Project 2025 — Systemic Racism

Ritchie Calvin
7 min readAug 2, 2024

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2025 by Ritch Calvin

Systemic racism is far more than a matter of racial prejudice and individual bigotry. It is a material, social, and ideological reality that is well-imbedded in major U.S. institutions.”
(Joe R. Feagin)

Vice Presidential running mate J. D. Vance keeps saying weird things. In July 2024, Vance was speaking in Idaho and was talking about voter ID laws. He complained that Democrats call voter ID laws “racist,” and that they call “everything racist.” He then noted that he drank a diet Mountain Dew, and he expected Democrats to call that racist, as well.

What Vance is trying to do here is to trivialize systemic racism. He defuses the term “racist” by saying Democrats apply it to “everything.” If they apply the term to everything, we simply cannot take it seriously. Further, he suggests that calling diet Mountain Dew is also something Democrats would attack as racist. That’s a further trivialization and delegitimization: They even think people are racist for drinking soda. Absurd.

In fact, Democrats are likely to say they don’t drink Mountain Dew (though some do); they’re likely to say that it doesn’t taste good (though some will like it); and they’re likely to say that is an unhealthy choice of drinks. (According to Is It Bad for You [non-partisan], Mountain Dew gets an “F.” “Short answer: Mountain Dew is terrible for you.”)

Racist? That’s just trivialization.

The first thing to think about is the distinction between “individual racism” and “systemic racism.” Individual racism indicates incidents or situations in which an individual behaves in a way that discriminates negatively against someone from a marginalized or underrepresented group. So, for example, if I am driving down the road, and I see a motorist with a flat tire, do I stop and help? Well, if my decision to stop and help is predicated on the race of the motorist, then that can be an act of individual racism. If I see that the stranded motorist is white, and I decide, OK, I’ll stop and help, then that decision is based in racism. If I see that motorist is Black, and I decide not to stop, then that is an act of individual racism. It is about my individual act. To be sure, I have developed my ideas about race from many factors, including systemic racism.

Systemic racism, on the other hand, refers to systems in place that are grounded in racist ideas and practices and that perpetuate those ideas and practices. For example, Merriam-Webster defines systemic racism as: “the oppression of a racial group to the advantage of another as perpetuated by inequity within interconnected systems (such as political, economic, and social systems).” Similarly, the Cambridge Dictionary defines it as: “policies and practices that exist throughout a whole society or organization, and that result in and support a continued unfair or harmful treatment of others based on race.”

I would suggest that many people who bristle and reject the idea of systemic racism do so because they conflate systemic racism with individual racism. (Though, to be fair, some people reject it simply because they are racist and want to self-justify their beliefs and practices.) When someone points out systemic racism, that person feels as they they themselves are being accused of committing an act of overt racism. In fact, systemic racism operates without anyone actually having to commit overt acts. “Systemic racism is a machine that runs whether we pull the levers or not, and by just letting it be, we are responsible for what it produces. We have to actually dismantle the machine if we want to make change” (Ijeoma Oluo).

In The Conservative Promise, the authors mention “racism” 6 times, “racist” 8 times, “systemic racism” 2 times, and “systemically racist” 3 times. They are not quite a fixated on race as they are on gender and abortion, but they do address it — in regressive ways.

The authors of Project 2025 and The Conservative Promise do not accept this premise. They want every instance of “race” and “racism” stricken from government policies. They want every document that mentions Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) scrubbed. They want every committee, task force, and every office that addresses DEI eliminated. Day one. They want all DEI eliminated from education (at all levels) so that

What, then are examples of systemic racism?

Lets look, for example, at Robert F. Smith, who is a successful entrepreneur and businessman who is also deeply concerned about discrimination and committed to DEI in the workplace. On Smith’s website, he defines systemic racism, and he then provides 11 examples. These examples include:

That Black Americans are incarcerated at a rate five times higher than white Americans. The disparities extend down into grade school and elementary schools, where young Black children are more likely to be met with police officers than with counselors. The system negatively discriminates and pushes students of color toward prison.

That Black and brown students are more likely to be in a school with fewer and more outdated resources than their white counterparts. If the goal of a national educational system is to make better citizens and to produce a better workforce — for the good of all citizens — then resources and opportunities should be equally distributed. Instead, the system is design NOT to distribute resources and opportunities.

That Black and brown citizens are far less likely to own a home. Never mind that it has long been considered a part of the American dream to own a home. The inability to own a home stifles generational wealth. Families that cannot purchase a home and grow equity have nothing to pass along. Towns were built, designed to keep minorities out (Levittown on Long Island was one very prominent example). Banks had rules and guidelines against offering loans to minority clients (redlining). Realtors refused to show minority buyers houses in certain neighborhoods — or sometimes, to show them houses at all. Each of the mechanisms in the home buying process was rigged against minority and underrepresented buyers. The system is design to prevent Black and brown buyers from participating as equal citizens.

Smith also includes examples from Employment discrimination, Healthcare disparities, Environmental racism, Racial profiling, Voter suppression, Media representation, Wealth, and Immigration policies.

The Human Rights Careers offers 10 examples, most of which overlap with Smith’s examples, though the site adds: Food insecurity, and Digital inequality.

Curious Refuse, an AI website built for filmmakers, offers 64 examples of systemic racism in the US. Each example with its own link. (The links that I checked seemed to be legit, and not AI “hallucinations.”)

And, yet, Project 2025 sees the very notion of “systemic racism” to be a scourge upon our country. In fact, in the Introduction to Section 1 of The Conservative Promise, the editors create a (false) dichotomy. On the one hand we have “the woke revolutionaries” and on the other hand those “who believe in the ideals of the American revolution” (19). That’s quite a disingenuous rhetorical leap.

It goes on:

“The former believe that America is — and always has been — ‘systemically racist’ and that it is not worth celebrating and must be fundamentally transformed, largely through a centralized administrative state. The latter believe in America’s history and heroes, its principles and promise, and in everyday Americans and the American way of life.” (19)

So many false equivalencies there.

First, we have already demonstrated some of the ways in which the US is systemically racist. Perhaps they would like further evidence:

In the very Constitution it says that Black people are not people, are not citizens. The Constitution is kind of the bedrock of the system. They cannot run for office; they cannot vote; they cannot hold many jobs, etc. Is that not something that we would want to remedy?

The 13th Amendment establishes a system, post-slavery, that allows for employers to continue to enslave people, just under a new name. Is that not a system inequality? Should it not be called out and remedied?

Racial and ethnic minorities have been allowed to serve in the military, but they are recruited more heavily than their white counterparts, and they are assigned different roles in the military. A Black soldier has been far more likely to be cannon fodder while a white soldier is far more likely to be channeled toward being an officer. It was built into the very system of the military. Can we not point that out? Can we not try to remedy that inequity?

The wealthy business owners (and the politicians they have purchased) are far more likely o build their factories and dump their waste in areas when Black and brown people live. They do not build factories net tot their own houses. They do not dump their toxic chemicals next to their children’s parks and school. Unless studies, unless called out, those practices will simply continue.

Is pointing these things out racist and anti-American? No. In fact, it’s the opposite. It is the true patriot who points out the ways in which we can do better. And to get better, you have to understand the flaws in the first place.

Roberts writes:

“Left to our own devices, the American people rejected European monarchy and colonialism just as we rejected slavery, second-class citizenship for women, mercantilism, socialism, Wilsonian globalism, Fascism, Communism, and (today) wokeism.” (14)

The American people did not reject slavery without some shoving. A lot of it. Those who were enslaved, and those who saw slavery as immoral, pushed and shoved. Without the equivalent of “wokeism,” nothing would have changed. The American people did not reject “second-class citizenship for women” on their “own.” Women and allies pushed and shoved. They pointed out inequities. They pointed out hypocrisies. They protested. They burned the President in effigy. Without the “woke” suffragists, nothing would have changed.

(The rest of that list in the quote is such a mess that it will take an entire essay to sort out.)

Wanting our institutions to reflect and represent our diverse society is not a bad thing. Pointing out that it has not done so historically is not a bad thing. Pushing for change is not a bad thing.

But we have to see how the machine (system) was built; we have to understand how the machine (system) operates if we ever hope to repair it.

Ritch Calvin is an Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at SUNY Stony Brook. He is the author of Queering SF: Readings (Aqueduct Press), Feminist Epistemology and Feminist Science Fiction (Palgrave McMillan) and edited a collection of essays on Gilmore Girls (McFarland). His most recent book (2024) is Queering SF Comics: Readings (Aqueduct Press).

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