The Strange Death of Systemic Racism
By W. F. Twyman, Jr.
This essay is inspired by a reader’s comment that systemic racism is real as demonstrated by personal knowledge of disparities in sentencing for blacks, I presume. Although I disagree with the reader, I respect the reader. My curiosity compels me to explore why I reject dogma. As always, I aim to increase human knowledge. And much respect out to my reader.
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If there are over 40 million black Americans, there are over 40 million stories, experiences and perspectives. The same holds for perceptions. Over 40 million people will perceive life in over 40 million different ways. All perceptions are graced with human dignity and the humanity of creative expression. I live this way in my life.
I thought long and hard about systemic racism last night while in bed. I had the latest Lex Fridman podcast on as I drifted off to sleep. When the state takes action, no one is immune to the long reach of the law. It did not matter how quirky or talented or driven my uncles and aunts were. They all had their ambitions and aims in life hemmed in by state action in the form of segregated schools, universities, occupations and professions. Before the 1964 Civil Rights Act, their lives were not of the larger world by legislative fiat. Legislative fiat strikes me as systemic. All are treated with disfavor under the law.
I honor their travails by labeling their times before 1964 as suffused with systemic racism. This conclusion feels right.
The legal world of race changed within the course of a decade. We flipped the human condition from systemic racism to removal of the systemic (state action) in the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1968. The pivot in the law was made. We were never turning back.
For me, it was the dismantling of the vestiges of race-based segregation in the fall of 1969 that signaled the end of formal systemic racism. As I wrote in an earlier piece, prejudice and bigotry died hard but die they did over the 1970s as we grew to know one another and develop bonds with one another as classmates, regardless. It was a glorious decade, the 1970s in southern suburbs. We were at our best as Americans.
In my senior high school class (8.5% black), I became student council president. My vice-president, James B. Friend III, was black. My senior class vice-president, Marva Felder, was black. My sophomore class president, Barry West, was black. We did not focus on race. We focused on our friends and the times of our lives.
If I define systemic racism as state action which makes sense to me, the laws were not oppressing me in the 1970s. I encountered the uplift of race conscious state action for the first time in the spring of 1979. Yes, there remained personal prejudice and bigotry in the air The Dartmouth Scar Experiment but it was not state action holding me down anymore in life.
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As evidence in support of systemic racism today, my reader dutifully observes that he has witnessed people dole out harsher discipline and punishment to blacks in the justice system. I thought about this observation and three distinctions came to mind. First, the individual prejudices of a juvenile probation or sentencing officer are not equivalent to legal enforcement of race-segregation on trains or buses or other modes of public transportation. Individual prejudice, if proven, doesn’t rise to the level of state enforced segregation in a courtroom or Colored Only water fountains. Individual acts of bigotry fall well short of the all-encompassing segregation at the hands of state law that my uncles and aunts knew.
There is no comparison if we are trying to apply the term “systemic racism” in a good faith manner.
Second, individual disparities in sentencing do not equal group disparities. We must take a high resolution view of what is going on. What is the individual story of each individual? Did the individual conduct himself in some manner or fashion warranting harsher punishment? Did the individual show remorse or not? Race doesn’t answer these individual questions for me. The reader only sees race and a group, not the individual. If each individual is viewed as an individual, and sentenced as an individual, why should I care if individual disparities crop up? We don’t punish groups. We punish individuals.
Third, it occurred to me that the reader’s example of disparate punishment and sentencing is so alien from my world. It is not part of my existence. It is not part of existence of my close family and friends. Let’s assume there are 100 dimensions to life. Sentencing is 1 dimension of life which only impacts a minority of black people. Why would the reader reach for young blacks in trouble to make his case and I reached for admission into the Echols Scholars Program at the University of Virginia to make my case? I have personal knowledge of the end of systemic racism based on my first hand knowledge. I have no first hand knowledge of sentencing and punishment disparities.
Shouldn’t I credit my personal knowledge as opposed to hearsay?
Which arena is more material and relevant for how I perceive life and systemic racism — admissions to the Echols Scholars program in 1979 or black individuals the reader may have observed receiving individual sentences and penalties that may, or may not, be warranted?
A part of me feels individuals should not offend. If one chooses not to offend, one will not find oneself in a troubling situation. I have never offended, so the issue of sentencing disparities has never been relevant and material for me. I have applied to many colleges and law schools and law jobs and, arguably, systemic racism against me has been nil, if not zero.
Reaching into my grab bag of personal knowledge, I have knowledge of three black people who did shady things and were not disciplined or punished whatsoever. A cousin forged a will. This is a felony under Virginia state law. Family members did not want a Twyman to do time. Blood was thicker than the pokey. There was no disparity here based on race. The felonious cousin benefitted from a tight family that covered for his felonious tail. Don’t get me started. I cannot stand criminals.
Another scion of the Black Elite shoplifted. What were you thinking? Connections were called in and legal talent deployed and the person walked away scot-free. I saw no sentencing or punishment disparities here. One more blue-blooded legacy used a fake driver’s license on Martha’s Vineyard to buy drinks. No punishment or discipline. I don’t have the same experience that the reader has. And this is ok.
If there are over 40 million black Americans, there are over 40 million stories, experiences and perspectives.
I do want to credit the reader’s first-hand observations. However, as I learn many times in the law, appearances can be deceiving. The first impression is not always the truthful or accurate impression. I would want to know more about the individuals the reader has observed.
Maybe, these individuals observed by the reader could argue systemic racism lives on in their hearts and minds. Could be but my experience is different. I was born during concrete systemic racism manifested as state action. This state action was dismantled and I was fortunate to come of age in the 1970s in a southern small-town where I was weaned on Black Enterprise Magazine, not dogma of systemic racism.
I have given it thought and, for me, systemic racism died a long time ago. Query whether the mantra of systemic racism lives on because dogma and slogan words live on to understand individuals who are black. It is an interesting question.
Conclusion: I don’t do dogma, so my declaration of the death of systemic racism is more of the same from me. Could it be that I inherited an internal locus of control to protect me from the madness of the crowds? I don’t know. I am a curious guy, highly sensitive and traditional in temperament and fearless in disposition when it comes to ideas. I perceive the individual before the trappings of surface identity.
That’s all I got. I encourage other writers, scholars and intellectuals to write about the slow death of systemic racism years ago in middle America.
Systemic racism seems like a catch all term for two seperate phenomenon that feel connected: that white people are still racist and the feeling that Black people continue to experience disproportionate outcomes in policing, sentencing and punishment for low level criminal activity (ie drug possession offenses).
The fixation that Black people go to jail more often, while getting harsher sentences, for possession of marijuana is a widespread fairy tale, especially as states legalize weed dispensaries (that by and large appear to be managed by whites).
There was also the notorious Will Smith slap that did have white people clutching their pearls for months. Many people on Twitter pointed out that white people overlooked instances of violence from whites at the Academy (historically) as they dished out disproportionate treatment to not just a Black man, but the sort of Black man who has been perceived as nonthreatening his whole career. Now, he is functionally irrelevant.
I also read a Pew Research study that showed that like a vast majority of Black people think American institutions arent designed for them. It was like over 60% of Blacks believe this. There's also another study that shows many Blacks believe that race/racism is the most important issue facing us today.
White people's racism is an ongoing project that may never come to an end. And it doesn't seem like Black identity activists are delusional and white appointed Black intellectuals havent figured out workable solutions to this reality other than embracing some flavor of racelessness.