Bloomberg’s first apology came late and sounded forced. For years, he maintained that the policy was justifiable in serving the needs of the communities’ brown residents—as if such extreme measures were the only possible strategy—and in the face of falling crime rates year after year, even after the extinction of the policy. Then, his apology before a black church just when he decided to throw his hat into the ring as a presidential candidate seemed unabashedly self-serving—almost like something that Mayor Quimby from The Simpsons would pull. Bloomberg’s epiphany under political pressure was also reminiscent of the sudden realization by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1978 that black people should be allowed to be officials in the church hierarchy.

A white man minted in the 1950s, Bloomberg clearly doesn’t pass our modern wokeness test on race. He is hardly the first white man of his age and milieu who cannot seem to understand the nuances of race and racism in America, beyond knowing that one is not supposed to be prejudiced. A man who could watch what the stop-and-frisk regime did to black New Yorkers and not recognize the sociological damage it involved is someone who perhaps does not always see black people as fully as we would like to be seen.

Not that he sees us as animals, or even as inferior humans. But for some white Americans, we look how a photo looks on your phone when you have weak coverage—recognizable and then some, but not fully filled in.

The question is: Does Bloomberg’s lack of understanding disqualify him from the presidency? Here is someone who as mayor, taking no pay, accomplished a great deal that people on the left salute. He has supported gun control and climate change. He even made a serious try at learning Spanish. His controversial attempt to ban large soda portions was intended as a strategy to improve the health of, primarily, poor people of color.

Derek Thompson: What does Michael Bloomberg think he’s doing?

For some, stop-and-frisk is a deal-breaker. Note how modern—up-to-the minute, even—it seems to disqualify Bloomberg for one mistake on race, even if he would govern better than Trump has in all ways. It’s straight from the woke playbook. Freezing out the former mayor would also be a kind of atonement for the left’s having let pass Hillary Clinton’s “super-predator” comment in the 1990s. Atonement is the operative word here. To shout down Bloomberg because of that one policy would constitute a strain of anti-racism that has all the characteristics of religion rather than rationality. By denouncing a candidate as formidable as Bloomberg, people will show one another that they understand the evil of racism and go in grace—even on the pain of an impeached, amoral Trump being reelected.

This gives new meaning to the idea that the personal is political, and it should alarm all good people. Bloomberg has apologized again—and the truth is, there is no way for him to do so in a fashion that would reveal to us the actual contours of his heart. Especially if this man can dislodge Trump, a president whom most Americans of color abhor, the apologies should be enough.