MCAS put in 2.5 units of nose down and the pilots responded by putting .5 (half a unit) of nose up trim. This is a lack of hand flying ability. Competent airmanship would have you trim till the back stick pressure is trimmed out. Clearly they didn't do this. They could have. In fact, to use an extreme and silly point, they could have flown with MCAS operating continually. MCAS trims down and they trim it right back out. Of course at some point you would think you would decide to use the checklist and kill power to the trim. It would be reasonable to use the electric trim to trim to stable stick pressure, THEN stab trim cutout. Not the reverse. Also, you can't wait till you are going the speed of heat and full nose down trim. Won't work at that point.
The guy above nailed it. Looking at the last moments of the flight and ignoring the basic lack of flying skillset that preceded it is to miss a huge lesson. Flying skills, the basic hand flying stuff, needs to make a comeback. That plane was flyable, right up until they flight crew made one too many mistakes. They made a bunch of errors, but eventually it was one too many.
That isn't racism that is just observing and recognizing mistakes. Pretty much the point of an AI.