Systemic

Vincent J. Curtis

10 June 20

Whenever you want to make a blanket smear that is difficult to shake, you use terms that are fuzzy in meaning.  Like calling someone a “Russian asset” instead of a “Russian agent.”  Asset is fuzzier than agent; and since one can be an asset without knowing it, asset is a harder accusation to escape than agent.

So it is with the term, “systemic,” as in systemic racism.  A similar word is “systematic,” meaning performed in accordance with a system.  But systematic racism is plainly not practiced in Canada, and so the accusatio can be easily dismissed.

Instead, we are hit with “systemic.”  This word means of, or pertaining to a system.  But in the case of racism, what system?  Is The System racist?  We’ve been told of the existence of a ‘System,’ but what comprises The System is fuzzy.  It could be anything, and you could unwittingly be a part of it.  Being unwitting, you’re denial of being a part of The System is unpersuasive.

Hence, the charge of “systemic racism” is a means of imputing the odiousness of racism to society as a whole, since the whole of society constitutes a “system” containing all others.  And denying the existence of systemic racism, the expression being fuzzy, leaves one open to the charge of being blind to it, and therefore an unwitting component of it.  Which is a way of accusing the doubter of being an odious racist.

Sophistical, clever, dishonest, and vicious.
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