True. I don't see how you can possibly deny the existence of systemic racism in a country where all the top educational institutions actively discriminate against asians.
A drive to pick people solely on merits would sound more meritorious if we applied it to white people first. I say this as a white man who believes in theory colorblind meritocracy in an imaginary world where such a thing can actually exist.
This can also apply to antiracism, which as I understand it [1] is policy that attempts to undo structural racism, not policy that is absent of race-conscious treatment. I think this question would also be more interesting to answer because everyone already agrees that affirmative action literally does factor in race. The more controversial part is whether it serves to reinforce or counteract some forms of systemic racism.
[1] From a modern viewpoint (e.g. Kendi), although I'm not sure if this word previously had different uses.
From this perspective (Kendi, etc.), it is very much not the same as racism and is not just "racism" being rebranded. The term "anti-racism" really only makes sense when you consider this dichotomy using the more specific definition of racism.
Let's make a ranking system for incoming students. There will be an academic score for things like test scores and grades, and there will be a "personality score" for, well, god knows what. Turns out that Asian applicants score higher on the academic score, so what we'll do then is rank them lower on personality (though in person interviews have ranked then the same as students of other races). This is what we call the "holistic" admissions system, and it was designed in the 1920's to keep out the Jews.
Hmm, is this racism or anti-racism? Because it's literally what Harvard does.
