Again, systemic racism doesn't mean that there are racists in the system making racist decisions. The issue is the system itself is designed or implemented that leads to racist results, often in spite of the people involved not being explicitly racist. These types of police decisions (no-knock warrants, showing up already prepared/expecting to use deadly force) are disproportionately affecting black people. Systemic racism.
Actually this is a definition that I tend to agree with! - Thank You!
However, the causes and moral reprehensibility of systemic racism are then not as clear-cut as you present it.
Let me explain! - A few pages ago
@trufenix criticized me for keeping personal stories to myself for too long. Therefore I start with one:
Like ten years ago I was on my way home from a concert. I was just passing a black man when two white men came towards me. Suddenly I hear noise behind me. The two white men had attacked the black man and were pushing him to the ground. Reflexively I turn around and shout something like: "
What is this nonsense?! You can't fight two against one!" One of the two whites looked at me and shouted: "
Wait, our colleagues will be here soon!" - Two minutes later a police car pulls up. I was dealing with two white undercover policemen who had just arrested a black drug dealer.
Then, another few years later during an internship I was working at a criminal court. Our department was specialized in drug crime. It is an empirically proven fact that most of the (arrested) street dealers in certain regions of the town were black.
That is why drug buyers have started to ask especially black people for drugs. However, the police have also begun to control black people more often. - With success...
What I am trying to say: It is also systemic that there is a
correlation between certain crimes and skin color. This is not because black people are criminals by nature. Rather, it is because Africans (it is mostly immigrants from there that shape the specific drug scene i am talking of)
happen to be black and besides they live under
systemic circumstances that make it more likely that they are involved in drug-related crime in certain regions.
Some of many causes are:
- the course of smuggling routes,
- the common native language of smugglers and dealers,
- the tribal and kinship structures in general,
- the poverty of many African immigrants,
- the expectations of their families, or
- their poor chances in asylum procedures and work prohibitions.
Now it is the task of the police to prevent crimes. I think it is legitimate to use empirical values for this purpose: If a crime bears the signature of the mafia, then it is more likely that the investigation will be carried out in Italian circles (or at least this is what it was like during the 60s). If a racist hate crime against POC has taken place, it may make sense to first question local whites who are openly committed to perfidious "white power" ideals. Then again I would not be the first to suspect Jews if an Islamist terrorist attack was accompanied by "
Allahu Akbar" shouts.
We can discuss whether this is right or not. - But I think that it
is...
Thus under circumstances like these I think that it is infinitely unfair if the police alone are held responsible for an entire system. Actually I think that black people and the police are both "
victims" of the very same system.
I can't say how much this applies to the situation in the US though! I just want to show that the term "systemic" can be far-reaching.