"People have a hard time understanding what systemic discrimination is and what systemic racism is.”

 "People have a hard time understanding what systemic discrimination is and what systemic racism is. This is because it's not the kind of racism that comes necessarily from the behaviour, words, and actions of individuals, other than the fact that they are guided by the system in which they are functioning. 

The phrase that I always like to use is that systemic racism is the racism that's left over after you get rid of the racists. You get rid of the racists within the justice system, for example, you will still have racism perpetrated by the justice system. "This is because the justice system follows certain rules, procedures, guidelines, precedents, and laws that are inherently discriminatory and racist because those laws, policies, procedures, processes, and beliefs—including beliefs that direct individuals on how and when to exercise their discretion— come from a history of the common law, which comes from a different culture, a different way of thinking.”

 

Senator Murray Sinclair