Systemic Racism =/= Personally Racist

It is entirely possible for a system to have racial bias without it meaning every individual involved is racist.

Imagine a politician who runs on a 'tough on crime' platform. That could easily come from a sense of justice, a desire to protect citizens and do what is right. No aspect of race is necessarily involved. And in the spirit of neutral justice, maybe such a politician would advocate for computer-driven policing. Maybe even a robotic police officer who could roam the streets and dispense even-handed justice to all the wrong-doers.

But this robot officer, or robocop, would have to use facial-recognition software to identify criminals. And it's pretty well established at this point that such software is less accurate with darker skin tones. And when robocop makes a mistake, it has a tendency to just gun down anyone who isn't complying with its orders. Nobody intended it, no racists were involved, but we end up with a criminal justice system with a greater likelihood of killing black people (not dissimilar to our current state of affairs).

Now, if you're a black person in this society and robocop comes around the corner as you're out for a stroll, you don't really care what anyone's intention or motivation was. You just know that you are more likely to get hurt because the color of your skin and it isn't fair. That's systemic racism.

Once this is known, the politician, and those who support him, have a decision to make. Do they continue to advocate for measures that have been shown to lead to systemic racism, or do they denounce the unfairness and look for solutions that truly are race-neutral? Systemic racism can come from something other than racism, but however it got there, supporting it is an act of personal racism. That's the difference.

It's entirely possible we have a problem with systemic racism, and the many people who support it, those who don't think of themselves as personally racist, are actually racist.