> Race is a made up thing (created by white people) to give white people more power. To criticize white people for that is to critisize the system itself and critisize them for creating and continuing to allow the system of racism to exist.
This is actually a very good description of many places in Latin America, and perhaps even of some parts of the U.S. (particularly the southern parts, where privilege hierarchies were always quite strong even in colonial times). It's not a sensible way of thinking about the U.S. as a whole, much less the wider Western world. To the extent that some people identify as "white" (however silly that might be from an 'objective' POV) it happens purely because self-identity is important to people, and shedding one's self-identity is really hard. Expecting people to "criticize the system" is just wishful thinking when one doesn't even understand what that "system" actually is, and where it applies!
I'm not sure what you mean. Are you saying that racism doesn't exist in most of America? Or that race is more then a social construct in most of America?
It is a social construct, but the point of that construct is identity, not a direct exercise of power. Race ('white' race especially) is an "easy" answer to the perceived problem of "what am I supposed to identify as" for many Americans. And renouncing one's self-identity is really, really hard so it's very likely that this social construct will be sticking around for a while, whether we like it or not. Of course, this also implies that whenever we engage in derogatory discourse about "white race", "whiteness" and the privileges thereof, we're launching a direct and sometimes vicious attack on what many millions of people see as part of their deep self-identity - which of course can be seen as rather disrespectful, and liable to generate pushback of some sort!
This is actually a very good description of many places in Latin America, and perhaps even of some parts of the U.S. (particularly the southern parts, where privilege hierarchies were always quite strong even in colonial times). It's not a sensible way of thinking about the U.S. as a whole, much less the wider Western world. To the extent that some people identify as "white" (however silly that might be from an 'objective' POV) it happens purely because self-identity is important to people, and shedding one's self-identity is really hard. Expecting people to "criticize the system" is just wishful thinking when one doesn't even understand what that "system" actually is, and where it applies!