[sliverstorm]

Your parent is arguing that the lines drawn along race are merely correlated, rather than the cause. Thus, not institutional racism.

In other words, the system is failing people not because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin, but because of their class, which happens to roughly line up with race.

The difference between "You are poor because you are Mexican/from Mexico" and "You are poor because you started out poor, and it just so happens that you are from Mexico where a lot of people started out poor".