1000% this.
I just had a long back-and-forth about exactly this in the thread about Trump being popular because he's racist.
I think if there's anything to add to this, it's that a lot of the arguments being made simply boil down to, "but millions of people can't really be bad, so there must be something you're missing".
Which is exactly why the Intercept's piece was trying to lay out in detail the evidence that it was just in fact racism, but was dismissed due to their feelings that this leaves no room for reconciliation.