Racism

[DSMatticus]

"okay, yes, that happens but we're talking about a separate issue right now" and making them look like jackasses if they insist on making the conversation about their tangentially related problems even though the actual reason for having the conversation was to talk about other problems completely

Well, if you try to redefine this word than anytime someone brings up racism against whites or sexism against men or whatever, instead of just saying "okay, yes, that happens but we're talking about a separate issue right now" and making them look like jackasses if they insist on making the conversation about their tangentially related problems even though the actual reason for having the conversation was to talk about other problems completely

Darkmaster, you need to fuckin' read closer or something. What Chamomile said is completely sensible and appropriate. It is not ambiguous or unclear. If you walk into a conversation about how commonly women are raped insisting that we need to talk about how nobody takes male rape victims seriously instead, you're an asshole. Not because male rape victims not being taken seriously isn't sexist and terrible, but because you are trying to hijack and shutdown the discussion of one egalitarian issue (which is also more serious) with another. We need to talk about both of those things, but using one to derail conversations about the other isn't actually doing that, it's just a rhetorical tactic to make sure nobody talks about anything. And it is incredibly obvious that that is exactly the phenomenon Chamomile is describing. Chamomile is pointing out that you don't need to redefine sexism to shut down those derails, you just need to understand that people who derail egalitarian conversations in bad faith are assholes.

But the difference is that, by and large, 4chaners are in on the gag. Very few people on 4chan actually take what goes on on 4chan seriously, are there a few chuckleheads that actually think it’s serious business tm? Probably yeah, but if you look at how channers talk about the board most of them are taking the piss out of it themselves: a sort of “tee hee internet H8 machine lolololololololol.” People on 4chan don’t use the word [EDITED] as a suffix for every group imaginable because they want to insult homosexuals, they do it because LUL INTERNETZ.

This is increasingly less true every year. 4chan is pretty fucking old in internet years, and they've been doing the internet hate machine thing ironically for so long that a lot of the irony has just been strangled out of it. You realize /pol/ exists because the site was having incredibly uncomfortable and very serious arguments about minorities being subhuman across the entire site? It's a containment attempt. A containment attempt that backfired, and instead validated those arguments and gave them a reservoir to fester in and spill forth pestilence to the rest of the site. Genuine overt racism and Stormfront bullshit are now just a substantial part of 4chan culture, and there's a surprisingly strong social conservative undercurrent there given the age demographics.

The shitty tumblr communities everyone pays attention to are harmfully stupid, but 4chan is stupidly harmful.

it's a pointless argument that creates tension between me and people who make damned good points even if their choice of words is peculiar from an outside perspective.

It's not a pointless argument, and it's not "peculiar from an outside perspective" - it is counterproductive from a practical perspective. If you claim that murdering white people for being white isn't racism, you will make negative progress towards convincing people whatever the fuck it is you're trying to convince them of and you get nothing in exchange. You haven't made it easier to express the concepts you're trying to express, you haven't made it easier to focus on any particular issues; you just look like a fucking self-parody, and racists are going to hold you up for the world to see and laugh at to score points with their "racism is over; now it's about shitting on white people" arguments.

[Kaelik]

What difference? There is litterally no way to say those words and have them make sense. You realize that saying "the group" is a shorthand way to discribe a whole group of people. It is a verbal short cut that we use to identify ourselves or others as a collective. So no OS, you cannot actually differentiate between "all people who are members of a group" and "the group" as a whole because those are two different ways to say the exact same thing.

His official argument is that if you think all black people are inherently stupid, but one black person exists who is average, then you aren't a racist.

He makes this argument because he thinks that all black people are inherently stupid, but some exceptions might exist.

Because he is a racist.

[Occluded Sun]

But that's not true for races, because while "Women" has an extremely functional definition "Race" does not so trying to say anything biologically derivative of "Race" is shared by that "Race" is begging the question twice in a row. Someone's "Race" can't tell you anything about a person or group because "Race" is a nonfunctional categorization of humans.

No, it's quite commonly useful. It's even more useful in societies that actually permit subtle distinctions to be made - splitters instead of lumpers.

What, you seriously think there're no differences between native Australian aborigines and the British-derived Australians? You seriously think 'women' isn't a contentious category? What about androgen insensitives? What about transsexuals? The edges are always fuzzy.

[Vnonymous]

The reason 4chan's political boards believe in racist ideologies and theories is incredibly simple.

In the real world, if you admit to believing that there are real differences between the races then your career is destroyed and your life goes into the toilet - James Watson, a scientist who played a key role in discovering the structure of DNA is the most prominent example. He said that race and intelligence were linked, and his life went into the toilet to the degree that he had to sell his Nobel prize.

Those pressures just don't exist on anonymous boards, and combined with 4chan culture's tendency to post the most offensive things possible in order to keep out thin-skinned people, it isn't exactly hard to see why support for books like The Bell Curve pop up.

Edit: Correction, credit to Occluded Sun.

[Occluded Sun]

I find it interesting that you typed 'religions' instead of 'races'.

[darkmaster]

And maybe you're doing lingual gymnastics to try and make yourself look smarter than you are. Probably not very hard.

DSM: I did not say that Chamomile's point was unclear or ambiguous, I said that it's bad. I further went on to enumerate why I thought it was bad. There were a lot of words there, and maybe the thrust of my argument got lost, so I’ll see if I can’t refocus.

My point was that this kind of idea is corrosive to the process of discourse. It is exactly the thought process that leads the crazy branch of feminism to picket speeches talking about real serious issues facing men in modern society, and for social justice warriors to actively try to silence people who make valid arguments against their often insane positions. These are natural outgrowths of the idea that it is okay to push someone out of the conversation on the grounds that what their talking about isn’t part of the narrative you want to discuss.

It’s not the only possible outcome of this line of thought, but there is an extremely fine line between ignoring someone who is being disruptive by bringing up serious issues, and being dismissive of those issues or attempting to say those issues are in fact, unimportant and should ever be voiced. And even if that isn’t what you’re doing it is extremely easy to look like that’s what you’re doing and alienate people anyway.

But I’m willing to take it even farther and argue that rapes perpetrated against women and rapes perpetrated against men are not, in fact, separate issues and shouldn’t be viewed or spoken of as separate. The idea that the issue of rape should be divided along gender lines so that one group of victims is “the one you care about” and one is “the one we’re not considering right now” depending on where and who you are is not only deeply abhorrent to me it’s a bad way to conduct the discussion that is harmful to the victim. A victim of a crime might be labeled as a “man” or a “woman” but before being either of those identities they are “human” and to say that the gender identity of one victim or another is more important than the fact that they’re a human being is, in a very real way, an act of dehumanizing a person who has already been through a horribly dehumanizing ordeal.

This can be applied almost any issue. A much, much, better argument for your position would have been gay marriage. Homosexuals are being denied a right that no other demographic of people is being denied. So when someone enters a discussion about gay marriage and starts talking about male victims of rape it is easy to see these issues are not really related and that person is probably trying to derail the discussion so telling them to stay on topic is a reasonable course. But when you are talking about rape and not mentioning male victims and someone asks what about the men who are raped, and you’re response is to tell them you don’t want to talk about the men who are raped and to please only address women, you seem like an intolerant jerk who is unconcerned with real victims of a heinous crime. Maybe you’re not, maybe you really are just trying to keep the conversation focused, but even if you’re not an intolerant jerk if that is how people perceive you and the cause you’re championing then it’s still harming you’re cause.

As an aside I take acceptation to the idea that a crime can be more serious based upon the demographics of the victim. Why is rape against women more serious than rape against men? Because more women are raped? If that is the only metric you want to use then yes, I suppose so. But it is equally easy to say that rapes against men are more serious because men who report their rape are taken less seriously and therefore are often mistreated or not given the assistance they need. Both of these positions are horse shit because the actual, important, information is that a person has been the victim of a crime.

[Kaelik]

But it is equally easy to say that rapes against men are more serious because men who report their rape are taken less seriously and therefore are often mistreated or not given the assistance they need.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[darkmaster]

Yes Kaelik the idea that the victims of crimes should be viewed as human and treated with respect and delicacy reguardless of their gender, or the color of their skin, or age, is fucking hilarious. As is the idea that saying that things should be otherwise is disgusting and arbitrary.

[Koumei]

Pretty sure Kaelik is laughing at how fucking stupid you are. It's of course true that the rape of men is not taken seriously, but guess what? It's not taken seriously for women either!

The crime is equally serious regardless of the victim. The "I bet it didn't really happen" (and variants thereof) is serious, and is a problem that applies regardless of the victim.

[DSMatticus]

DSM: I did not say that Chamomile's point was unclear or ambiguous, I said that it's bad. I further went on to enumerate why I thought it was bad. There were a lot of words there, and maybe the thrust of my argument got lost, so I’ll see if I can’t refocus.

I did not say that you said Chamomile's point was unclear. I was expressing bewilderment that you managed not to understand it, because your response was a giant nonsequitur about how not letting people derail your discussion about X with a discussion with Y means you're ignoring Y, which is a transparent falsehood because I can simultaneously call for affirmative consent standards (protecting women from rape) and less rapey prisons (protecting men from rape). Those are not exclusive positions, but they are different problems with different causes and different solutions and have to be addressed individually. Letting people bring up one in response to the other isn't fucking helpful and the people who do it know it isn't fucking helpful because they're trying to shut down the conversation entirely by acting like if you don't change the topic fom terrible thing X to terrible thing Y you don't care about terrible thing Y and therefore no one should listen to you about terrible thing X. It's a deceitful rhetorical trick in use right fucking now to discredit egalitarian movements.

Fuck, we can't talk about world starving children anymore. If you try to, I'm going to yell at you about the homeless. If you ignore me and keep talking about starving children, then clearly you don't care about the homeless.

Also if you try to talk about the homeless, I'm going to yell at you about starving children. If you ignore me and keep talking about the homeless, then clearly you don't care about starving children.

rapes perpetrated against women and rapes perpetrated against men are not, in fact, separate issues and shouldn’t be viewed or spoken of as separate.

Then you're a fucking idiot. Rape is not a single issue. Parental rape is different from acquaintance rape is different spousal rape is different from prison rape. Not because any of those is categorically more terrible than the other, but because they happen for different fucking reasons in different fucking ways and require different fucking solutions. You are not actually taking some moral stance about how rape is a tragedy whoever the victim is, you are taking a stance about how discussions about rape must be so general as to be completely unproductive.

Sorry, but I actually want less rapes to happen, so I'm going to talk about acquaintance rape and prison rape like they're different, and I'm going to get pissed off if you try to derail a discussion about one with the other. Because if we don't address each individually, we'll never fucking fix either.

[darkmaster]

Are you kidding me? did you actually fucking say that? There is a real and documented bias in the legal system toward exhanerating women who have been accused of rape even when there is overwhelming evidence that they did, in fact, rape their accuser to the point that people actually exist who will argue that it is actually impossible women to rape men.

So I'm sorry, but "I bet it didn't happen" =/= "it is legally impossible for your rapist to have commited the crime you're accusing them of."

Well I'm glad that you'll get pissed off DMS, you keep putting the world into little boxes and insist that we all be seperate and that solidardy among all people should never exist because somehow that will stop us from moving forward.

[DSMatticus]

Well I'm glad that you'll get pissed off DMS, you keep putting the world into little boxes and insist that we all be seperate and that solidardy among all people should never exist because somehow that will stop us from moving forward.

Out of curiosity, do you think this shit actually works in this format? That you can just ignore everything everyone says and throw out soundbites that don't really have anything to do with the conversation that's happening but subtly call people who disagree with you a [bad thing]?

As much as you want to try and change the topic with discussions about how every act of victimization is a tragedy (which has nothing to do with anything anyone is talking about or making fun of you for), it will remain true that there is no universal solution to sexual violence. Because sexual violence is not a singular phenomenon, it is a wide variety of related phenomena. You have chosen flowery soundbites about building solidarity across all dividing lines in favor of actually pursuing things that could build that solidarity across all dividing lines. "We should respect one another's sexual autonomy regardless of labels" is a solution to zero problems; it's the ideal we're trying to attain. You still actually have to be able to offer the fucking solutions that bring about that ideal; you can't just shout the ideal until things are better.

Yes, we have to talk about prison rape. Yes, we have to about acquaintance rape. Yes, those have to be separate discussions stemming from a common goal (reduce rape). Not because one is inherently more tragic than the other, but because they are not the same problem and do not have the same solution!

Actual misgyonist shitbags will walk into a conversation about campus rape culture and play the prison rape card. That is a thing they do. They are not doing it because they care about prison rape. They are doing it specifically because when they are told "that's not relevant here, we're talking about something else" they can shout "aha! Manhaters!" Stop helping misogynist shitbags be misogynist shitbags.

[Vnonymous]

I freely admit to being a misogynist shitbag - I don't hate women or anything, but I do enjoy playing the Bayonetta games, urinate standing up and spread my legs when sitting down on the train. I also don't believe that E=mc2 is a sexist equation because it privileges the speed of light above other variables.

The bar for "misogynist shitlord" just seems to be set incredibly low these days.

[tussock]

There's a lot of nasty shit in this thread, so here I am.

Prak, your definition of racism is fucking stupid and if you actually believe that you're a fucking moron.

What you're describing is original sin, not fucking racism.

When the KKK lynches people for being black, that's racism. Your moronic definition agrees with reality here.

When the ANC chants "Kill the boer", that's racism (but not under your definition!).

When Israel sterilizes black people without telling them, that's actually racist (and under your definition it isn't, because jews are an oppressed people).

See, the ANC government of South Africa and the government of Israel are the government of their respective places. All of that agrees with the sensible definition, you fucking moron. With apologies to morons, who are often not part of the problem.

I freely admit to being a misogynist shitbag

You ain't kiddin'.

There is a real and documented bias in the legal system toward exhanerating people who have been accused of rape

I fixed your post, numbnuts. By the way, why do you hate the homeless? Why do you hate the starving childrens? What are you, some sort of crazy person?

What, you seriously think there're no differences between native Australian aborigines and the British-derived Australians?

I recall having you on ignore for a long time and then taking everyone off because, you know, how bad could it be? And here we have someone who's going to tell us all how ... different ... one of the world's most long-suffering groups facing racist oppression is.

Fucking hell man, "British-derived"?

They mean "racism against the people who aren't running the show."

They mean this.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc ... on/386893/

One should understand that the Justice Department did not simply find indirect evidence of unintentionally racist practices which harm black people, but "discriminatory intent”—that is to say willful racism aimed to generate cash. Justice in Ferguson is not a matter of "racism without racists," but racism with racists so secure, so proud, so brazen that they used their government emails to flaunt it.

Not to mention the tanks and such, bought with money stolen through the "justice system" from the black population of Ferguson because racism, by people who routinely ignore little things like paying tax. That is the sort of thing which is a very large problem in the US, and Canada, and Australia, and New Zealand, and Britain, and Germany, and the Ukraine, and the Central African Republic, and fucking all sorts of places that I'm totally uninformed about because journalists here can only speak English for the most part.

When power is racist, from thousands to millions of people end up impoverished, imprisoned, and dead, for literally nothing. It's happening right now. When some black guy in New York killed a white guy as a race-based terrorist thing a few decades ago, that's really sad for the family and shit, but it's also nothing. If someone just wants to talk about the sort of racism which matters, that's totally a valid thing to do.



It's not just Ferguson, they've turned over one rock and found roaches, so they're going to put it back down and pretend that problem is now solved. That's the incarceration chance by census group over a lifetime, across the US. It's not just Ferguson. It's worse in Oz, much the same in NZ. It just hurts everyone, it's such a waste.

[Kaelik]

WHOLLY SHIT GUYS!!!!!!!!!!!!! Today is an auspicious day. Today, it happened. It only took 1088 attempts, but today, for the first time ever, Tussock made a post that is less than 50% shit.

[Wiseman]

Darkmaster, kindly shut up. You are not contributing in any way to this discussion, and instead have merely derailed it in an effort to prove you're SMRT and it actually feels like you're becoming less and less sane every time I see you.

I also don't believe that E=mc2 is a sexist equation because it privileges the speed of light above other variables.

Is this a thing?

[Blicero]

I also don't believe that E=mc2 is a sexist equation because it privileges the speed of light above other variables.

Is this a thing?

Yes.
Source: http://www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/dawkins.html

A similar sentiment:

The privileging of solid over fluid mechanics, and indeed the inability of science to deal with turbulent flow at all, she attributes to the association of fluidity with femininity. Whereas men have sex organs that protrude and become rigid, women have openings that leak menstrual blood and vaginal fluids... From this perspective it is no wonder that science has not been able to arrive at a successful model for turbulence. The problem of turbulent flow cannot be solved because the conceptions of fluids (and of women) have been formulated so as necessarily to leave unarticulated remainders.

[DSMatticus]

I freely admit to being a misogynist shitbag - I don't hate women or anything, but I do enjoy playing the Bayonetta games, urinate standing up and spread my legs when sitting down on the train. I also don't believe that E=mc2 is a sexist equation because it privileges the speed of light above other variables.

The bar for "misogynist shitlord" just seems to be set incredibly low these days.

I don't think it matters where we put the bar, if you think any of the things you are talking about have anything to do with anything I said (or are even mildly accurate depictions of the current state of feminism as opposed to examples of the useful idiots social conservatives trot out to make anti-feminism cool again), you would probably still make it over that bar.

[Vnonymous]

I don't think it matters where we put the bar, if you think any of the things you are talking about have anything to do with anything I said (or are even mildly accurate depictions of the current state of feminism as opposed to examples of the useful idiots social conservatives trot out to make anti-feminism cool again), you would probably still make it over that bar.

Gee, thanks for the mansplaination.

I don't think "urinating while standing up is sexist" has made it out of Sweden yet, but there have been multimillion dollar advertising campaigns against "manspreading". Luce Irigaray, last I checked, still has a position in academia. Anita Sarkeesian has an entire journalism industry proclaiming that her work is correct and inviolable.

I mean, you can claim that the entire gaming journalism industry and Stephen Colbert are social conservatives but I don't think that's actually true.

See, the ANC government of South Africa and the government of Israel are the government of their respective places. All of that agrees with the sensible definition, you fucking moron. With apologies to morons, who are often not part of the problem.

Except you're completely ignoring history there. Israel didn't exist before WW2, and South Africa actually did have a system of apartheid in place. If you're saying that just because the government is different now there's no racism involved, you may as well say that racism has been solved in America with the election of Barack Obama.

[tussock]

Vnonymous, you idiot.

You, you said that "racism is about power" was wrong because different races of people have power in different places. That's stupid and I corrected you on it. Racism in Brazil is totally about how the Portuguese "Whites" there treat people who aren't Portuguese enough.

Now you're thinking that Barack Obama is all black men in the US and they all became president at the same time, while also replacing all the judges and chiefs of police and boards of directors of all the big media companies and the actual lawmakers with mostly black people. Because inside the borders of Israel, everyone in power is Jewish (that being the point of the place).

Like in Apartheid South Africa everyone in power was white, and now they're not. That changed when they gave black people there the vote, and now the people in power are all black, and if they actually set out to oppress white people that would be a problem of racism.

How the world works, you dumb fuck, is that when things change, they change. Han Chinese people were totally oppressed by racism inside China in the 19th century, under various external imperial directives, enforced by some rather large invasions, right through to the revolution, and now they're not. But there is still problems with racism in China, it's just changed.

[ubernoob]

img]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... ration.png[/img]

It's not just Ferguson, they've turned over one rock and found roaches, so they're going to put it back down and pretend that problem is now solved. That's the incarceration chance by census group over a lifetime, across the US. It's not just Ferguson. It's worse in Oz, much the same in NZ. It just hurts everyone, it's such a waste.

ANECDOTE AHEAD[/u][/i][/b]

So, I've lived in the south, I've lived on the west coast, I've been in the military. I've been around just a little bit. I've even hung out on the east coast for short periods of time. As far as seeing different parts of america go, I'm doing better than most.

Anyways.

Culture matters.

When your culture tells you that breaking the law makes you more of a man and that violence is the only way to prove how much of a man you are, you are in fact more likely to break the law. Guess which culture I'm talking about.

Is it white trash? Is it ghetto hood communities?

It's both. Poor people have cultures that promote shitty decision making. That's part of why their parents were poor. They made poor decisions. Statistically, blacks are more likely to be poor (and thus a part of poor culture with all the no father and welfare shit associated with it) than any other ethnic group in america.

The prison rates in america aren't a racial issue. They're a fucking economic / social issue. Poor people go to prison for the same crime a rich person gets community service for. That's a fucking fact in america. Blacks just happen to be more poor than other ethnic groups.

Everyone needs to stop looking at the color of the person's skin and start looking at what's in their wallet and what would a rational person do if they had the options of either commit a crime or go hungry.

Note: I still hate ghetto culture with a passion, I'm just saying look at the economics instead of the color a bit more. If you control for income, crime rates don't show THAT much difference. Racism is a thing, but it's much less of a deal in the USA than economic differences. Unless you are mentally ill, you will make rational (not correct, merely rational) decisions based on the information you have. For many poor people, crime is in fact a rational choice.

[Vnonymous]

Vnonymous, you idiot.

You, you said that "racism is about power" was wrong because different races of people have power in different places. That's stupid and I corrected you on it. Racism in Brazil is totally about how the Portuguese "Whites" there treat people who aren't Portuguese enough.

Now you're thinking that Barack Obama is all black men in the US and they all became president at the same time, while also replacing all the judges and chiefs of police and boards of directors of all the big media companies and the actual lawmakers with mostly black people. Because inside the borders of Israel, everyone in power is Jewish (that being the point of the place).

Like in Apartheid South Africa everyone in power was white, and now they're not. That changed when they gave black people there the vote, and now the people in power are all black, and if they actually set out to oppress white people that would be a problem of racism.

How the world works, you dumb fuck, is that when things change, they change. Han Chinese people were totally oppressed by racism inside China in the 19th century, under various external imperial directives, enforced by some rather large invasions, right through to the revolution, and now they're not. But there is still problems with racism in China, it's just changed.

Dude, my personal definition of racism is "Treating someone differently, usually in a negative way, due to their race." That's the sensical definition that I support.

The definition that I call fucking stupid and you defend is the one that I'm making fun of - and I said what I said because the people who believe that definition actually believe that shit. If you go to South Africa right now, the government is still saying "We're still dealing with the effects of white racism". People in Israel still say that the history of their people and the horrifying discrimination they faced justify their policies and the creation of an ethnically pure state. Just like how the election of Obama didn't end racism, the election of Netanyahu didn't end anti-semitism.

And to clear away all the bullshit about historical injusitce, let's move to Britain where Somalian muslims absolutely are a minority. Under the dumb definition you're defending, there's nothing racist about events like this where minorities beat a white girl while chanting 'kill the white slag.'

[Kaelik]

The prison rates in america aren't a racial issue. They're a fucking economic / social issue. Poor people go to prison for the same crime a rich person gets community service for. That's a fucking fact in america. Blacks just happen to be more poor than other ethnic groups.

This is false. The prison rate is worse for blacks even for the same economic level.

[erik]

And to clear away all the bullshit about historical injusitce, let's move to Britain where Somalian muslims absolutely are a minority. Under the dumb definition you're defending, there's nothing racist about events like this where minorities beat a white girl while chanting 'kill the white slag.'

I'm not sure that is the best example for your point. It looks like a gang of drunk assholes. Being assholes and being drunk seem like the greatest two factors behind those girls attacking the other girl. I don't disagree with the judge for not ruling it as racially aggravated. If you're drunk and violent then you are looking for an excuse to fight, not driven by the reason to fight.

With the caveat that from watching the video and not actually knowing the extent of injuries for the assailants, I disagree with the suspended sentence because they attackers felt they were dealt "unreasonable force" by the boyfriend. Unreasonable force would only be anything beyond what was necessary to get them to stop. Either the boyfriend was already fall-down drunk before the fight, or he has never been in a fight. Maybe a bit of both. I was getting frustrated that he kept just letting the attackers approach his girlfriend again. I'm a peaceful guy but if my family or friends were attacked in this manner then I'd consider it an act of aggression for attackers to be anywhere near arm's length or myself or them, and not wait for them to get their 10th kick in before defending. I'd consider it completely reasonable to deliberately break limbs since the girl's life was in danger. All it might take was for them to grab her hair and bang her head against the pavement.

[GreatGreyShrike]

The prison rates in america aren't a racial issue. They're a fucking economic / social issue. Poor people go to prison for the same crime a rich person gets community service for. That's a fucking fact in america. Blacks just happen to be more poor than other ethnic groups.

This is false. The prison rate is worse for blacks even for the same economic level.

RE: The discussion of economic level and the justice system.

Scott Alexander wrote a decent overview of a number of studies and analyses of racism in policing and the justice system over here, and wrote a followup piece about interpreting statistics here. The TL;DR from his summary of the situation is

There seems to be a strong racial bias in capital punishment and a moderate racial bias in sentence length and decision to jail.

There is ambiguity over the level of racial bias, depending on whose studies you want to believe and how strictly you define “racial bias”, in police stops, police shootings in certain jurisdictions, and arrests for minor drug offenses.

There seems to be little or no racial bias in arrests for serious violent crime, police shootings in most jurisdictions, prosecutions, or convictions.

... though I STRONGLY encourage you to read the whole thing, from both links - it goes into far more detail. A lot of stuff is linked through social and economic class, where more net harmful effects on black people than whites are because black people are disproportionately poor and poor people are disproportionately hurt by the law, but there is evidence that some parts of the system are more directly racist and a lot of parts of the system the evidence is ambiguous or varies by region within the US.