(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . The Connection between the Past and Systemic Biases [1] ['Thom Hartmann', 'Bumper Monster', 'Belinda Ridgewood', 'Chitown Kev'] Date: 2026-09-15 The Connection between the Past and Systemic Biases A lot of folks default to “that’s how things were back then” or “it wasn’t the same back then” when defending a song, a movie, a sitcom, a book or something depicting what is obviously today problematic, and lots of folks don’t realize that this very default is proof of systemic biases. Systemic biases (racism, sexism et al) are called systemic because they survive through the ages, in things like traditions, culture and institutions. If they hadn’t taken root in the past they wouldn’t be called systemic, but trends or fads. These things in the past that we keep saying are not problematic because it was that way back then, that things were different back then, are precisely the things that informed our behaviors and still inform them today. Those old songs/books/movies where men were macho, grabbing women by force and kissing them, taught men that this behavior was and is acceptable. It is the culture that embeds the biases inside the system, whether that system be an institution or someone’s brains. You seen enough movies with teens going off to college to party and when you go off to college you party, because that’s what the culture has taught you college was all about, keg parties, sororities and fraternities, and fun fun fun. Movies and songs have taught you that you can “wear a woman down” that you can “win her over” that you can “make her give in eventually” and that lots of women “play hard to get” so no doesn’t mean no, it means keep trying. Yes it was “normal” back then, because it was normalized doesn’t mean it was right, it just means that normalization worked. Justifying today why it was okay, means the normalization is still working, thus proving that systemic biases are still alive and well today. The roots of any “systemic” bias are IN the past, that’s how they become systemic! All those little traditions, cultural or societal norms we absorb without even thinking about them… and that we dismiss so easily because “it’s nothing”… are the most insidious and resistant to change. Because they are so… trite on the surface. In the song discussed earlier today, Baby it’s cold outside, a man over and over and over again refuses to take “no” for an answer, no matter how many times the woman says it, how many excuses and despite the multiple ways she tries to say she has to leave, she wants to leave. It is banal. It is commonplace. And that makes it all the more creepy. It’s from the 40’s yet to this day in 2026 the way a woman’s words were ignored back then doesn’t click with a lot of folks, because “back then it was the norm”. Yet, back then women didn’t have rights, they were even more a property than they are today and you don’t contextualize THAT in the analysis of the song. It doesn’t matter that a woman sang it because women are also raised in this society, have also absorbed the systemic biases on their own persons and back then (and now) thought “it’s just the way things are”. It’s not a matter (for me) of “fault” it’s a matter of dismantling a system that feeds itself the same biases over and over and over because the biases are embedded within the system since time immemorial. TheAmericanHaitianPoet Muriel Vieux – September 16th, 2026 – ©All rights reserved Paypal.me/murielvieux (only missing 25$ now) [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/9/15/800098766/community/the-connection-between-the-past-and-systemic-biases/ Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/