Mr. Timothy Tiches, in his latest letter to the editor, tells us readers that systematic racism is an imaginary thing created by the Democratic Party to hurt President Trump’s political chances for re-election. Mr. Tiches offers nothing in his letter to support his statements. On the other hand, there is a mountain of evidence (on top of the weight of 400 years of a history of racism and discrimination based on skin color) that systematic and institutionalized racism are definitive problems in our country today, and negatively impacting the lives of millions of Americans (causing death and destruction) as Trump and his supporters, within the comfort of their ex-urban bubbles, pretend that systematic racism is non-existent.

Michael German (a fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty & National Security Program and a former special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation), wrote an article entitled “Hidden in Plain Sight: Racism, White Supremacy, and Far-Right Militancy in Law Enforcement”. Mr. German states, “Efforts to address systemic and implicit biases in law enforcement are unlikely to be effective in reducing the racial disparities in the criminal justice system as long as explicit racism in law enforcement continues to endure.”

Mr. German in his article written for the Brennan Center goes on to say, “In 2017, the FBI reported that white supremacists posed a “persistent threat of lethal violence” that has produced more fatalities than any other category of domestic terrorists since 2000. Alarmingly, internal FBI policy documents have also warned agents assigned to domestic terrorism cases that the white supremacist and anti-government militia groups they investigate often have “active links” to law enforcement officials. The harms that armed law enforcement officers affiliated with violent white supremacist and anti-government militia groups can inflict on American society could hardly be overstated. Yet despite the FBI’s acknowledgement of the links between law enforcement and these suspected terrorist groups, the Justice Department has no national strategy designed to identify white supremacist police officers or to protect the safety and civil rights of the communities they patrol.”

The first step in dealing with problems is to admit there is a problem. Trump and his supporters will continue to be part of the problem and not part of the solution if they continue to deny the overwhelming evidence that shows Americans need to do a great deal of work to eliminate systematic racism in not only our police departments, but also in all segments of our public and private institutions.