# How would you define systemic discrimination?

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-define-systemic-discrimination/914860
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [July 9, 2020, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-define-systemic-discrimination/914860 "2020-07-09T19:16:26Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 19

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### Author: ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2020, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-define-systemic-discrimination/914860/19 "2020-07-15T22:24:02Z")

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I think it’s true that no one really knows the best way forward, but I think many of the best ways forward are about changing systems so that the worst-case scenario is a lot less bad.

For example, it’s definitely a problem that there’s a major wealth disparity predicated on a history of racism in this country, but it wouldn’t be nearly as big a problem if the _bottom_ of the wealth distribution weren’t grinding poverty. A social safety net is a good way forward.

It’s a problem that police disproportionately encounter/arrest/enact violence on people of color, but it would be a much smaller problem if we got rid of the violence part!

As a matter of policy, focusing on the people who are the worst off is also going to lessen the systemic discrimination you don’t even know exists, or that society doesn’t acknowledge. You don’t have to know if society is biased against redheads or left-handed fiddle players. If you help the people who are the worst off, you will necessarily be reducing systemic discrimination.

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