“Systemic Racism Is Not Up For Debate”

By Pearl Osibu

CONVERSATIONS about racism in America often stumble on a familiar refrain: “He was racist, but…” That qualifier erases the depth of systemic injustice.

Racism is not abstract—it fractures families through over-policing, mass incarceration, and the erasure of dignity. Black men are disproportionately jailed, their children growing up fatherless, caught in cycles of inequality. Yet, while stereotypes about “Black crime” dominate, the majority of killers of white people are white, as are most school shooters and mass murderers.

This contrast exposes the propaganda many Africans at home and in the diaspora unknowingly echo when they dismiss racism’s systemic reality. Ignorance in this conversation is not harmless; it reinforces the very structures that oppress.

Systemic racism is not a debate point. It is a lived reality that demands recognition, not excuses.