I made some assumptions. Building on your commentary (not refuting it), in my definition is for people to look to see where they have embraced with consent and full knowledge of their stereotypes and biases and actively pre-judge a person based upon an identity. It is why (in the 1990’s) I asked if one only had two choices to be a bigot or to be prejudiced, the worst choice was the latter (prejudiced) because it means that the person is actively choosing to believe in a bias and stereotype, where the bigot may be unknowingly executing a set of stereotypes and bias based upon systemic racism and environmental conditioning.

So, that was the intent behind my message.

Now, if we extend my inner view with your excellent observations, Racism to me is repeating over and over the the stereotypes and biases and prejudging people over in a repeatable pattern, and the worst offenders are the ones that actively push those beliefs into a legislative and consumption (think capitalism) way that build a least resistant path into what I define as systemic racism.

One does have to be careful with the use of prejudice, because it is a stronger word, and with that I prefer to use the following workflow.

stereotypes > bias > prejudice

Everyone has preferences and initial reactions that are empowered by stereotypes and biases, which are not evil or wrong. One can make a judgement call based upon those activities, but if one is going to impair someone’s life, liberty, or pursuit of happiness on a person or group, they need to get to know a person or group before fulling acting on their biases and prejudging.

As a point example, I moved to Texas a few years ago, was at a cigar bar and I heard two couples talking with specific hot topic political issues. When I got up to get another cigar and a scotch the person pushing the conservative and Republican oriented views was a black gentleman who looked like a cowboy and had a white girlfriend. The white guy looked like a redneck was a sheriff, and had a asian girlfriend and sound very Californian :)

People are extremely complex and deep, to reduce folks to caricatures, usually means (not you the responder) means the person pushing that view is simple minded and closed minded …