What kept racism alive for 400 years were the systems that made slavery legal in the first place. What goes in, must come out. People who lived 400 years ago, died, but the systems they created lived on. Racism went in, and racism keeps coming out. At least, that’s how I understand systemic racism.
Systems are not human. Systems live forever, they have no emotions, they do not think, speak, converse or die.
Just like the people who created these systems, we are free to change them. However, we will never change a system, if we continue to think or believe we can elect someone to do the work for us. This work belongs to us; it is our job as citizens to change the systems that are holding us down. It is our job to decide what we want. Interestingly enough, it is super easy to decide what we do NOT want, but very hard to decide what we DO want.
The public school system and land-use system are two of the most powerful systems in this country and we can change them any time we please. The reason we can change them is because these two systems are controlled by local government officials. The president, governors, and legislators don’t control these systems – we do. We do it every time we vote for a city council member, county supervisor or school board member. Compared to the power our local officials hold over us, the president, governors, legislators and billionaires are weak as kittens.
In my community, we have 5 city council members, 5 county supervisors and 7 school board members. A measly 17 people control an 850 square mile community with 30,000 residents and annual budgets in the hundreds of millions – and access to billions in bonds, grants and other funding sources. When you really think about that, it seems insane. But that is the power of systems. The system does the work, not the elected officials. Heck you can hardly find a local official who can explain how the land-use system works, let alone how to change it. “We have to do it that way” they all say, because they don’t know how to change the system.
The President did not decide my neighborhood would have NO trees or parks – my city council members made that decision. My Senator did not decide to leave the windows in my kid’s school cafeteria boarded up for 17 years – my school board members made that decision. My governor did not decide to gentrify my neighborhood; my city council members made that decision.
My community fought the system and we won. Our school was completely refurbished, our neighborhood is full of trees, we have a new park with a playground and a soccer field, and our plan to stabilize residents by investing in the revitalization of homes AND public spaces lifted a neighborhood full of poor people into the middle class. The value of our neighborhood improvements stayed in our pockets, not realtors and strangers who swarm in like locusts in gentrification frenzy.
Start looking at systems and you will find people feel helpless against them. Overcoming that sense of helplessness is the task at hand. We might want to stop arguing and start figuring out how to help each other change the systems.
