It's the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. Pretending that we never made giant strides towards a real multi-racial secular democracy is ahistorical and deeply unhelpful.
It's the kind of fallacy people use when discussing Weimar Germany or Red Vienna. Just because it was eventually swallowed by fascism doesn't mean it was always destined to do so and nothing could have been done. Human beings made choices that lead to the demise of German democracy.