Systemic/Institutional Racism: Validating Anti-Social Behavior

The persistent protesting that has followed the brutal death of George Floyd is impossible to ignore. In the wake of George Floyd’s death, protests turned to riots, and violence ensued in the name of dismantling a system that perpetuates racism. Even as the rioting subsided, the protests continue to bear the cause of dismantlement. The phrase “systemic racism” is a catch-all phrase used as a pejorative against the Western system of government. It tends to isolate its ire at the criminal justice system, but nonetheless targets the entire system. The protestors and politicians who use the phrase “systemic racism” have committed themselves to lazy statistical analysis in which the existence of racial disparities between blacks and whites is itself evidence that the system is wholly committed to white supremacy at the expense of other racial groups. The problem with this line of thinking is two-fold. First, it establishes the system as a whole as the cause, and therefore dismantlement as the only reasonable solution. It cannot be understated how remarkably short-sighted and dimwitted that diagnosis is. As an analogy, imagine if someone blamed driving as the sole cause of car accidents, and that therefore we should stop driving, or to borrow their terms “reimagine” driving. The framing of policy issues is critical to proposing solutions. If you frame the solution too broadly, you end up with a systemic diagnosis. If you frame it too narrowly, you end up with individualized solutions. Which brings me to the second error in the framework of systemic racism: it instantiates the system as a whole as the sole cause of nearly all racial disparities, and in so doing validates and encourages anti-social behavior which aims at resolving the cause of the problems: the system.

Anti-Social Personality Disorder is defined by the Merck Manual as “…a pervasive pattern of disregard for consequences and for the rights of others.” The Mayo Clinic defines it as “a mental disorder in which a person consistently shows no regard for right and wrong and ignores the rights and feelings of others.” The National Health Service of the United Kingdom defines it thusly: “Antisocial personality disorder is a particularly challenging type of personality disorder characterised by impulsive, irresponsible and often criminal behaviour.” And the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM 5) defines it as “…a deeply ingrained and rigid dysfunctional thought process that focuses on social irresponsibility with exploitive, delinquent, and criminal behavior with no remorse.” It is perhaps important at this juncture to explain that I am not a psychologist, psychiatrist, nor have I been trained in psychology beyond Psych 101. Yet, I know how to read and comprehend words. There are four sources who state the exact same thing in which the individual is incapable or unwilling to discern between right and wrong, and often disrupt society through delinquent or criminal behavior. The Mayo Clinic further explains that signs of Anti-Social Personality Disorder often manifest by age 15, which is to say we might start to see juvenile delinquency.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice, black juveniles accounted for 4,618 murder arrests, which is nearly double that of their white counterparts, 1,792. In every single year of record starting at 1980 black juvenile murder arrests were nearly double or more of whites. Yet, blacks represent only 13% of the U.S. population. What could be the cause of this criminal activity in juveniles? It might not be a stretch to imagine that Anti-Social Personality Disorder may be a part of the cause. The DSM 5 outlines the symptoms as follows:

“

1. A pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others, since age 15 years, as indicated by three (or more) of the following:

1. Failure to conform to social norms concerning lawful behaviors, such as performing acts that are grounds for arrest.

2. Deceitfulness, repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for pleasure or personal profit.

3. Impulsivity or failure to plan.

4. Irritability and aggressiveness, often with physical fights or assaults.

5. Reckless disregard for the safety of self or others.

6. Consistent irresponsibility, failure to sustain consistent work behavior, or honor monetary obligations.

7. Lack of remorse, being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another person.“

We can examine each of these in succession. I’ve already evaluated black juvenile criminality pursuant to number 1. Examining number 2 would amount to individualized case studies, which this effort will not undertake, but it would include the use of aliases, inaccurate or false witness, or outright silence about crime. Suffice it to say Dr. Seuss did not coin the popular phrase “snitches get stitches.” Number 3 is nearly impossible to measure, but it may be worth noting that high school drop out rates might be an interesting marker for failure to plan, since those without a high school diploma more often end up with little to no income. By this metric, black high school drop out amounts to roughly 7% at about 334,000 as of 2016. This is not strikingly high until you compare this figure with the figure of incarcerated individuals. According to GenFKD 65% of the prison population did not have a high school diploma, and 41% were drop-outs. Additionally, in 2017 Minnesota examined its inmate population and found that 74% of incoming inmates did not have a high school diploma. Georgia found similar results in 2016. It is often noted that there is a racial disparity within the inmate population, often highlighted in the school-to-prison pipeline argument, and in documentaries like “13th.” If the disparity exists between both race and educational attainment of inmates, the correlation between high school drop-out rates and criminality might underscore a larger conclusion regarding anti-social behavior in early adolescence. More research would need to be done to determine whether completing high school is a significant enough factor, but there is at least enough evidence to surmise.

Number 4 determines that aggressiveness is a key symptom of Anti-Social Personality Disorder. Again, examining juvenile delinquency will be the key metric for this. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the vast majority of offenses that resulted in disciplinary action by schools was for fighting. These figures were not broken down by race, however a growing number of scholarly articles has determined that there is a disparity in disciplinary action against black students. Correspondingly, if most instances of disciplinary action are for fighting, and a disproportionate amount of disciplinary action is taken against black students, one could conclude that black students are often engaged in physical fighting at disparate rates. According to the statistics these mostly occur by high school , which is within the normal distribution for symptoms of Anti-Social Personality Disorder. By evaluating the disparity of disciplinary action taken against black students in schools, it is clear that there is manifest evidence of Anti-Social Personality Disorder within black youth.

At this point I should pause to explain that the purpose of this essay is not to isolate or call unique attention to failures within the black community. Indeed similar inferences can be made within the white community as well. In fact, most statistics that I’ve examined so far have demonstrated Asian-Americans as being the least susceptible to anti-social behavior by all available metrics. The reason that this has been so keenly focused on statistics of black people in America is that I fear that the indictment of the system as being racist will do long-term damage to black people by offering an easy object to blame without resolving deep-rooted anti-social behavior. Let’s continue.

The DSM-5 goes on to say about ASPD:

“Patients with antisocial personality disorder are at a higher risk of contracting certain viral infections and sexually transmitted diseases associated with high-risk behavior, including hepatitis C and human immunodeficiency virus, as well as increased mortality rates due to accidents, traumatic injuries, suicides, and homicides.”

Examining rates of STD’s captured by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, it is abundantly clear that blacks account for a shockingly disproportionate amount of STD’s for nearly every single type of STD. For HIV, nearly half of all HIV patients are black, mostly men. According to ChildTrends.org, rates of teen births is heavily weighted towards blacks and Hispanics . Thankfully, these figures are declining, but still indicative of ASPD. And an examination of FBI crime statistics shows that blacks are more likely to be the victims of homicides as well as the perpetrators, yet they only account for 13% of the U.S. population. As an aside, white men are more likely to be the victims of suicide, which is evidence of anti-social personality disorder manifesting within the white community. Another common symptom for whites is opioid dependence, as numbers will reflect. The difference is that when white men die of suicide, there isn’t an outcry for systemic dismantlement. Instead, policymakers address the cause of the issue and seek to solve it specifically. In this way, by charging the system with corruption wholesale, policymakers are doing a tremendous disservice to the black community.

The causes of Anti-Social Personality Disorder are not known, but researchers speculate that “…both genetics and traumatic childhood experiences, such as child abuse or neglect, are thought to play a role.” For the purposes of objectivity, I’m going to rule out genetics as a cause of this disorder. I’m doing this because it will treat race as a constant so that we can examine other potential causes. The NHS goes on to explain “[a] person with antisocial personality disorder will have often grown up in difficult family circumstances.” Single-parenthood in the black community is at an astonishing 65% as of 2018, according to data collected by The Annie E. Casey Foundation. Child abuse among black children is astonishingly high. 14 in 1000 black children are abused as compared to their white counter-parts at 8.2 in 1000.

The diagnosis of systemic racism as the root of each of these issues is lazy policy. For example, the solution to address STD prevalence among blacks cannot also be a solution for high school drop out rates. Each of these needs to be addressed in turn, but by misdiagnosing the problem and doing so in such a broad way, policymakers will find it impossible to solve any problem let alone so many. Worse still, by neglecting to deal directly with each of these issues individually and instead blaming the system, these behaviors are being validated and encouraged because they’re not deemed to be wrong. Instead, it’s actually the system that’s wrong for punishing this behavior; the system is to blame for black homicide rates; the system is to blame for black STD rates; the system is to blame for black high school drop out rates; none of those are the fault of the individual or their specific communities, but the system as a whole. By placing the blame solely on the system, the actions that lead to the disparate results will not be corrected, and as such the results will never change.

I’m not in the business of making predictions, by I prophesy that disparities between races will either not improve, or they will only improve because the white community will begin to display traits of ASPD, as we are beginning to see. White divorce rate is already increasing, white single-parenthood is increasing, and as by correlation, white suicide rates are increasing, white drug addiction is increasing, and white violent crime rates are increasing. I could conduct exactly the same survey of ASPD for the white population and find similar results, but again the difference is that when whites suffer from drug addiction and suicide, we never think to blame the system and dismantle it. If we genuinely cared about the disparities between the races we would aim at specific diagnoses with proper solutions, not a broad diagnosis with only destruction as a solution. Until we can speak honestly about the issues and the true nature of the causes undergirding the disparities among the races, we will never find adequate solutions.

*References: 

  https://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/psychiatric-disorders/personality-disorders/antisocial-personality-disorder-aspd

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/antisocial-personality-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20353928

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/antisocial-personality-disorder/

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK546673/

https://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/crime/JAR_Display.asp?ID=qa05261

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK546673/

A commonly used phrase derived from the full phrase “Snitches get stitches and end up in ditches” to infer that you do not “snitch” on your compatriots or cooperate with police or else you will be hurt or killed. It bears a striking similarity to the Italian Mafia’s Omerta.

http://www.genfkd.org/education-deficiency-drives-mass-incarceration

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/crimeindicators/ind_18.asp

CDC https://www.cdc.gov/std/stats17/minorities.htm#:~:text=Specifically%2C%20rates%20increased%203.7%25%20among,among%20Hispanics%20(Figure%208).

https://www.childtrends.org/indicators/teen-births#:~:text=In%202017%2C%20birth%20rates%20were,teens%20(7%20per%201%2C000).

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/antisocial-personality-disorder/

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/antisocial-personality-disorder/

https://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/tables/107-children-in-single-parent-families-by-race#detailed/1/any/false/37,871,870,573,869,36,868,867,133,38/10,11,9,12,1,185,13/432,431

https://www.statista.com/statistics/254857/child-abuse-rate-in-the-us-by-race-ethnicity/