Systemic racism — structure and experience

Systemic racism describes the way racial inequality is reproduced not through individual prejudice alone but through structures — policies, institutional practices, historical accumulations of advantage and disadvantage — that persist even in the absence of racist intent. The gap between individual good intentions and structural outcomes is one of its defining features: a hiring process that is subjectively meritocratic can still be racially discriminatory in its results if the inputs to the process carry historical race-loading. Understanding the structure does not diminish individual responsibility; it maps the terrain that individual action must navigate.