Detroit Free Press Editorial Board Accusing anyone of racism is a sure way to elicit a defensive response. Suggest that institutional racism is rampant, and most white Americans will react with the same reflexive denial, insisting they neither practice nor condone it. But institutional racism isn't an attitude, or a policy; it's an outcome. To diminish it and ultimately eradicate it, we first have to measure it. So we're asking leaders in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties to undertake an extraordinary effort: Gather the data necessary to document, and quantify, the racial inequities that infect each county's criminal justice system, following the example of civic leaders in Washtenaw County.