Mychal Denzel Smith: Racism is a system of power created by and maintained through public policy. Racist rhetoric or action is anything that reinforces/upholds that system. So until the day comes when the US government enacts laws aimed specifically and purposefully at ensuring that white people are shut out of education/healthcare/jobs/housing and shuttled into prison and poverty, I don’t want to hear any more about the growing discrimination against white Americans. It is nonexistent. Additionally, I will be more conscious about not using softer, ambiguous phrases when referring to racism. There is no more “race relations” or “conversations about race” or “racial issues/discrimination.” There is racism. We have to name it before we face it. […] This is the current state of discussion about racism: one that places the onus on those who are oppressed to comport themselves according to the rules that oppress them rather than eliminating the system. The problem is that there is no escape. You can do everything “right,” obey all of the rules, be exemplary in every way, and racism still does its work. Respectability politics are not rooted in fact or reality, only in a false notion of individualism that upholds structural oppression. More here.