If I have crossed a line anywhere in my comments in this thread or otherwise, I encourage you to call it out. However, I take umbrage with the implication that calling out white supremacy is in itself an example of racism. This seems to be an incredibly lazy way of excusing and enabling these systems, by putting blame on those who seek to dismantle them. 

Further, in the absence of individuals calling out white supremacy, the harm done by white supremacy does not disappear, and the animosity felt by individuals who suffer under it does not disappear. When met with silence and inaction, white supremacy grows. It is through the voices of those who have stood up to white supremacy that we have made the tremendous progress that we have made over the last century, and if we are to continue to make progress over the next century, it will be through the voices of those who continue stand up to white supremacy. 

Let me make it simple:

If you object to the usage of the terms 'China virus' and regard it as partially to blame for black-on-Asian violence, I can object to the usage of the terms 'white supremacy' and blame it partially for black-on-white violence.

Where I believe you have been in error is ballooning the definition of white supremacy to include more than the term seems to hold.

If you are trying to change the definition of a word to fit your own view is it any wonder so many are having a hard time with that?

Edit - sorry the formatting went all wonky on me and ran everything together making it harder to read and tell that those were the definitions from 4 different sources

"How [is it] possible that other countries wherein white people are a minority -- sometimes only a fringe minority without any political power to speak of, like in the case of say Japan, for example -- one also often finds exceedingly restrictive immigration policies and bigoted, hostile attitudes toward migrant workers?"

[1] Well, because they have their own systems of oppression at work. The issue is largely a majoritarian one, not a "white" one. White people aren't evil or bigoted because of their skin tone. These trends largely emerge from power. As they say, absolute power corrupts absolutely. It is simply the case that in America, white people have historically held the lions share of power, and as such, society has become tailored to them. These types of discussions seek to explain the way things work in America. Similar human forces are at play in other countries, but through the differences in the countries, the outcome varies. 

"However, Donald Trump's opinions are not exactly reflective of those of most white people in positions of power even in this country, are they?"

[2] While Trump's opinions may not be reflective of a majority, Donald Trump is far from the only one who has been saying these things, and Donald Trump held a lot of systemic power. But does that singular power make this systemic? I would argue that through the outsized influence that Trump has, yes, it is almost inherently systemic. He still arguably leads an entire wing of our government, and his influence holds a lot of power in the news media as well. I find it difficult to not see such a thing as systemic given the fact that seemingly the majority of the Republican party either played along or stayed silent. 

"I really doubt that the black person who attacks an Asian-American over Covid-19 does so because they view themself as inferior to white people."

[3] I'm not really sure what you are trying to say here. I never insisted that this was the case, and it doesn't have to be the case for anything that I'm speaking about to be true. As previously stated, white supremacy is not really about people outwardly stating that one group is better than another, it is often broken into much smaller pieces, such as the belief that a nuclear family is a superior family structure to, say, living with your parents or extended family units which may be more common in other cultures. People often don't see that there is a supremacist component to these beliefs or feelings. Similarly, memetic ideas such as "Mexicans are stealing our jobs" largely spread through the power of white supremacy. White supremacy goes a lot deeper than simply people believing one group is superior to another group and saying "well, this person didn't say that whites are better, so it must not be relevant here" is a complete and fundamental misunderstanding of what is being discussed. 

"Crime rates"

[4] I think the decreased trust in police may be a better theory about what is the cause here than changes in funding, but I'd like to say that I put the blame for this on the cops who killed George Floyd (and others), not the people who criticized them for it. 

I do not necessarily object to the term "China virus" in a vacuum. I object in the context which I have laid out in several posts. I have also laid out how my objections in regards to the racial/xenophobic parts of the Republican Covid platform go much deeper and include examples that are far more egregious than this. You can't simply pick one small piece out of a much larger picture, make a shoddy comparison and conclude that the two things are the same. 

I've mentioned several times in this conversation that I am speaking about the academic use of the term (Note that this conversation originated under the thesis "One of the issues with the left is that it likes to talk to itself, which can cause people who aren't well versed in leftist ideas to be puzzled or object, however I believe that behind all the confusing language is a lot of truth that raises fewer objections once people understand the terms and definitions related to the subject" (more or less)):

"The term white supremacy is used in some academic studies of racial power to denote a system of structural or societal racism which privileges white people over others, regardless of the presence or the absence of racial hatred."

"By "white supremacy" I do not mean to allude only to the self-conscious racism of white supremacist hate groups. I refer instead to a political, economic and cultural system in which whites overwhelmingly control power and material resources, conscious and unconscious ideas of white superiority and entitlement are widespread, and relations of white dominance and non-white subordination are daily reenacted across a broad array of institutions and social settings."

Now that the thread has died down a bit I just want to point out how uncomfortable it is that you're making jokes about black transwomen genocide whilst having acknowledged publicly in the past to being a TERF. I get that the joke is that the genocide doesn't exist in the first place and that it would be an outrageous claim to say it does, but regardless the joke feels pretty tasteless. Might want to think about that a bit next time, just an fyi. 

Those who demand sensitivity and respect from me ought to demonstrate some themselves. No one accepts the term "terf" as a descriptor of themselves and no one (including me) calls themself a terf unless they're being sarcastic. It's a misogynistic slur that is designated specifically and exclusively to women and frequently used in the context of a threat (the veiled one here being an example).

The term feminist critics of gender identity use to describe that range of perspectives is "gender critical feminist" or GC feminist for shorthand. Such women, myself included, reject the label "terf" on two factual levels:

1) most women to whom the term is applied are not radical feminists, and...

2) the women-only spaces such women defend are exclusionary of all men, by sex-based definition. They are not exclusionary of trans people (e.g. transmen).

I didn't demand anything, I just said it's might be something you want to think about next time. I also didn't make a veiled threat (?) at you. If you could kindly either show the example in which I did so, or take back that accusation, I'd be happy. 

Here's you calling yourself a terf in your own words: Locked: (SPOILER ALERT) TLOU2: Thoughts of a Lonely, Loud-Mouthed Terf Dyke (vgchartz.com). It's the only reason why I used the label on you. Frankly, I took the title as you being sarcastic, but not about being a terf, moreso in a being sarcastic in the vein of "being a turf isn't actually a bad thing, but people think it is, so I'm going to say it in an overly sarcastic 'taking back the term!' kind of way". If you don't identify as a terf, I'm sorry for mislabeling you, but I don't think it changes much if I just quote some of the stuff you yourself say:

"Well...being as Lev's entire character arc is his transness, as in he seems to have no other distinguishing characteristics besides being transgender, it seems very apparent to me that he was included purely in order to convince ignorant, narrow-minded religious bigots like me that gender identity is totes for real. Did it succeed? Noooooooope. If anything, it reinforced my pre-existing opinion that gender identity is simply a crude, anti-feminist way of resisting patriarchal social roles. Lev, it turns out, is male because he has shaved his head and wanted to be a soldier instead of the involuntary wife of a political leader. He is male, in other words, because he wishes to resist forced feminization. (As much only makes me all the more grateful for the game's inclusion of characters like Abby who get to be largely gender-conforming without having to be transgendered.)"

And yes, I know that later on in the thread you say that what matters most to you is how something is represented in games, but regardless, I think you can understand how identifying yourself as a terf then specifically outlining how you don't like trans people because you don't believe in gender identity and transwomen are anti-feminist makes the joke you made in this comment a bad look. Honestly, when you spell it out this clearly that you don't like trans people because of gender identity affecting feminism, it doesn't really matter which label you prefer though, does it?

Regardless, I'm not sure why you are playing the victim when a rather innocent and thoughtful reply is sent your way. Responding by trying to say that someone threatened you (?) or that the person replying is demanding respect from you (when it was a suggestion, and one that wouldn't even show respect towards me in particular) isn't going to make you look better. It's just going to make you look like you're weaseling out of a pretty poor joke. I'm not trying to make this into an oppression olympics contest; you don't have to. Just because I say "hey maybe it's not funny to make jokes about a fake hypothetical trans genocide, even if the joke is that people would believe in something so outrageous your past comments make it a bit uncomfortable that you are using something like that as an example" doesn't mean you respond with "stop threatening me!". 

[1] I think we agree here.

[2] Okay, this represents a different definition of the term "system" than what I would mean by it. I mean I don't disagree with the substance of what you're saying here, but when I think of a general social system, I'm thinking of something that persistently governs society overall, not just one party or or a particular subset of a subset of Americans.

[3] Don't you see what you're doing here though? You're taking something very simple and concrete and trying to make something very complicated and subjective out of it because it is the only way to blame white people for hate crimes that don't involve them. That sort of thinking is the crux of critical race theory: it begins with the goal of finding a way of blaming white people for literally all of the worlds problems and proceeds to explain based upon this predetermined, simplistic conclusion. The conclusion is simple. The explanation from whence it proceeds, on the other hand, becomes so subjective and complex that it's nigh impossible to even comprehend.

[4] That's just a very dualistic, Marxian way of viewing life, IMO. The origin of the issue here is yes the need the problem of white racism in much of our policing and criminal justice system in this country. But the issue is clearly more than just its origin at this point. A gunman opportunistically gunning down a child or someone who pushes someone in front of a subway car is not 'criticizing the cops', they're committing a violent crime. The certain vacuum that has come in the wake of George Floyd's murder last year has taken on a life of its own and it has to be addressed to if we're serious about valuing black lives, frankly.

"The term white supremacy is used in some academic studies of racial power to denote a system of structural or societal racism which privileges white people over others, regardless of the presence or the absence of racial hatred."

>One could just go with something more neutral like "systematic bias" or "racial bias" rather than racializing the terms and 'other' whites in the process...

[2] Again, I find it hard to comprehend the idea that the literal lawmaking bodies in this country aren't considered by you to be something that "governs society overall", when that is literally their job, but I digress...

[3] First of all, I am not blaming white people for hate crimes (and I am certainly not blaming white people for "literally all of the worlds problems"). I am tracing the lineage of the ideas that inspire these crimes. I've laid this out several times in a way which, to me, seems pretty simple and intuitive and as of yet, you (or anyone else) hasn't really demonstrated that I have been out of line in my line of logic. I don't see what is so hard to understand that if someone acts on a white supremacist idea, we can point to the white supremacist origins of this idea as an important contributor regardless of the race of the individual who acted upon the idea. 

I have to say, of all people on this forum, I am surprised to see you raising such an issue with what I am saying, when at its core, it is virtually indistinguishable from feminist theory... I would very much like to have a conversation about what Feminism means to you at some point, but this likely isn't the place.

[4] We are clearly not speaking on the same terms here, so I'll outline the logic of the point I was making real quick:

-Cops take inappropriate action
-Individuals/groups call out this inappropriate action, bringing attention which reduces trust in police
-Victim of crime does not report to the police due to a lack of trust
-Individual who committed crime is not caught and is able to commit additional crime

I am not stating that an individual committing crime is a "criticism of the cops", I am saying that criticism of the cops like the rallies we saw last summer have led to a decrease in trust in police which should be seen as the fault of the police taking inappropriate action, not the fault of the people complaining about it. 

This whole conversation is inherently racial. It is a conversation about how white power has created a system of white supremacy which favors whiteness over non-whiteness. You can't subtract the "white" from the conversation, without subtracting the conversation.

"racial power has created a system of racial supremacy which favors some races over others."

A positive here is you no longer 'other' whites in the first sentence. I hope you agree!