Systematic vs. Systemic?
Systematic is a set of practices that are comprehensive.
Systemic is a system that has an issue inherent in how it operates.
Systematic issues are relatively easy to fix, if you care to try. Systemic issues require a deeper level of thinking.
Let’s see how this applies to racism, to move from the abstract to the concrete.
What would “systematic racism” in hiring look like?
It might look like this:
Such a hiring program would be offensively racist.
What would “systemic racism” look like in the same context?
It might look like this:
This system would result in discrimination, even if none of the policies are explicitly racist.
The hiring managers and executives would likely say, “We are not racists, it just turns out that we tend to see and hire white candidates, even though we hire candidates based on merit.”
But regardless of whether the staff are explicitly racist, they have created a racist system.
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