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Quote:
Originally Posted by spence View Post:
I don't think there's a "systemic pattern of racial assassinations" by the police. I do think there appears to be patterns of bias within the system that leads disproportionally to more killing of unarmed black men. The cops aren't out looking for people to shoot.
Reply by Jim in CT:
Spence, in all seriousness, can you expand on this?
Jim, I think Spence just likes the world "systemic." I don't think that most of the times he uses the word there is actually a "system" to which he is referring. Aside from the redundant nature of the phrase in this case, instead of referring to a "systemic pattern" he could have just said "pattern" as in "a pattern of racial assassinations." Or he could have dropped the word "pattern" and simply said "a system of racial assassinations." But either simplification would be more easily verifiable. If it were an actual system of assassinations, that would be something you could point to and describe. As such, it could readily be prosecuted and rooted out of existence. A system would be intentionally and specifically designed. A pattern of group behavior, however, can occur, more or less, as Spence might like to say, spontaneously. Rather than being intentionally designed, it can just "appear" to happen. So, I think, it was not necessary for Spence to insert the words "systemic" or "system" into his assertion of what there "appears" to be.
I wonder if Spence, being a social and political progressive, unconsciously speaks from the "perspective" that it is systems rather than individuals by which or by whom we must order our lives. That, ultimately, individuals are either too powerless, as in the masses, or too powerful, as in the wealthy, to rely on as the purpose for a social order. So, for a progressive, rather than system being a product of consent by sovereign individuals, it is the regulator of individuals who must act by its consent or dictate. System responsibility, rather than personal responsibility, is either the solution or the fault. So by mingling the loosely similar words into a concoction of an appearance, he manages to convey an intangible problem that cannot be laid at the feet of individual biases, but must be inherent in some "systemic" malfunction
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