Racism is a system in which a dominant race believe they are superior and benefit from the oppression of other races - whether they want to or not.
We don't live in a society where every racial group has equal power, status and opportunity.
Yes,
white people all over the world throughout
history have experienced slavery and persecution but have not been enslaved, colonised or forced to segregate on the scale that black people have. They do not face housing or
job discrimination, police brutality, poverty or incarceration at the levels that black people do. This is not to say that they do not experience things like poverty and police brutality at all but again, not on the same scale - not even close.
Racism also crosses religious and cultural boundaries. Islamophobia is racism mixed with cultural intolerance. Islamophobia targets markers of moslem identity. Evident in how perpetrators of Islamophobic hate crime disproportionately
target visibly moslem women, in the same way that racism often targets people for the colour of their
skin. Islamophobes often
target Sikhs because Sikhs wear turbans, wrongly believing only moslems wear turbans.
Racism isn't one race hating another, that's something you tell
kids, i.e. when
kids ask where do babies come from, you explain it at a level they understand, you don't get too technical.
Unfortunately many people never look into racism and their understanding of racism never advances beyond the kindergarten
definition.
Racists implement systems that privilege the dominant race at every conceivable social, political and economical opportunity.
When black people are rejected from obtaining loans they cannot build wealth for future generations. When they are refused home loans to move into white neighbourhoods, they remain in poor neighbourhoods with depressed infrastructure, their
kids go to underfunded overcrowded schools, drop out and with no
job prospects, many end up in
jail. Upon release they cannot get decent paying jobs, they remain in poor areas, their
kids go to underfunded overcrowded schools, the cycle of poverty continues generation after generation. That is the
reality of racism.