racist and unjust systems

[nagomi]

"HUSS: Concrete numbers I can't project. But what we've known is that new cases will continue to happen. So we're likely to see more and more cases of abortion criminalization, and the cases from the last 20 years show us what happens when racist and unjust systems take hold of abortion legality."

Context: A legal support organization looked at the last 20 years of records showing how many have been criminally charged against their abortions even in states without a statue banning abortion.

Question: How should the bold be read? Also, does this depend on the context or there's an established way to interpret this?

a. unspecified many systems, racist and/or unjust
b. two systems either racist or unjust

Source: New report tracks criminal prosecutions of self-managed abortions

 

[grassy]

a. unspecified many systems, racist and/or unjust

b. two systems either racist or unjust

Where did "two" come from?

 

[RM1(SS)]

Presumably:
1. A racist system
2. An unjust system

 

[kentix]

If they are racist they are unjust so they aren't really two different things. They are just mentioning two different aspects of the same thing. You could think of it as "racist (and therefore obviously unjust)." "Unjust" is just more general than "racist", and of course, you could have something be unjust without being racist. But it really doesn't matter. They are not being precise. They are just talking about one thing with any of these bad qualities.

 

[nagomi]

Where did "two" come from?

The point of this question is actually not about the context, but just how I'm supposed to indicate when two same nouns have each different adjective.

Whether this sentence below can mean there are two groups of the ugly or beautiful. If this works, then I would've thought my "b." worked as well.

ie. There can be ugly and beautiful people.

 

[Andygc]

You cannot tell from the text provided whether this means systems that are
A. both racist and unjust or
B. racist systems and unjust systems.
However, common sense and wider context (gained from cultural awareness) tell you that it is B. Abortion restrictions affect black Americans and poor Americans. They don't need to be black and poor Americans to be affected.

 

[nagomi]

You cannot tell from the text provided whether this means systems that are
A. both racist and unjust or
B. racist systems and unjust systems.

Then that has answered my question. I needed to know if this can work grammatically so both are right.

However, common sense and wider context (gained from cultural awareness) tell you that it is B. Abortion restrictions affect black Americans and poor Americans. They don't need to be black and poor Americans to be affected.

I agree.