Against the Concept Creep Of “Racism”

“This is why I was dismayed by a recent essay published at Arc Digital (on June 9th) by Akiva M. Cohen, entitled ‘Systemic Racism Is Real. We Need To Fight It, Not Deny It.'”

In the wake of the terrible police killing of George Floyd—and the unprecedented wave of protests against racism and police violence that have swelled across the globe—the conversation about racial inequality is on the tip of everyone’s tongues. Having these conversations be as productive and expansive as possible means airing a multitude of perspectives and remaining open to good faith critiques of prevailing narratives, despite the attendant moral discomfort.

This is why I was dismayed by a recent essay published (on June 9th) at Arc Digital by Akiva M. Cohen, entitled “Systemic Racism Is Real. We Need To Fight It, Not Deny It.” Cohen argues that the concept of systemic racism is both easy to understand and readily supported by the relevant data. Unfortunately, he does not address the higher grade arguments against the concept, and he also fails to consider the anti-racist framework in which it is ensconced, leaving much to be desired in his analysis.

Based on a series of bite-sized videos from the organization Race Forward, Cohen defines and explains structural racism as “the accretion of individual choices and policies” that “produce widespread effects across the system as a whole,” manifesting as racial disparities in outcome. Cohen goes on to cite inequalities in wealth, health, education, and criminal justice outcomes between black and white Americans as evidence, as well as the differential treatment in pain relief offered by medical professionals to blacks and whites respectively. Those who decry systemic racism argue that even if overt racism has been in precipitous and measurable decline since the 1960’s, more subtle and pernicious forms of systemic bias continue to churn out unequal results and make life harder for non-white people in the United States.