&gt; the form of my argument is that a policy can be implicitly racist without being explicitly racist.<p>An explicit policy like officially-segregated schools is objectively racist. &quot;Implicitly racist&quot; is completely subjective.<p>The Atwater quote kind of makes the point. Is lowering taxes a racist policy? Nothing about the policy is different just because you can find some racist who supports it specifically because they know it will have a disparate impact. So you are implying that any policy with a disparate impact is &quot;implicitly&quot; racist, because a racist might support it for only that reason.<p>But that makes the definition of &quot;racist&quot; so broad that it loses all meaning. It makes the law against marijuana racist but also the law against speeding and the law against felons possessing a handgun.