system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
What exactly is systemic racism?

Given the climate I have been thinking about this concept and have some questions.

I assume systemic racism as an idea isn't referring to an individual who holds racist views. We would simply refer to that person as a racist?

So that means we move into the realm of policy, here we have many examples of racist policies. Apartheid South Africa, segregation in the South of the USA, red lining and Jim Crow town planning policy. Or perhaps a corporations hiring policy could be racist?

However many of those policies, once coded into law, have been overturned. So those policies are no longer legally enforceable, and companies legally cannot discriminate against people based on race? Of course the law doesn't mean racists wouldn't be racist, so a person in HR might overlook a black candidate for reasons of their personal racism... but this seems to fall into the category of a person just being a racist?

Which means we move into the space of historical legacy... here communities which have been "shafted" by past inequalities are still struggling with the repercussions decades later. History is deeply influential on the present so I have no problem with the idea that a legacy effect can be felt in the present even though the historical cause was a long time ago. 

So is systemic racism referring to this felt historical legacy or something else? I am unsure how I feel about labelling any historical legacy itself racist as legacies are not intentional agents... or are we saying that an unwillingness to address this legacy properly is racist?

Edit: If systemic racism and institutional racism  are referring to the same thing, or at least very similar, then I feel like I have a firmer grasp on the concept. Thanks for your responses. 

I can see how a system could be biased without the explicit intentions of any particular actor within it desiring to be so. I can also see how the system continues to be bias in its uncritical application of "norms of practice" which favour and disadvantage people who fit/don't fit into those norms.
gpt
>So is systemic racism referring to this felt historical legacy or something else?

No it's referring to a very concrete and clear set of material inequalities.  The fact that 27% of black men will go to prison in their lifetimes is clearly a result of present policy, especially ones that originated out of the drug war and the 90s crimes bills.