So there are several factors you've covered here -- several that I agree with, and several that I disagree with.

We'll start with where I most emphatically agree with you. Yes, you are 100% right about how dangerous this hyperwoke redefinition of racism per se has been to our society.

What I advocate is to begin delineating racism into smaller subcategories: mainly those of systemic, social, and cultural forms of racism.

Systemic racism is obviously where BIPOC applicants/consumers are exclusively targeted within institutions based on their racial categorization. White people don't experience this.

Social racism is where people across-the-board mistreat one another, behaviorally and tangibly, based on being from different racial categories per se. Some people alternately refer to it as "interpersonal racism" or "individual racism." Many wokesters simply dismiss it as "prejudice." But "prejudice" implies a passive attitude or belief. Once that prejudice becomes actionable or behavioral, it turns into a bigoted incident based on RACISM. This can occur outside of systems. You can be either BIPOC or White, and still get targeted by (or be the perpetrator of) social racism.

Cultural racism is an extrapolation of social racism, except the main difference is that it gets inflicted in group settings, based on groupthink or mob-mentality. Such a "bandwagon effect" is, again, visible mistreatment BASED ON RACE (i.e. racism). Just like social racism, we can find cultural racism both within and outside of systems themselves. The group-based racism here can be driven by both White people and Black, Indigenous, & People of Color.

Depending on the context, some of these iterations of racism may merge or overlap.

In addition, different types of racism will require different types of solutions. We can't solve systemic racism in the same way we'd confront instances of social racism or cultural racism.

Now, where I disagree with you is in your assessment of policy. Let's take the example of affirmative action.

I see affirmative action as being warranted due to the historical prevalence of systemic racism. The question shouldn't be WHETHER we implement AA policies, but, rather, HOW we implement them. They should be narrowly-tailored and discerning in their application of race-consciousness.

So, obviously, "No Asians allowed" is a heavily flawed AA policy that would need to be reformed. Any policy that passes itself off as "affirmative action " where underqualified people are granted admission ISN'T truly affirmative action; that would be tokenism.

That doesn't negate the benefit of affirmative action itself...specifically, the effect of social diversification of the workplace or educational environments helping to promote more compassion and collaboration all-around.

Regarding students who are unprepared for certain academic rigors: the problem here is that society and lawmakers aren't doing anywhere near enough to end the racial disparities amongst our school districts. It's a case of placing too much emphasis on the front end of the problem while not placing enough emphasis on the back end. If resources and investments for K-12 schools were boosted in racially underprivileged school districts nationwide, we'd see a lot more racial diversity in colleges and workplaces over the long run. That doesn't mean we should end affirmative action in the short term; what it means is we need to be doing two things at once (and be doing a better job of implementing both things), rather than the traditional neoliberal approach to programs that brand themselves as "affirmative action."

I would love to hear your expanded thoughts on the quotas for race-conscious casting in reality TV, since your comment on my own article covering that issue is what brought me here to read this piece of yours.