What about Donald Trump? Well, he’s an aberration. His political success is in large part a revolt against oppressive political correctness. Trumpists and anti-Trumpists have spent the last five years arguing about whether or not he is racist. That very fact suggests that racism is not normal, let alone systemic.

Then there’s the media. Black Lives Matter activists and antifa think that the media is part of the evil neoliberal system that privileges whites and keeps minorities down — that’s why, in Atlanta, rioters targeted the CNN headquarters even though CNN, like MSNBC and other news networks, has done its best to portray rioting as benign, arson as peaceful, and looting as just.

Again, the rage here is with the anti-racism machine, not against it. Liberal reporters are despised not for being prejudiced against black people, but for being insufficiently committed to the dismantlement of white privilege. As a result, journalists strive ever harder to show fealty to the cause, even if that means jettisoning their responsibility to tell the truth. They stress the peacefulness of violent protests. Commentators bid to outdo each other in parroting Black Lives Matter slogans — ‘silence is violence’, ‘no justice no peace’, and so on. None of that suggests institutional, structural or systemic racism. It suggests the opposite.