... which turned into my first diary after i realized the tl;dr of the comment i was posting. I apologize if the editing isn't the greatest, i don't usually use capitol letters, and tend to break my comments into conversational passages instead of paragraphs. Bear with me.
The diary to which this reply was directed is located Hyah.
I think you're going to find very few people here who are not well aware of institutionalized racism, at least after the last few months of excellent coverage in online media and blogs such as dkos. It needs to be shouted from the mountaintops, though, so repped for that. The responses to assertions of systemic racism are, many times, "bruh, there's no white appreciation month!", which are only further proof of the clear need for definition and delineation of the concept.
I get the impression, however, that when you claim the whole system is to blame, you're attempting to discount or downplay special instances of racism, demi-systemic or immediate, that arise from the millitarized training of police under white supremacist rules and regs, and from the operation of specific police departments or other government organizations under white supremacist rules and regs.
The police's concept of the black man as mortal threat is not the result of institutionalized racism, it's a result of police training. I'll point you to the police snipers training on targets made with mugshots of black men, discovered by one of the targeted men's sister if i remember correctly. Police training is specific to whatever police academy one might happen to attend, or department one might be employed by, and thus is far from systemic. This is important, because it's the root of the "police have to unload their magazines into suspects because otherwise they won't get to go home to their kids" argument. (Regardless, of course, of the accuracy of their initial situational assessment.)
The police's belief in the black man as criminal goes far beyond the disproportionate arrest rate faced by lower income people. Have a look at the stop and frisk statistics from new york... the NYPD targeted, specifically, people of color to a degree so laughable that the practice is no longer sanctioned. Have a look at police harassment, such as in STL, or in the case of freddie gray, who probably ran from the cops because one of them had beaten him previously.
Local police departments' penchant for tight association with white supremacist organizations such as the ku klux klan, or white supremacist militias is not a result of institutionalized racism. These are instances of specific groups of people "donning the hood" and setting out to make life a living hell for any POC unfortunate enough to come into contact with them. See (brave officer) wilson's former pd, dissolved for white supremacist ties, or the entire DOJ report on the ferguson pd. While these pd's are part of the system, undeniably, they are not reflective of the entire system.
Judges and their local court systems are making money hand over fist exploiting the system on the backs of poor people of color. Have a look at the fine mills in STL, and you'll see laughably corrupt local officials burning the poor (mostly POC in this case) to support their local government and enrich themselves at the same time. We don't have to move heaven and earth to change these things, we just need to hold the people involved accountable.
So "fix the system" isn't necessarily the fix; the roots, trunk, leaves and stinking flowers of the broken system exist on the ground, in our communities, where actively racist people are making actively racist decisions because they don't like ni%%ers, not because poor people have been fucked by the american economy and the government beholden to it.
Pilots have a saying: "aviate, navigate, communicate." The mantra is apt in this case: take care of the immediate danger first, then work up the line. The problems people experience in real life, IE being shot or harassed by police for having their hands in their pockets or riding a bicycle, are not systemic issues, they are issues of human judgement by people who should be held accountable and are not.
Clear, open, and decisive accountability of law enforcement and justice officials to the citizens of this country is step one. The deafening squealing coming out of baltimore in the wake of the six officers being charged with freddie gray's death is proof of the system being challenged directly. There are kingpins to this organized crime, and they are local judges and ranking police officers, corrupt parole officers and on and on. They need to see their days in court before anything in the overarching system is going to change.