Systemic problems ask for systemic solutions. It is difficult, as a white person trying to educate defensive white people, to point to what systemic racism is without pointing to every system that makes up this country. It's roots are deep and insidious. It toxically trickles down from centuries ago to now. The laws and status quo that have been established in the past--even when overturned or called out--set the precedence for the evolution of the institutional systems that continue to remain in tact. Criminalizing any opposition, dissenting opinion, unrest, uprising, and people group that directly "threatens" the established status quo of whiteness is a genius strategy to keep things as they are. "The system is not broken. It is functioning exactly as it was set up to"...is a haunting statement that highlights how intentional and self-perpetuating these systems of violence are to the people who they weren't created for. The land of the free has 5x more prisoners than other places, this should mean something to us, this should say something to us! How are we failing these people instead of how have they failed the system that was never looking out for them in the first place.
