Bang on. Great article. I had a convo yesterday with a politically disconnected but left leaning buddy who claimed that "racism & intolerance is at an all time high" here in Canada. I pointed out the historical fallacy of this and pressed him as to whether this increase is something he's actually witnessing in his day to day, or if he's come to this conclusion based on what our government and MSM media is telling him. He was adament that racism is rampant. Would have liked to have saved my energy and just sent him this article. But yeah, when the goal posts are constantly being moved in terms of social concepts and the language that defines them, we lose meaning, lose connection, lose ability to converse and share and debate and rationally problem solve. The binding elements within a culture dissolve. Divide and conquer.

Every nation is a biased nation as every nation is made up of human beings.
Each of us is a product of our own wiring, education, environment and upbringing but all of us hold beliefs about other people, whether as individuals or as members of a subset that are negative or positive. These are usually based on personal experience , indoctrination etc. Enlightened ndividuals and countries recognize this and understand that bias is counterproductive to intellectual growth. To remedy this they try to correct their thinking and recognize the bias and confront it so it does not interfere in decision making. Negative bias unabated can lead to extremism and Racism, younameitaphobia, and hate. Such strong emotions make reasoning difficult. The question is not if bias or racism is "bad", the question should start with the supposition that bias is a given then try to find a way to educate people enough to correct their own.

I don't believe that the United States was literally racist until recently, meaning the last 3 or 4 decades, when government began creating protected classes of people by implementing policy like affirmative action, or elevated charges and sentencing for whatever transgressions are deemed to be "hate crimes". These are discriminatory practices by the government that in my mind are what cross the threshold of racist/racism.

Good article, and a lot of truth to it.