Irony Alert: I got an alert & hide in the Hillary Clinton group for talking about the alert stalking

[gollygee]

159. This is how institutionalized racism works

To a lot of people, suggesting someone said or did something racist is the worst possible insult there is. They find nothing at all more offensive than that. I think there's a great deal more disagreement among white people about what specifically constitutes racism, than there is that being called racist, or even just having a suggestion that something you did or said might be racist, is horribly offensive.

With the freedom the jury system gives, it's going to show up in the functioning of this institution. You have a jury looking at something racist, but the members of the jury disagree about whether it actually is racist, or how bad it is. Even though they are just trying to do a good job on the jury, something racist has a reasonable (not great) chance of surviving. But the same group of people might see a suggestion that someone said something racist, and since they're more likely to agree that it's offensive, it's more likely to get hidden.

I don't think people are doing this intentionally, or at least most people. It's just the nature of things. This is why we have to fight against institutionalized racism. Unless you open your eyes and look for it and work to eliminate it, it's going to affect how institutions function. It happens everywhere. It creeps in ways similar to this, and in ways different from this. No system or structure is free of it, and that includes DU.