In a Times Op-Ed, Andrew Cherlin, a professor at Johns Hopkins and a leading sociologist, has written an important corrective to the-economy-doesn’t-matter claims.“To be sure, racism is a corrosive part of American culture and politics,” Cherlin writes. “Nevertheless, those who try to distinguish between the explanatory power of stagnant wages and a declining industrial base on the one hand, and anxieties about the ascent of minority groups on the other, miss the point: These are not two different factors but two sides of the same coin.”