no product of random violation of ethical behavior or random acts of malfeasance.
It is such a stubborn problem and carries so much emotional baggage, that it is hard to maintain rational discussion, and so much easier to deny the facts to the point of banning mention of them. The facts are important. I appreciate learning so much from these letters. How to handle the dismissal of all the facts about systemic racism by some parties; and how to calm the growing emotionalism and polarization, I am just not sure how feasible it is if we continue with the idea that making money at all social costs is worth it.
Dr Richardson shows us that judicial originalism isn’t a new concept; it is rather a clever workaround to an amendment that was an acknowledgment of America’s inequality and established the groundwork to a solution of inequality. It is the stinking head of the SYSTEM fish that still lingers throughout America’s public record.
Frankly I’m surprised that members of the GOP and MAGA devotees do not dominate international gymnastics or find steady, lucrative employment in circus side shows and freak shows given the degree of mental gymnastics and contorted thinking required to conclude that US was free from “systemic” racism.
Excellent information. The far right wants us to teach fiction.
There was an incisive Slate article about the College Board this week, which included numerous disturbing, eye-opening facts, including this:
“The College Board not only hired but promoted to the executive level the speaker of the House in Indiana, Todd Huston, who supported state legislation that limited discussion of race in school classrooms, all while working at the company.”
Well, there you have it, and there’s more. You can read the entire article here:
https://slate.com/human-interest/2023/02/college-board-ap-florida-curriculum.html
The College Board, even though it claims to be non profit, is a billion dollar business. Whether it is run by right wing racist scum or caved to right wing racist scum does not matter. Its actions define it as right wing racist scum. It has already lost half its revenue over the last ten years as more and more colleges and universities are choosing to minimize or ignore SAT scores. Good riddance.