you make a lot of great points that call back to one central concept: the liberal idea of "racism" is multifaceted and constantly shifting to be more inclusive.
understanding what "racism" is requires you to keep up with the thought development that's ongoing, and frankly it's too much work for almost everyone to do so.
perhaps a different perspective will be useful, and i'm just making this up as i go, so bear with me.
imagine a utopian society in which 100% of people have complete equality of opportunity as well as ability to capitalize on opportunities. the society itself has no needs which are unmet, and vast resources which are disbursed equally. this means that the choice of what to do with one's destiny is limited only by their share of the society's resources. if there ever were any ethnicity, religions, or races, they've long since been forgotten, and all the members of this society are united in their affection for equality and humanism.
here, someone going for a facile point would ask what color do you imagine the people of this society to be (looking for a "gotcha", you're a racist), but that's not my purpose. instead, try to work your way backward from this theoretical society to the broad term of "racism" we have today. what needs to change?
for one, the actual situation of an arbitrary group of people needs to change, along with their mental outlook. let's say that this arbitrary group starts off with fewer opportunities than the rest, though their ability to capitalize on what opportunities they have is supposedly unchanged. their mental outlook is thus that of starting from behind, and they're not wrong.
because they've started from behind, the development of this group to reach their individual goals for life is slower. if the citizens of the rest of the society truly love equality in the fashion that they claim, then they must redistribute all of their resources en-masse, removing the disparity between the groups. unfortunately, in our thought experiment, a one-time transfer isn't enough, and each new generation the disadvantaged group will need to receive some resources from everyone else.
this spawns resentment among a portion of the egalitarian-minded population. we'll call this portion the conservatives. fed up with having less as a result of the group requiring their resources, they decide as a bloc to withhold their contribution despite still benefiting from the general climate of promoting equality themselves. predictably, the disadvantaged group begins to fall further behind, as they're not receiving as many resources as before. we now have the poor, the liberals, and the conservatives.
eventually, the withdrawal of resources by the conservatives begins to impact the poor more severely, and limits their ability to capitalize on opportunities as well as additionally hurting the resources that they start with. their sphere of potential paths to take in life shrinks expediently. education becomes more limited, many lose sight of egalitarian ideals, and a few turn to crime. the utopian society is no longer utopian at this point in our journey toward our reality.
let's fast forward a number of generations. the situation of the poor group has degraded considerably, and poverty has scarred the minds of its people. the egalitarian ideals of the past are still alive, in some people-- but to ignore the dilapidated condition of the poor group is impossible, and so calls to renew equality are aspirational. many have invented stories about why exactly it is that the poor are so unsightly, seem to be the only one committing crimes, and don't have the same resources as everyone else. these stories aren't fantastical, so much as they are filters of perception instantiated in specific incidents. many people treat the group differently as a result of the stories that are told, further reducing their opportunities. we can, at this point, generally say that these filters are equivalent to "racism".
so, let's say you're one of the old-school idealists, and you still think that, even though the challenges are greater than back in the day, equality is necessary and desirable. would you say that the group at the start of the thought experiment is interchangeable with the other groups? no, not anymore, though they were at the start-- and this is a sticking point for understanding the concept of racism in a more nuanced way.
are they NOT interchangeable? at the start of the thought experiment, they were in fact fully interchangeable, until we changed the variables. now, they need more resources to succeed. is it "racist" to discriminate on the basis of race? well, yes, if you believe in egalitarianism, you shouldn't be disqualifying someone because their starting conditions were different-- and if you really, REALLY are serious about egalitarianism, you'll give up some of your resources to them to help them catch up. the liberals would prefer it if everyone were in the REALLY serious camp, and tend to describe alternatives as "racist".
Your example doesn't match up with reality. In your example, one group arbitrarily starts out disadvantaged. In the real world, (let's say United States) there was no arbitrariness. White folk, in aggregate, set up a system to massively redistribute resources from black folk to white folk, causing horrifying suffering in the process. You can't just ignore this and start your scenario with the slate wiped clean.
understanding what "racism" is requires you to keep up with the thought development that's ongoing, and frankly it's too much work for almost everyone to do so.
perhaps a different perspective will be useful, and i'm just making this up as i go, so bear with me.
imagine a utopian society in which 100% of people have complete equality of opportunity as well as ability to capitalize on opportunities. the society itself has no needs which are unmet, and vast resources which are disbursed equally. this means that the choice of what to do with one's destiny is limited only by their share of the society's resources. if there ever were any ethnicity, religions, or races, they've long since been forgotten, and all the members of this society are united in their affection for equality and humanism.
here, someone going for a facile point would ask what color do you imagine the people of this society to be (looking for a "gotcha", you're a racist), but that's not my purpose. instead, try to work your way backward from this theoretical society to the broad term of "racism" we have today. what needs to change?
for one, the actual situation of an arbitrary group of people needs to change, along with their mental outlook. let's say that this arbitrary group starts off with fewer opportunities than the rest, though their ability to capitalize on what opportunities they have is supposedly unchanged. their mental outlook is thus that of starting from behind, and they're not wrong.
because they've started from behind, the development of this group to reach their individual goals for life is slower. if the citizens of the rest of the society truly love equality in the fashion that they claim, then they must redistribute all of their resources en-masse, removing the disparity between the groups. unfortunately, in our thought experiment, a one-time transfer isn't enough, and each new generation the disadvantaged group will need to receive some resources from everyone else.
this spawns resentment among a portion of the egalitarian-minded population. we'll call this portion the conservatives. fed up with having less as a result of the group requiring their resources, they decide as a bloc to withhold their contribution despite still benefiting from the general climate of promoting equality themselves. predictably, the disadvantaged group begins to fall further behind, as they're not receiving as many resources as before. we now have the poor, the liberals, and the conservatives.
eventually, the withdrawal of resources by the conservatives begins to impact the poor more severely, and limits their ability to capitalize on opportunities as well as additionally hurting the resources that they start with. their sphere of potential paths to take in life shrinks expediently. education becomes more limited, many lose sight of egalitarian ideals, and a few turn to crime. the utopian society is no longer utopian at this point in our journey toward our reality.
let's fast forward a number of generations. the situation of the poor group has degraded considerably, and poverty has scarred the minds of its people. the egalitarian ideals of the past are still alive, in some people-- but to ignore the dilapidated condition of the poor group is impossible, and so calls to renew equality are aspirational. many have invented stories about why exactly it is that the poor are so unsightly, seem to be the only one committing crimes, and don't have the same resources as everyone else. these stories aren't fantastical, so much as they are filters of perception instantiated in specific incidents. many people treat the group differently as a result of the stories that are told, further reducing their opportunities. we can, at this point, generally say that these filters are equivalent to "racism".
so, let's say you're one of the old-school idealists, and you still think that, even though the challenges are greater than back in the day, equality is necessary and desirable. would you say that the group at the start of the thought experiment is interchangeable with the other groups? no, not anymore, though they were at the start-- and this is a sticking point for understanding the concept of racism in a more nuanced way.
are they NOT interchangeable? at the start of the thought experiment, they were in fact fully interchangeable, until we changed the variables. now, they need more resources to succeed. is it "racist" to discriminate on the basis of race? well, yes, if you believe in egalitarianism, you shouldn't be disqualifying someone because their starting conditions were different-- and if you really, REALLY are serious about egalitarianism, you'll give up some of your resources to them to help them catch up. the liberals would prefer it if everyone were in the REALLY serious camp, and tend to describe alternatives as "racist".
i wonder if this made any sense