In most cases, the idea of systemic racism is a kind of racial prejudice being bandied about by individuals already biased against a racial opponent and making a sweeping summary judgment that members of another race are their enemy and are poised to cause harm and likely have done so already, and that one’s difficulties in life are the responsibility and outcome of the enemy race and its members who have discriminated against them in various ways, even covertly. This is assumed to have happened and that is the nature of the prejudice, that it is not based on facts and figures, but on assumptions and deep inner fears that this is so and has brought about constraints on life progress by standing in the way of happiness.
In actuality, there is precious little systemic racism surviving. This is brought to people’s awareness again and again and again. It has been complained about endlessly. It has been illustrated endlessly with example after example of unfair treatment and the painful consequences such that every person alive recognizes the problem of racism as causing real trouble, unhappiness, and much bad blood that leads to problems of all kinds. Everyone understands that racism is not defensible. That does not mean there are no racists. The problem does persist in a minority of individuals because beliefs are beliefs and cannot be simply discarded if they prove to be unacceptable to others.
People cannot simply change because their beliefs make them who they are and beliefs are unalterable directly for the most part, even through force of will. Some people are able to set their beliefs aside and do many things in contravention, but that is unusual. Most people cannot do that very effectively and will not choose to go along with such an idea in the first place knowing that it simply goes against the grain and is out of keeping with their character and their morality, as they see it, and will rebel before simply marching in lockstep and carrying out some action that might be objectionable because of a built-in prejudice the person carries within. But for the most part, people can learn to be not only tolerant of other races, but feel quite comfortable and not at all at odds with anyone.
When left to their own devices, most people get along just fine and see no reason to fear or dislike others of a differing race. There is no logical reason to do so, but this can be quite readily orchestrated to happen through subliminal programming—a campaign of disinformation carried out within the deep subconscious can ramp up hatred to a point where an ongoing conflict will arise that can get quite ugly under the right conditions. This is typically blamed on systemic racism when in fact it is a hidden manipulation of the individuals involved to hold those views and to act on them.
While left to their own devices, people who hold racist opinions will not air them because there is self-awareness that to do so would be unkind and would put them in a bad light as much as the one they criticize, because everyone knows in today’s world that racism is wrong and, at a minimum, unfair. So there will be attempts to curb negative thinking that is extreme in mischaracterizing members of a race to disparage them, but that does not mean people will then rush to get along and become the best of friends, and so on. This is why healing is slow in coming in a kind of evolutionary process. It will happen incrementally and must be nurtured along the way by many people warming to the task at hand and wanting to curb the possibility of violence.
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