Obama hits the nail on the head

About whether the response to the flood in New Orleans reflects racism, Obama had this to say, on the Senate floor:

I see no evidence of active malice, but I see a continuation of passive indifference on the part of our government.

Exactly. You'd be hard-pressed to find someone today who's a blatant racist, and that is a good thing. Still, that doesn't mean prejudice is gone. Instead, it is a systemic problem that is reinforced by policies and practices that have a racist outcome. Everything from education policy to drug sentencing laws seems to suggest this. This is why the debate over whether a decision or policy (such as the response after Hurricane Katrina) was intentionally racist or not seems to me a moot one: because the consequence of a decision laced with inherent prejudices will always have the same effect of reinforcing stereotypes.