https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/02/opinion/america-racism.html
In today's NYT opinion piece, Blow asks an important question, but his answer is simplistic, if not dishonest:
"So, what does it mean for a system to be racist? Does the appellation depend on the system in question being openly, explicitly racist from top to bottom, or simply that there is some degree of measurable bias embedded in those systems? I assert the latter."
To use a long-out-of-favor analogy that I recall from my youth, it has sometimes been said that a woman can't be a little bit pregnant. She either is pregnant or she isn't. Would we say the same thing about the United States of America being racist? It either is or it isn't? If there remains "some degree of measurable bias" -- even if a small degree, even if a diminishing degree -- then, according to Charles Blow, the system is still essentially racist, and, therefore, condemnable.
He goes on to claim that "America’s systems — like its criminal justice, education and medical systems — have a pro-white/anti-Black bias, and an extraordinary portion of America denies or defends those biases."
Here we get into difficult territory. For example, according to the "Virginia Mathematics Pathways Initiative," the "MATHEMATICS SOL [Standards of Learning] PASS RATES" in the state of Virginia for spring 2019 were 94% for Asian high school students, 88% for white students, 74% for Hispanic students, and 70% for black students. Do those results demonstrate a "pro-white/anti-Black bias"? Possibly. Are there other possible explanations for these results? Yes, there are. Historical reasons, cultural reasons, social and economic reasons -- reasons that may not be based either on racism or on some discredited notion of race-based intelligence and ability levels.
For the Charles Blows of the world, the fact of different outcomes -- in education, income, professions, and more -- is prima facie evidence of racism. And he is generally quick to condemn others as racist who disagree with him. He writes that "nearly half the country just voted for a full-on racist in Donald Trump, and they did so by either denying his racism, becoming apologists for it, or applauding it. What do you call a country thus composed?"
The answer is obvious to him. If you voted for Trump you must be a racist and the country that almost re-elected him must be racist. Does it follow that if you voted for Obama, who, unlike Trump, was both elected and re-elected as president, that you are not a racist? Does it follow that the country was not racist just a few years ago, when Obama was president?
Blow also takes a personal swipe at Senator Tim Scott in this op-ed. He writes: "I personally don't make much of Scott's ability to reason." At least when it comes to issues of race, I'm afraid I don't make much of Blow's ability to think clearly or to write persuasively.