Here's the thing about racism. Racism can cut a wide swath of meaning and usually muddies the waters in discussions of this type. A better term to use would be racial discrimination. This fits better in all these discussions because what we're really talking about is using the race of a person as a basis for power, or lack thereof. I find that often people talk about racism when they actually mean racial discrimination. As the Avenue Q song goes, everyone is a little bit racist, and this is totally true. We process racial biases on an unconscious level, so it will never ever be eradicated. Even if we were to find some way to change everyone in the world to genderless, raceless, sexless blobs, we would find something else to use to identify in and out groups. We as human beings base a great deal of our identity based on our relations to others, mainly similarities and differences. So, yes, anyone from any race can be racist, but really, that's not the issue.Well, his assertion that black guys can't be racist is just patently naive. People from every race can be racist. Hell, people of the SAME race find things to hate about each other based on ludicrously stupid reasons. Women can be sexist, too. Does either of these things make it better when they are discriminated against? Hell no. But to give carte blanche to one group's actions is just dumb. I will agree that it could be put in as a red herring based on the topic, so that could be his angle.
But I'm still not seeing an apology to O_C from him yet.
Now, if we look at racial discrimination, that is a horse of a different color. It's about actually treating people differently based solely on their race. It's about actual real world actions. In the real world, what's occurring is not cool and there are many people in the wrong. In the real world, it's much more common for a black person to be racially discriminated against. That doesn't say that white people never are, but it's far less likely. This boils down to the same problems with the feminism argument, or any other group based -ism argument.