Commentary “Racism is a system—consisting of structures, policies, practices, and norms—that assigns value and determines opportunity based on the way people look or the color of their skin.” So begins, with superb intellectual self-confidence, a page of the website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It continues, “This results in conditions that unfairly advantage some and disadvantage others throughout society.” Unacknowledged by the author of the page is the evident fact that, according to this definition, any positive discrimination in favour of some group that is identifiable by appearance or colour of skin must be deemed racist: for such positive discrimination, according to the author, “determines opportunity,” both for those who benefit from it and those who suffer by it. It would still be open to those in favor of positive discrimination to argue that it was morally justified. The desire to compensate people for the historical …