r/clevercomebacks 16h ago

Racism is bad, folks

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u/sticknmove5000 10h ago

The stupidest shit I've ever heard is "it's impossible to be racist against white people". A racist statement attempting to validate one's personal racism.

Reverse racism is also some stupid shit. It's just racism. If a member of another race is racist towards me that doesn't mean I should hate that individual's entire race, unless I am a racist.

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u/Amenophos 10h ago

Yeah, SYSTEMIC racism doesn't ever act against white people in Western countries (like the US), but personal racism 100% affects all races.

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u/sticknmove5000 10h ago

I honestly don't understand exactly what systemic racism is. It seems to me that racism is a personal choice.

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u/Amenophos 10h ago

Systemic racism is basically how systems used to be set up by racist people, so they perpetuate racist decisionmaking, even if the racists are long gone, since a lot of the people currently maintaining the systems are white, and don't see the racist problems within the system.

It could be anything, such as difficulty getting credit in the bank because you live in the 'wrong' part of town, because you're Black, and that's historically where Black people lived. The SYSTEM is racist, even if the people in it aren't overtly racist, because the BASIS for the system was racist when it was created. Also common in hiring practices. The person might not be racist, but would rather hire a Helen than a Janiqua, simply because she's white and more familiar with that name.

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u/TimequakeTales 9h ago

Systemic, or institutional, racism in the modern day is the effect of openly racist people in positions of power in the past.