Racism has run so deep within our country, society, and structures that it can cause people to choose racist outcomes, even if that is not motivated entirely by hate. It’s more of a myopic self interest.
For example, busing did seem to help improve outcomes for black children, but white parents didn’t want to reduce the opportunities of their children through integration. So the voted and moved to maintain segregation. These people perhaps would not set up a segregated system from scratch, but they weren’t willing to give anything up to transition from the segregated/racist situation they found themselves in to a more equal future.
See also Housing segregation persists as policies have moved from racial to class-based foundations (Oluo).
When we find systems with outputs that negatively affect people of color in a way or to a degree that they do not affect white people, we have a racist impact that can be tied to a racist cause. Often, that racism looks little like the proud hatred professed by the senators whom Biden worked with, and more like that of Biden’s white constituents, who couldn’t imagine a worse fate for their children than having to go to the same schools that Black children had always attended. Or it looks like the racism of Biden himself, who, in catering to the racism of his white constituents, legitimized the excuses that white people used to hide the sinister reasons for their antibusing stances, severely undercutting the efforts of his Black constituents to provide a better education for their children. — Mediocre, pg 65