Systemic racism isn't intentionally deceptive. It's self explanatory, but just like anything the more you investigate the more layered and multifaceted it becomes.

For me it's 3 main things.

1. The way historical oppression can set a group behind another group even after any specific policy has been repealed.

Poverty is often a cycle that can go on indefinitely for generations especially depending on things like upward mobility which has coincidentally been getting weaker since the period of official apartheid ended in the USA. Strange that we seem to be uninterested in spending much on the uplifting of our people now that such spending would need to include all people.

2. The way that bias against a group can result in that group being disadvantaged despite there being no rules or laws in place that require that and even in spite of it being contrary to policies.

Like the way that black people are half as likely to receive a callback for a job interview as an identically qualified white applicant or that despite being less likely to be found with contraband black people are twice as likely to be searched by police.

3. Would be laws and rules that do not target racial groups, but unfairly benefit or disadvantage racial groups.

This would be local property tax based school funding resulting in poor neighborhoods getting inadequate funding for schools resulting in predominantly black schools being underfunded. This is also drastically harsher penalties for crack compared to cocaine.

"Systemic racism" is a conspiracy theory. It is a very convenient term because it is not disprovable easily yet allow to make a whole group of people responsible to all the problems of another one.

It's not easily disprovable because all the evidence supports its existence. I see identical criticisms of global warming. Which is so difficult to disprove on account of all the evidence supporting its existence. It would be easy to disprove either. You would just need the evidence to show they are wrong.

The parent poster gave you a great example in terms of the same resume getting fewer call backs with a black sounding name. Instead of dismissing it as a conspiracy theory it would be good to understand it.

https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/minorities-who-whiten-job-resumes...

It is true that many people have attributed a wide range issues to it, on offentimes shaky reasoning, but there are also very clear examples of codified rules and laws keeping minority races down, for instance the minimum wage.

The minimum wage keeps poor people down. That doesn't make it systemically racist.

It was first implemented locally in the reconstruction era south to keep blacks from competing with white labor.

Later, in the 1920s, African Americans had a higher rate of employment than White Americans! But after the federal minimum wage passed, their economic power was destroyed and has yet to recover.

Today, most people don't consider it as having anything to do with race, but when it was first put on the books, it was specifically designed to hurt them.