The racist outcome of unpaid internships, as described by Jon Stewart

Originally posted Mar. 13, 2024.

When we talk about CRT, this is the kind of thing we mean:

Nowhere in this video does "critical race theory" come into the conversation. And yet....

When we discuss systemic racism, we make the mistake of viewing the problem from the top down. But systemic racism is rooted in ground-level choices, with each level concentrating its impact in the next one up. In this particular instance, it starts at the lowest echelon of a hiring process — not with an internship that's openly racist, but with a corporate decision to milk profits out of inexperienced, unpaid workers.

I'll admit, I've only done the basics in terms of learning what CRT really is. But it's not hard to recognize the role of intersectionality in this specific example. The video itself is very short, but I was only halfway through it before I recognized the implications.

Systemic racism is a big, all-encompassing problem, but like all big problems, it's composed of details. If we're going to end it, we have to be on alert for the low-level issues that feed into it and perpetuate it.

The burden of change is on us, as white people. That means educating ourselves about critical race theory and intersectionality.

There's a ton of information about both in the articles listed here. If you've got time for an entire book, Critical Race Theory: An Introduction (by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic) is an excellent place to start.

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The linked YouTube short is part of a longer interview, in which Kerr and Stewart call it out by name: NBA Coach Steve Kerr on Equity, Race and Tweeting at Halftime | The Problem With Jon Stewart Podcast, uploaded Dec. 2, 2021 to the The Problem With Jon Stewart channel on YouTube. (Their discussion of critical race theory begins at 5:11.)