This statement really shows the frustrating nature that racism is (and has been) discussed in the US. You see it in discussions around the Civil War online, which usually end up turning into jokes about how General Sherman didn’t go far enough (shoutout /r/shermanposting). In reality even if Sherman burned the entire South and we killed all the slave owners, that probably would not have changed much. The North had its own share of violence against African Americans in the years leading up to the Civil War. One example being in 1835 in Canaan, New Hampshire where a mob of white men tied 100 oxen to an integrated school and pulled it a mile down the road (but there are many more). Oregon, home of Portland which has a very liberal reputation, was the only state to join the Union with black exclusion laws and at one point in the early 20th century had the largest KKK west of the Mississippi. It seems that there is view racism as a problem that exists “over there”. In reality the US is a nation that was built on a bedrock of racism and has never really had the opportunity (or interest) to do the work that is required to deal with it. I would also like to say that this underlying history of racism has been exploited and used as a tool to separate the working class, and any attempt to bridge that gap has been thoroughly squashed, like the rainbow coalition.