I can't take credit for that definition. I was quoting Senator Sinclair's definition of racism. Essentially he said that some people believe that systemic racism is when everybody in the system is a racist, and there is no system where everybody is a racist. Then he went on to clarify it this way:
Systemic racism is when the system itself is based upon and founded upon racist beliefs and philosophies and thinking and has put in place policies and practices that literally force even the non-racists to act in a racist way.
The biggest backlash we get to this idea of systemic racism—and we find that here in Quebec—is this automatic fear that we're accusing everybody of being a racist, but that is not the case. That is not the case at all.