As you noted, you are a writer. And possibly, as you also state, you are a kind person. But you presumably are not a sociologist. You attempt to make your case by citing anecdotal evidence, but there is an obvious flaw with that methodology. In a nation if 330 million individuals, you could no doubt find thousands of anecdotes similar to the ones that you shared—brief stories that appear to be inconsistent with the premise that America is a racist nation. And guess what? I could easily find just as many—or more—that support the premise. A string of anecdotes are not an objectve sampling of a population and neither prove nor disprove anything.

If you are serious about exploring this issue, you need to look at the big picture. And the big picture, unfortunately, will not leave you feeling quite so self-satisfied. Letʻs take the recent pandemic as our starting point. Were you aware that the COVID death rate for Native Americans was 2.4 times that of white Americans? For Hispanics it was 2.3 that of whites, and for Blacks the rate was 1.9.

Are you also aware that hate crimes, tracked by the FBI, decreased under every president, beginning with Bill Clinton’s second term, until the Trump adminstration—when the number of such crimes spiked (20% above the final year of President Obama’s second term). Hate-motivated murders were at their highest rate in 28 years.

And are you aware that in the year before the pandemic, the mean average wealth of a white family in America, according to a Federal Reserve study, was $983,400? Compare that to the average wealth of a Black family ($142,500) or a Hispanic one ($165,500). These gaps in wealth between the major ethnic groups have remained more or less fixed for decades.

So what about education, which in theory is the great equalizer? 91% of white kindergarten students graduate from high school—and Black children aren’t far behind (87%). But the gap yawns very wide when we look at Hispanic children (62%) or Native Americans (52%). The disparities continue across the educational spectrum: 13.5% of non-Hispanic white Americans, 25 years of age or older, have an advanced degree (e.g., master’s or doctorate). That drops to 8.2% of Black Americans and only 4.7% of Hispanics.

I could go on, but hopefully you see the picture. In almost every measure of well-being, whites and Asian Americans outperform Hispanics, Blacks and Native Americans. These discrepancies have been locked in for decades. Do you wonder why? Standardized IQ tests do not support the notion that there are discernible differences in intelligence, and while cultural differences may account for some of the disparities they cannot account for all of them.

The fact that so many people would rather not face is this: despite the progress that we have made, the system does not treat all Americans equally. Take the judicial system for a quick and easy-to-understand example. Prior to sentencing reform in the Obama administration, the recommended period of incarceration within the federal court system for possession of crack cocaine (cheaper and thus more popular among lower income Blacks) was 100 times the recommended sentence for powder cocaine (favored by white college students and Hollywood stars). Note also that crack is diluted with baking soda to make it smokable … so ounce for ounce there is less cocaine in crack rocks than there is in the more acceptable powdered form.

There are countless examples like this: whites and Asians enjoy advantages that are baked into the system—advantages that they are often unaware of. At the same time, Hispanics, Blacks and Native Americans have to overcome a plethora of hurdles to compete on an even field. As noted above, some of this may be rooted in cultures with different customs and values. But much — including the example given above — is what we call systemic racism, and it is real. It has survived from the time that we were an openly segregated country and it will not go away if we simply ignore it. (That strategy has already been tried).

Let me close with an egregious example of straightforward, unapologetic racism. Puerto Rico is an American territory with 2,718,000 citizens. They have voted in favor of admission to the union as the 51st state. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has stated publicly that he will not allow a bill granting statehood to the island pass the Senate. His reasoning? Puerto Ricans are Hispanic and therefore likely to vote Democratic. So for crass political reasons, he will deny equal representation and the opportunity to vote in presidential elections to nearly three million of our fellow citizens.

I know we equate love of country with pride in country, and we would rather pat ourselves on the back and say that racism is in our past. But the fact is—as I hope I have shown—race-based distinctions remain very real in America, nearly 60 years after the Civil Rights Act was passed. A great nation does not loudly boast of its own exceptionalism … a great nation strives continually to identify its shortcomings and to overcome them.