Hi Tamesha Kirkland, thanks for reading and for the thoughtful response.

Attitudes of old were certainly embedded into Jim Crow, but I find it to be a tougher sell that they are still embedded unless we can point to where they are. If we can point to them, I think most people are on board for addressing issues of systemic racism.

When it comes to the issue of both/and vs either/or, it’s certainly possible that part of the “system” is corrupt even without individual malice, but it seems like once we realized it we would fix it, and if we don’t fix it it’s because it’s not at all obvious that it’s unjust.

A good example would be the crack-powder distinction which is often held up as an example of systemic racism. At the time it was enacted, there was a different view however. As Jason L. Riley points out in his book Please Stop Helping Us:

But it’s worth remembering that black lawmakers led the initial effort to pass the legislation. The harsher penalties for crack cocaine offenses were supported by most of the Congressional Black Caucus, including New York Representatives Major Owens of Brooklyn and Charles Rangel of Harlem, who at the time headed the House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control. Crack was destroying black communities, and many black political leaders wanted dealers to face longer sentences.

There are other issues at play, such as the volitional nature of engaging with various narcotic substances and the question of whether crack should be classified as being more similar to cocaine, which shares the same substance, or methamphetamine, which is more similar overall in terms of the damaging effects.

You mention the criminal justice system, but that’s a tricky catch-22. As long as crime statistics remain constant, being “tough on crime” results in the kind of black incarceration statistics that we’ve been seeing, but being “soft on crime” can be seen as racist as well since it’s black communities that will suffer the most.

It’s also tough to see the connection between racism and incarceration. As Jason Riley points out: “In the 1950s, when segregation was legal, overt racism was rampant, and black poverty was much higher than today, black crime rates were lower and blacks comprised a smaller percentage of the prison population.”

If there is systemic racism in the justice system, it absolutely needs to be rooted out and destroyed.