As cable newsies quibble over Condi Rice's accurate description of our race relations as the nation's "birth defect" and argue that this country is the best for blacks, only one out of two black and Native American kids are graduating from high school in this country. ONE OUT OF TWO. And why, pray tell, do these self-styled race experts think that is? It's a societal birth defect if I've ever seen one.

A new study from Editorial Projects in Education and America Promise Alliance found that in the top 50 largest major-city school districts, an average of 52 percent of children are completing all 12 grades. In Detroit, the graduation rate is 24.9 percent. In Baltimore, it's 34.6. New York and Los Angeles? Around 45 percent. Out of the 50 city school districts studied, only five topped the national graduation average of 69.9 percent. That's a numer that would sound terrible if I heard it on its own. In compariosn to Detroit's 25 percent, it sounds great.

With the inequalities in the way our nation's poor, rich, minorities, and whites are educated in this country laid bare in studies like this, is there any denying the institutionalized racism that led us here? That keeps us here? There's not, but those same people will keep trying.