I understand where you’re coming from, John. The distinction I made in this article though is that Black people can be racist toward themselves and other BLACK people. I argue that the system DOES give us the power to be racist toward ourselves and other Blacks because it serves the anti-Black racist agenda. It is more than simply prejudice because those prejudices have greater ability to do harm within the context of systemic racism.

I see people like Candace Owens and Kanye West as examples of this. I would call the ideology they espouse as distinctly racist and conducive toward maintaining the current anti-Black power structure. This is the purpose of the Uncle Tom trope. Just because that anti-Black rhetoric is amplified through a Black body doesn’t make it any less racist, and I think calling it something different diminishes the harm it inflicts. In fact, because we seem so unwilling to acknowledge that racism can perpetuate at the hands of Black people, some White people seem particularly fond of using Black voices to push their own anti-Black narrative, precisely for the fact that others are less willing to challenge those ideas when they come from a Black person.

I believe we must call racism out for what it is, no matter how it manifests, and as uncomfortable as it may be when we find it embedded in our own psyches.