Sure, everyone knows that US-style creationism is part of the evangelical belief system, which clings to a narrow literal interpretation of the Bible to support its awful practices, including slavery. But US-style atheism isn't the answer, it's just a reaction to evangelicalism and not a positive belief system.
UMass Amherst, where the study comes from, is particularly awful, they are terrible hypocrites.
There is a definite British "cultural Anglicanism", where churches are visited routinely by non-believers who would never step inside during a service. I'm one such non-believer; some of my favourite spaces are churches.
But what makes American disbelief in gods different?
Is it that there are fewer beautiful old churches to visit outside of worship hours, or is it that has become inherently, necessarily militant because the US has, since McCarthy and the Red Scare, inserted performative Christianity into as many avenues of life as possible such that an atheist presidential candidate has to lie to get the job?
I just asked Google about "atheism-plus", and within my filter bubble it helpfully responded with this:
The term Atheism Plus designates “spaces, persons, and groups dedicated to promoting social justice and countering misogyny, racism, homo/bi/transphobia, ableism and other such bigotry inside and outside of the atheist community”
Enough of that crap. Note that they don't include my main concern, ageism. That's because they are a reactionary movement. Evangelicalism ostentatously follows the Bible, including the commandment of honoring parents (i.e. the aged). Atheists equally ostentatously reject it.
It's the shadow image of white Southern evangelicalism, they were there first to claim the field. It doesn't follow that the opposite of shit is sugar.
There is nothing wrong with the "prejudice plus power" definition. It is the best definition of racism as a systemic effect that exists.
As the US shifts towards being a majority-minority system, any power element of perceived racism against whites will no doubt have to be examined. I'm yet to be convinced (from transatlantic distance) that it exists.
What I do think is economically disadvantaged white people ought to educate themselves about how their situation is some ways interlocked with the racist treatment of economically disadvantaged minorities in the same area; the systems that established racism now disadvantage them too.
(This is also true in the UK; if white people in poverty understood what they had in common with black and asian people in poverty, Britain First and the EDL would not exist, and Brexit might not have happened; as always, their fears are exploited by populists when they share the same circumstances as those they are asked to fear.)
But racism isn't simply the same as racial prejudice; it's prejudice in action, and that is what the definition is about.
UMass Amherst, where the study comes from, is particularly awful, they are terrible hypocrites.