>It's a common but I think unhelpful observation that americans make racism worse by focusing on race more.
Common, unhelpful, and selective. The whole idea of "race" is arbitrary and meaningless. Ask someone to come up with a specific definition of who qualifies as a member of what "race", and they won't be able to, because it doesn't exist. Obviously we are saddled with the barbaric vestiges of the past, but that doesn't mean that we are forced to carry them on, codify them, and pretend like they have any sort of objective meaning. All the identify fetishists, racialists, and those who insist on codifying the nonsensical racial nonsense from the past are part of the problem, do a disservice to society and prevent us from moving forward.
The most unhelpful opinion is "pretend history doesn't exist and pretend people formed their opinions from the collective worldwide knowledge of when I made this comment". It is of no use in the actual world that exist and just is an idealized version of what people who haven't experienced the problems wish to be true.
My real life experience is that people who benefited directly or indirectly from racism and inequalities from the past, want people to not question their status and would rather pretend that living memory is something that was fake.
Edit: Petrov, your entire post history seems to be riddled with whataboutism and seemingly bad faith arguments
Race is arbitrary but that doesn't mean racism is imaginary? Arbitrary things can have profound material effects on our lives, racism is actually a powerful example of this.
Common, unhelpful, and selective. The whole idea of "race" is arbitrary and meaningless. Ask someone to come up with a specific definition of who qualifies as a member of what "race", and they won't be able to, because it doesn't exist. Obviously we are saddled with the barbaric vestiges of the past, but that doesn't mean that we are forced to carry them on, codify them, and pretend like they have any sort of objective meaning. All the identify fetishists, racialists, and those who insist on codifying the nonsensical racial nonsense from the past are part of the problem, do a disservice to society and prevent us from moving forward.