We find racism in our systems when we look at what the system produces. When we find systems with outputs that negatively affect people of color in a way or to a degree that they do not affect white people, we have a racist impact that can be tied to a racist cause.
Ijeoma Oluo, Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America (Audiobook)
For the next several or more days, I’ll be posting quotes from Mediocre. I love this book so very much and I cannot fathom the level of trauma experienced by Ijeoma Oluo, its author, in bringing it to fruition. She talks about the complexities of systemic racism, white supremacy, and settler colonialism in a way that even someone who has no prior knowledge can understand them.
Racist systems produce racist outcomes and the beneficence of a few good white people can never negate that fact.
Many (I might even say most) white people don’t understand that racism is not simply about bad people committing horrendous acts, but about systems that were designed to create negative outcomes for BIPOC and provide white people, especially white men, with cumulative advantages over successive generations. Racist systems produce racist outcomes and the beneficence of a few good white people can never negate that fact. As long as these systems remain in place, Black people will always be at a significant disadvantage socially, economically, and politically.
…racism is not simply about bad people committing horrendous acts, but about systems that were designed to create negative outcomes for BIPOC and provide white people, especially white men, with cumulative advantages over successive generations.
I look forward to sharing more quotes from this book with all of you in the coming days. Have you been reading anything good lately? Let me know!
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