The flaw in claims of “systemic” racism and “white privilege” is that they imply that a race is a group that collectively makes decisions and that all members should therefore be held accountable for those decisions.
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No, claims of “systemic” racism do not imply that a race is a group that collectively makes decisions and that all members should therefore be held accountable for those decisions. Instead, those claims say that the government (or whoever is instituting systemic racism) is a group that collectively makes decisions and that that group as a whole should therefore be held accountable for those decisions.
There are two distinctions there from what you said. The second, less important one, is that not all members of a group that collectively makes decisions should be accountable for the decisions the group makes. If a senator speaks loudly against the Iraq war and votes against it and tries to talk his fellow senators out of voting for it, he should not be held accountable for the Iraq war.
More importantly, the perpetrators of systemic racism do not have to all be of a particular race (or races) for racism to be systemic. And certainly a whole race doesn’t need to be involved (on the hating side). It doesn’t even matter what the hater’s race is. Their race is irrelevant. Racism doesn’t require a particular race to hate another race. It only requires a particular race to be hated. Only the victims need to be of a particular race (or races). If a group of people makes a set of laws that demand that, for instance, blacks can’t eat at particular establishments, then that’s racism against black people (and it’s systemic). What difference does it make what the race is of the people making the laws?
[quote=harvey]
A race cannot collectively be held accountable for anything.
Any attempt to do so is the very definition of racism.
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Saying that Jim Crow laws were systemic racism is not holding a race accountable for anything. It’s holding a government responsible.
