Francesco - thanks for reading. I think your analysis fits well with my general outlook here from rural Wisconsin. I don't see racism in my daily life and I have been in the past suspicious of claims of racism. I would have been more likely to say that what appear to be racist outcomes are actually the effects of class differences and an ongoing class war that the rich are winning.

What I am coming to see is that race and class are interwoven in America. So what looks like classism to me will have a disproportionate impact on Black, Brown, and Indigenous people. If a policy has a disproportionate impact on a group of people based on race, then that is a racist policy, despite the classist intentions of the originators of the policy. Race and racism has been used to divide the working class against itself.

I recently read Heather McGhee's book "The Sum of Us," and I came to see how the interconnection of race and class ends up hurting white people too. Violent policing and the war on drugs might be putting a disproportionate number of Black, Brown and Indigenous people in graves or prison, but it is also doing the same to a hell of a lot of white people.

The question I have is can we create a system that is fair for everyone, including white people, without directly addressing unintentional or deliberate racist outcomes? I don't think so. I think the way to get to a colorblind world is to first notice color.

I could be wrong. The people on the right like to talk about how they see noticing and talking about race as making racism appear where it didn't need to be. They say that unnecessarily bringing race into everything is a sort of reverse racism that stigmatizes whiteness. My only answer would be to fix racist outcomes and policies that result in racist outcomes, and then people might stop talking about racism.

If we could fix racist outcomes without talking about racism, then I would be for that too. For example if we could fix the racial wealth gap, the racial education access gap, the racial health gap, the disproportionate effects of policing and the incarceration system, and more, then we wouldn't be talking about racism, and at the same time any of those solutions would also bring up the outcomes for poor and working class white people.

So yes, lets talk about policies that are sound policies that have anti-racist outcomes, with or without talking about race. For many white people, talking about race obscures the real discussion about policies that might benefit everyone. I respect that position.

For other white people, like me, noticing race and the history around it, helps me to a point of solidarity and action.