1/ The U.S. Department of Agriculture says land management, greenspace, and Science are corrupted by Structural Racism, and the solution is (of course) *DEI* Understanding what the woke mean by Structural Racism is key to decoding woke ideology So, Structural Racism A Thread🧵
2/ The woke have a different idea of what racism is than most people Most people think racism is "prejudice against a person or group because of their race," and thus racism is a matter of peoples' conscious attitudes and beliefs. This is *NOT* how the woke think about racism
3/ What the woke care most about is who gets to have power in society, and whose interests that power serves. As such the woke typically use 2 definitions of racism: 1. Racism = prejudice + Power 2. Racism = Privilege + Power Note: you can only be "racist" if you have *power*
4/ The logic of this idea comes from Stokely Carmichael who said: "If a white man wants to lynch me, that's his problem. If he's got the power to lynch me, that's my problem. Racism is not a question of attitude; it's a question of power" This is how CSJ/W thinks about racism.
5/ The woke activists think it is the unequal distribution of power (or anything used to enact or accrue power) along racial lines that makes a thing racist. This means group outcomes along racial lines are all that matters, the intentions of the people involved are irrelevant.
6/ The book "Stay Woke: A people's Guide to Making All Black Lives Matter" says Structural Racism is when "Political, economic, social, and even psychological benefits are disproportionately provided to some racial groups while disadvantages are doled out to other racial groups."
7/ You will notice that it does not matter *WHY* the outcomes are different. It does not matter if groups have different values, goals, ideas, aims, pursuits, cultures, or anything else. All that matters is how benefits are "provided" to some group rather than a different group.
8/ When activists claim there is "Structural Racism" they mean that there is something in the way that a society, institution, game, group, activity, endeavor, business, etc, is put together that is causing one race to accrue power and benefits that another race does not get.
9/ On this view the presence of unequal distribution of benefits (money, status, power, land, capital, resources, influence, etc) along racial lines is proof that there is racism in the structure of a thing (society, institutions, etc) that is causing the racial disparity.
10/ There are several problems with this idea. Joseph Heath says Critical Theory usually "involves identifying a class of victims and a class of beneficiaries, then positing a mechanism through which the beneficiaries derive benefits at the expense of the victims" Now...
11/ The Critical Theory behind "Structural Racism" is no exception. It posits a class of victims (people of color), a class of benefitiaries (white people) and a mechanism through which the beneficiaries derive benefits at the expense of the victims (structural racism)...
12/ The problem is with the mechanism: namely, the existence of racial inquality does not mean there is some racist mechanism in play, or some feature of the institution, society, or social group, that is CAUSING the inequality. Inequalities show up for all kinds of reasons.
13/ Heath points out that it is a mistake to think that the mere existence of a racial disparity is sufficient to convict a society, institution, or group of being "structurally racist." It it plainly obvious that different cultures and groups have different goals and values....
14/ when these goals and values differ substantially between groups the outcomes between those groups are going to be different. Structural Racism can exist (Jim Crow laws are an example of this) but this cannot be asserted on the basis of the mere preseance of inequality.
15/ Unfortunately, this mistake appears to be being made all over the USDA. Let's look at some examples: This paper co-authored by Jonathan long of the Pacific Southwest Research Station appears to have made such an error.
16/ David Bengston of the Northwest Research Council appears to have also co-authored a paper that makes this same mistake.
17/ Cassandra Gunther co-authored another paper that made this same mistake.
18/ Michelle Kondo of the Northwest Research Station made the same mistake:
19/ Erika Svendson and Michelle Johnson of the Northwest Research station also appear to have made this same error in a paper they co-authored
