A couple Twitter friends recently dismissed the notion of "systemic" or "institutional" racism, believing that only individuals can be racist. This 1983 Bowie MTV interview provides an excellent rejoinder.
Two years before, Bowie had been one of the 1/x

faces of the network's "I want my MTV" debut promotion. Here, the role of interviewer and interviewee switch when Bowie ask VJ Mark Goodman why the station didn't play more black artists. A defensive Goodman tries to explain programming: 2/x

"We have to try and do not just what we think New York and Los Angeles will appreciate, but also Poughkeepsie or the Midwest, pick some town in the Midwest that will be scared to death by Prince (who we're playing) or a string of black faces and black music." 3/x

"That's very interesting; isn't that interesting?" Bowie responds. Goodman continues: "We have to play the music that an entire country is going to like." Falling back into the then-official reason MTV used for not playing black artists (it's a "rock and roll" station), 4/x

Goodman wonders what a group like the Isley Brothers or Spinners would mean to a 17-year-old. Bowie seizes on that notion to ask, "I tell you what the Isley Bros or Marvin Gaye mean to a BLACK 17-year-old -- and surely he's part of America as well." Goodman agrees. 5/x

Calling Goodman's POV is "rampant" in American media, Bowie asks,"Should it not be the challenge to try and make the media far more integrated, especially, if anything in musical terms?" Goodman says it's happening; MTV's now playing more white groups that have a black sound! 6/x

The look on Bowie's face: Priceless. Ironically, within weeks of this exchange, MTV is playing Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean"; nothing would ever be the same. Was there an overnight conversion or, was it, as the story goes, that CBS (Jackson's label) threatened to pull ALL 7/x

their videos unless MTV played Jackson. Maybe only @kurt_loder knows for sure? So, how does this nearly 40-year old interview help explain systemic racism? Because Goodman would never consider himself racist (and no reason to believe he is), but he admits that decisions 8/x

are being made that intentionally exclude black artists -- due to the existence of racist sentiments SOMEWHERE: They could be as close as Poughkeepsie (N.Y.) or as far as "some town in the Midwest" with residents who are scared, not of black music, per se, but "black FACES." 9/x

As we would say today, this is saying the quiet part out loud. This is an example of an institution (corporation), acting in its financial self-interest using the existence of racism as its rationale. Now, take that and expand it, because it's not a unique occurrence. 10/x

Famed comic book writer and editor Jim Shooter, who broke into the medium as 13-year-old tried to introduce a black character into DC's Legion of Superheroes (which had green, orange and other-hue beings) in 1965. His editor shut it down, because of fears of Southern 11/x

markets not taking the book. Indeed, this fear supposedly kept DC from even putting a black character on a cover for years. Point being, once you get enough individuals OR "institutions" (independently) acting in a way that is exclusionary to someone of another 12/x

race, not because that individual or institution is racist but because of an awareness that racism somewhere else will have a deleterious impact on that organization's bottom line, well, there's one example of systemic racism. And David Bowie helped recognized it. 13/x

It's fair to say, well, 1965 was 55 years ago. '83 was 37 years ago. Times have changed a whole lot. True. For one, the culture IS far more diverse (too much so, some might say). But, let's go to the end of the Bowie interview; Goodman discusses differences in eras: 14/x

"It's not like it was in '67, when you'd say, 'I'm not into that, but you are and that's cool.' Now, it's, 'You're into that? I don't like YOU.' And that's scary." Want to know what's scary? How much those words perfectly fit today's temperament. 15/15 FIN