Jesus Christ, stop downvoting and flagging these comments. As much as I disagree with the comment, it correctly explains what the disagreement is, which is that we have different definitions of racism.
According to this brave new definition of racism, KKK is not inherently racist, because it's a systemic issue, not an individual issue.
The KKK were part of the system, and the system in many states supported them, either tacitly or even openly in some cases. Members of the KKK rose to the highest positions in local and federal politics and influenced police and lawmaking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan_members_in_United...
The rise of the different incarnations of the Klan can be directly tied to politics of segregation, Jim Crow laws and other factors that in some form continue to hobble black Americans in particular, to this day.
It is a systemic problem, perpetuated by a system that needs an underclass of disposable labor to oppress.
But are not now. There are groups with similar messages that never had any power.
BLM also have supporters in the highest positions and also influenced police and lawmaking, some places actually did defunded their police force.
My point still stands. According to that definition, in the alternate universe KKK or NSDAP would not be considered racist, if they didn't have the majority of support.
Saying that racism in the US is a systemic issue does not imply that individual racism does not exist. One is the basis of the other, as people with racist views implement racist laws and systems, which in turn embolden more people.
The KKK didn't come out of nowhere, they came out of a deeply racist society and system. Similarly the NSDAP didn't come out of nowhere, they came out of a racist (deeply anti-semitic) society and system, which they leveraged along with severely wounded German national pride and massive international sanctions after WWI, in order to rise to power.
Systemic and individual racism go hand in hand, but you cannot fight racism one individual at a time, there simply aren't enough hours in a day. You have to attack the underlying structures and systems that perpetuate racism.
Fighting against the thin blue line, and defunding the police in the US is one way to fight that fight, because of how selective policing is based on race and social standing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HehnDHNoItk
You know, you say things about having a privilege of being ignorant, but you seem to be unaware that this is exactly what you're doing. You all have the privilege of basically downplaying racism to be a just systemic issue of black people not earning or being employed as much, or cops shooting slightly more black people than white people. You have no clue just how much things can go south to the point where there isn't even any system in place and all you have left are the actual horrors of war, that the Hollywood movies won't ever show you.
You're blaming Trump for calling for violence, not because he did, but because his audience interprets what he says as such, and at the same time you say things like "all white people are racist" and expect everyone to understand the intricacies of the white privilege theory. In Europe we had those things called "pogroms" that were massacres organized by the usual day-to-day folks, with zero influence over the system. So it wasn't racism according to you, I guess. It's within the realm of possibility that you soon might have the benefit of your white privilege of finding yourself at the receiving end of one of such massacres.
Don't worry they will let you know you're privileged again to explain why you don't get the mental gymnastics required to make sense of this crap.
So much of the stuff I hear groups like BLM say is very far from being true and isn't based on any stats. They often operate very similar to a terror group and do cause a lot of actual terror. Businesses get destroyed, burned down, they attack federal buildings, they attack police, they attack white people who disagree with their ideology, they attack politicians who disagree, they riot outside of politics houses or people who disagree with them, etc. I'm sick of this being deemed somehow "ok" when if a different group did it they would get labeled as a terrorist group. It baffles me how a small group like "Proud Boys" can be labeled as a terror group despite being leagues less dangerous than BLM. The BLM roots caused over $1 Billion in insurance costs alone. If that isn't a terror group I don't know what is.
All such cases of pogroms, ethnic cleansing and so on in recorded human history, happened because of systems that openly, tacitly or implicitly accepted or promoted racist views, laws and sentiments. In some cases the inaction of the system allowed them to happen, in other cases the system directly inflamed them to happen. In others yet, the system (by extension the military and others directly under command of the system) directly perpetrated these acts.
I say the root cause is systemic, you say the root cause is individual. One cannot exist without the other, but I say it all boils down to a systemic issue causing the individual issues.
If you think the current relatively mild upset of the status quo in any way constitutes an "anti-white sentiment", you've been living an extremely sheltered and privileged life.
White men still hold the overwhelming power in the western world, in politics, business and culture.
The fact that minorities are making their voices heard and demanding their rights be respected does not discriminate against white people. Various minorities have been politely asking for their rights to be respected for decades, even centuries at this point. Now they're demanding to be heard, which shouldn't really surprise anyone.
Yes, I was lucky enough to be born after the fall of communism, so I had the privilege that my parents and grandparents didn't have of not struggling through starvation, not being subjected to attempts of erasing my identity and genocides. See, we white people just don't know what real oppression is, which is low black employment and trigger happy cops.
According to this brave new definition of racism, KKK is not inherently racist, because it's a systemic issue, not an individual issue.