Systemic racism does not depend on any one person intending harm. It works through rules and patterns: how school funding is tied to property taxes, how lending decisions use credit histories shaped by redlining, how sentencing laws treat different drugs. Each part can seem neutral while the whole system produces unequal results.
US history shows how it was built. Federal housing agencies in the 1930s rated Black neighborhoods as hazardous, cutting them off from mortgages. The GI Bill after World War II was administered in ways that largely excluded Black veterans. The 1986 drug law that punished crack cocaine far more harshly than powder cocaine filled prisons with Black men. The Kerner Commission named the pattern in 1968, writing that white institutions created and maintained the ghetto.
The effects are measurable today. In 2022, the median white family held $285,000 in wealth compared with $44,900 for the median Black family, according to the Federal Reserve. Addressing systemic racism means changing policies and institutions, not only individual attitudes.