Was there any discussion of "systemic racism" during the debate?

I need to read the transcript, in part because I want to do a word search, but in part because I, like so many of you, became distracted when a fly landed on Mike Pence's hair and stayed there for quite a long while. I thought it would never leave. Pence has helmet hair, so zero chance of feeling the weight or movement of the fly, and the fly barely moved. We talked about whether the fly was stuck or dead and whether it symbolized racism, being a discordant black dot on highly structured white hair. 

Here's the transcript. I see, searching it, that Kamala Harris never said "racist" or "racism," let alone "systemic" or "systemically." But Mike Pence said "systemically racist," and it is in this portion of the debate, where I was distracted by the fly in Mike Pence's hair. Let's work through this carefully, beginning with the question framed by the moderator, Susan Page. I've made some corrections to the transcript, which I'll note with boldface.

In March, Breonna Taylor, a 26 year old emergency room technician in Louisville was shot and killed after police officers executing a search warrant in a narcotics investigation, broke into her apartment. The police said they identified themselves. Taylor’s boyfriend said he didn’t hear them do that. He used a gun registered to him to fire a shot, which wounded an officer. The officers then fired more than 20 rounds into the apartment. They say they were acting in self-defense. None of them have been indicted in connection with her death. Senator Harris, in the case of Breonna Taylor was justice done?...

Notice that Page did not mention race at all. Taylor was identified by her age, her occupation, and her city. The question relating to indictment should be right in the zone where former prosecutor Kamala Harris can display the most expertise. Will she show respect for the process? Will she accuse the grand jury of racism and perhaps explain that white people carry racism into their decision-making whether they realize it or not? That is, will she demonstrate a belief in systemic racism or "implicit bias" and invite us to understand and share the belief in an enlightened new way (which is, I think, what the Black Lives Matter movement would like us to do)?

Harris answers:

I don’t believe so. 

That is, she doesn't believe that justice was done. But then she does not explain why. She backs into personal details:

And I’ve talked with Breonna’s mother, Tamika Palmer and her family and her family deserves justice. She was a beautiful young woman. 

Breonna Taylor's beauty is utterly irrelevant to the question whether justice was done. 

She had as her life goal to become a nurse and she wanted to become an EMT to first learn what’s going on out on the street so she could then become a nurse and save lives. 

That's poignant, but irrelevant to the question whether justice was done. The question is what the police did, and that's the same whether or not Taylor had admirable career plans. 

And her life was taken unjustifiably and tragically and violently. And it brings me to the eight minutes and 46 seconds that America witnessed during which an American man was tortured and killed under the knee of an armed uniformed police officer. 

Now, she's shifting to the story of George Floyd, presumably because the police behavior is more clearly wrong, but in that case the police officer has been charged with murder, so it's not relevant to the question asked. The next part wanders even farther from the question:

And people around our country of every race, of every age, of every gender, perfect strangers to each other, marched shoulder to shoulder, arm in arm, fighting for us to finally achieve that ideal of equal justice under law. And I was a part of those peaceful protests. 

Yes, and the police were charged. Also, the protests were not entirely peaceful, but, yes, it would be nice if we could all come together and join hands over the simple principle of equal justice under law.

And I believe strongly that first of all, we are never going to condone violence, but we always must fight for the values that we hold dear, including the fight to achieve our ideals. 

Now, she's reduced the complicated problem to the simplest possible terms. We must fight, but never with violence. And we have "values" and "ideals."

And that’s why Joe Biden and I have said on this subject, look, and I’m a former career prosecutor. 

She mentioned Joe, and then she talked like Joe, stopping in the middle of a sentence and saying "look." But I'm looking and I appreciate the "former career prosecutor" intro. Take us to a more sophisticated level of analysis!

I know what I’m talking about. Bad cops are bad for good cops. We need reform of our policing in America and our criminal justice system, which is why Joe and I will immediately ban choke holds and carotid holds. 

But the question is about prosecution, and now you've switched the subject to police practices.

George Floyd would be alive today if we did that. We will require a national registry for police officers who break the law. We will, on the issue of criminal justice reform, get rid of private prisons and cash bail and we will decriminalize marijuana. 

She's spouting policy items about police and prisons and avoiding the prosecution question. Her time runs out, and she adds one more item: "And we will expunge the records of those who have been convicted of marijuana." Well, does that mean that you were an agent of injustice when you prosecuted people on marijuana charges? Oh, but time is up, and that wasn't the question anyway. The question was whether justice was done in the Breonna Taylor case. The closest you got to an answer was: "her life was taken unjustifiably." The passive construction avoided taking a position on whether justice required an indictment of the police for murder. 

The moderator asks Pence "the same question," which reminds those of us who are paying attention that we never heard an answer from Harris. The question is: "In the case of Breonna Taylor, was justice done?"

Pence begins with a quick expression of sympathy and then gets right to the question:

Well, our heart breaks for the loss of any innocent American life and the family of Breonna Taylor has our sympathies. But I trust our justice system, a grand jury that reviews the evidence. And it really is remarkable that as a former prosecutor, you would assume that an impaneled grand jury looking at all the evidence, got it wrong. But you’re entitled to your opinion, Senator. 

He doesn't say the grand jury got it right, only that he trusts the process. He characterizes Harris's opinion as stronger than it sounded coming from her — that the grand jury "got it wrong." The implication is that she ought to presume the system got it right. If her point is, they got it wrong — especially if she means it was a miscarriage of justice — she ought to get into the evidence. I observe that it would have been impossible, in the 2 minutes given, for Kamala Harris to explain why the grand jury got it wrong. Maybe she's not just "assuming," but she's considered the evidence in depth. That said, she ran out the 2 minute clock on material that was unresponsive to the question. She didn't even try to display a bit of her prosecutorial expertise.

Pence continues, and, like Harris, he leaves Breonna Taylor behind in search of topics that work better for him:

I think, and with regard to George Floyd, there’s no excuse for what happened to George Floyd. 

Why don't we need to wait for the justice system to play out there too? Isn't he assuming without "looking at all the evidence"? 

Justice will be served, but there’s also no excuse for the rioting and looting that followed. 

Now, he's onto the subject he likes:

I mean, it really is astonishing. Flora Westbrook is with us here tonight in Salt Lake City. Just a few weeks ago, I stood at what used to be her salon, it was burned to the ground by rioters and looters. And Flora is still trying to put her life back together. And I must tell you, this presumption that you hear consistently from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, that America is systemically racist, and that as Joe Biden said that he believes that law enforcement has an implicit bias against minorities is a great insult to the men and women who serve in law enforcement. 

And there are the words I was searching for: "systemically racist" and "implicit bias." His analysis is simply that it insults the police.

And I want everyone to know who puts on the uniform of law enforcement every day, President Trump and I stand with you. 

His side is the side of supporting the police. As a group we should honor them, and any problems relate to individual police, as you see in this next part. The idea is not to see racism woven throughout everything, but to work on particular bad acts. And here he has a way of blaming Harris:

And it is remarkable that when Senator Tim Scott tried to pass a police reform bill, brought together a group of Republicans and Democrats, Senator Harris, you got up and walked out of the room and then you filibustered Senator Tim Scott’s bill on the Senate floor that would have provided new accountability, new police resources. We don’t have to choose between supporting law enforcement, improving public safety and supporting our African-American neighbors and all of our minorities.... We’ll always stand with law enforcement and we’ll do what we’ve done... From day one, it is improve the lives of African-Americans, record unemployment, record investments in education.... We’ll fight for school choice for all of....

The ellipses are places where the moderator told him his time is up. Harris says "I’d like to respond" and is given time.

I will not sit here and be lectured by the Vice President on what it means to enforce the laws of our country. The only one on this stage, who has personally prosecuted everything from child sexual assault to homicide. I’m the only one on this stage who has prosecuted the big banks for taking advantage of America’s homeowners. I am the only one on this stage who prosecuted for-profit colleges for taking advantage of our veterans.

Okay, then, move on to what I wanted to hear from you when it was your turn. You're the prosecutor. Give us some hard-core prosecutor talk!  

And the reality of this is that we are talking about an election in 27 days where last week the President of the United States took a debate stage in front of 70 million Americans and refused to condemn white supremacists.

Ah! Now, she's stepping up to the topic of racism, but she's coming at it laterally by attacking Trump for that problem that obsessed everyone early last week, his failure to denounce white supremacists strongly enough.  Mike Pence says "Not true," but she continues:

And it wasn’t like he didn’t have a chance. He didn’t do it. And then he doubled down. And then he said, when pressed, "stand back, stand by.” And this is a part of a pattern of Donald Trump’s. 

Here comes the litany that makes Trump haters sure he's a racist and Trump defenders feel that these are all distortions and lies... and absolutely nothing about the soundness of the justice system:

He called Mexicans rapists and criminals. He instituted as his first act, a Muslim ban. He on the issue of Charlottesville, where people were peacefully protesting the need for racial justice, where a young woman was killed. And on the other side, there were neo-Nazis carrying Tiki torches, shouting racial epithets, anti-Semitic slurs. And Donald Trump when asked about it said, “There were fine people on both sides.” This is who we have as the President of the United States and America, you deserve better. Joe Biden will be a president who brings our country together... And recognizes the beauty in our diversity and the fact that we all have so much more in common than what separates us.

The moderator, Susan Page, gives Pence time to respond and he gets right to correcting the remarks about Charlottesville:

Thank you, Susan. I appreciate that very much. I think this is one of the things that makes people dislike the media so much in this country, Susan, is that you selectively edit just like Senator Harris did, comments that President Trump and I and others on our side made. I mean, Senator Harris conveniently omitted after the President made comments about people on either side of the debate over monuments, he condemned the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists and has done so repeatedly. You’re concerned that he doesn’t condemn neo-Nazis. President Trump has Jewish grandchildren. His daughter and son-in-law are Jewish. This is a President who respects and cherishes all of the American people. 

A good answer, if anybody who needed to hear that heard that. The fly was competing for attention.  

But you talk about having personally prosecuted. I’m glad you brought up your record, Senator. 

At that point Page tells him his time's up. He says:

I really need to make this point. When you were DA in San Francisco, when you left office, African-Americans were 19 times more likely to be prosecuted for minor drug offenses than whites and Hispanics. When you were Attorney General of California, you increased the disproportionate incarceration of blacks in California. 

Now, that's good. That issue should have been in one of the questions! He goes on (with Susan Page repeatedly saying his time is up, as my ellipses show):

You did nothing on criminal justice reform in California. You didn’t lift a finger to pass the first step back on Capitol Hill. I mean, the reality is your record speaks for itself.... President Trump and I have fought for criminal justice before... We fought for educational choice and opportunities for African-Americans and all of our members.... And we’ll do it for four more years... 

Kamala Harris wants another response because "he attacked my record." She gets it and says: 

First of all, having served as the Attorney General of the state of California, the work that I did is a model of what our nation needs to do, and we will be able to do under a Joe Biden presidency. Our agenda includes what this administration has failed to do. It will be about not only instituting a ban on choke holds and carotid holds....

Page cuts her off and tells her these are "points that you made earlier in the hour." Harris wasn't defending her record but switching to listing things on the agenda for the future, and it's not even anything about prosecution. It's back to the chokeholds and carotid holds — police behavior. 

I can see why I fixated on that fly. It was real. While the humans wandered all over the place, it stood firm.