Ron: What you are not understanding about institutional racism

Recent events have sparked a lot of conversations about race and police in America. But KIRO Radio’s Ron Upshaw has noticed a lot of conversations missing the mark.

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“Here’s the thing I heard people misunderstanding this point — institutional racism doesn’t mean that the exact officer that happened to shoot Castile was racist,” Ron said. “He may have been, but that’s not what institutional racism is. And it’s not whether or not the two police officers in Baton Rouge are racists, that’s not the concept.”

What’s important to understand, Ron said, is that one incident or one person is merely is symptom of a much larger problem — a system that is in place in America. And it’s that big picture that people need to understand.

“If you’re playing roulette, on any given day you can go in there and play hot for an hour and walk out of there with a lot of money. It doesn’t mean you are the greatest roulette player in the world, it means that you are on that hour. But over the course of a long time, a lot of spins, the casino is going to win every time. The deck is stacked, the wheel is against the patron … you’re going to lose over time.”

“When you are black in America, you are going to lose over time. That’s statistically proven over and over and over again. What does that mean? It means the system itself is biased against people of color. You cannot refute that. There are mechanisms in place right now in America. It’s not one individual officer, or one individual department. The system itself is biased against black and brown people … that’s where I want to start.”

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