More Equal Than Others

“Systemic racism” has apparently become America’s fatal flaw. Best described as policies and institutions designed to discriminate on the basis of race, systemic racism has become the rallying cry of radicals seeking to overthrow the foundations of American society.

Paradoxically, some of the places most vigorously lambasted as systemically racist are the most racially diverse in leadership, or otherwise detached from overt racist influence. Inequality-burdened cities like Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. are run by black or Democratic mayors, police chiefs, city council members, and school superintendents. The biggest problems facing these cities today have not to do with race (or Republicanism) but with failing local leadership, poor-performing school systems, a lack of school choice, and ineffective police forces. To reduce these complex, socially entrenched problems to “systemic racism” is to dodge accountability and blind oneself to their true causes.

This isn’t to say that systemic racism doesn’t exist today; it does—but not where the Left is looking. Consider President Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan (ARP). It includes a $28.6 billion Restaurant Revitalization Fund, which prioritized helping restaurants majority owned by women or members of certain racial or ethnic groups. The ARP also included $4 billion in debt relief for black and other select minority farmers. Under the program, all “socially disadvantaged” farmers with an outstanding balance would receive 120 percent debt relief from the USDA, while others (namely, white farmers) wouldn’t. These relief programs have faced legal and political scrutiny across the country, from Texas to Florida and Wisconsin, on the grounds that they illegally discriminate by race and sex. One of these challenges was brought by the white owner of Jake’s Bar and Grill, who co-owned the struggling restaurant with his Hispanic wife. Because his wife owned less than 51 percent of the restaurant, his relief application was pushed behind those of other minority applicants.