>that "racism" is a very mushy and vague concept that allows anyone to read
>into it whatever he wants.
All concepts that folks have invented in their attempts to address a complex ensemble of social relations -- including the fact that "there are persistent patterns of multi-faceted social inequalities that correspond with ethnic differences that are undeniable reality" you note -- allow "anyone to read into it whatever he wants." In fact, it is the nature of the social relations that produces such conceptual mush: for instance, the reduction of "racism" to a matter of "attitudes" of "individuals." A fundamental attributional error is at work here. On another list, I wrote: "The problem is that Ricardo anachronistically sees 'Europeans' when & where he should be seeing capitalism. To attribute the origin of freedom to 'Europeans' & 'European culture' is akin to attributing the origin of racism to 'white men' & 'white men's culture'." Likewise, one shouldn't attribute environmental degradation to "preferences of consumers" either, but many do.
This kind of attributional error that puts the cart before the horse, so to speak, is rooted in commodity fetishism; recall Marx's analysis of "the eighteenth-century Robinsonades" in _Grundrisse.
With regard to race & racism in America, we should look at criminal justice & incarceration as not an effect of racism but as _the cause_ of "persistent patterns of multi-faceted social inequalities that correspond with ethnic differences." While slavery existed in the American South, ideology characterized slaves as "happy darkies"; with the Civil War & emancipation, the old idea of "happy darkies" receded while a new idea of "dark criminals" emerged. Criminal justice became a part of reaction against Black Reconstruction. Similarly, in reaction against the partial success of the Civil Rights movement & other social movements of the 60s, criminal justice expanded to reproduce "persistent patterns of multi-faceted social inequalities that correspond with ethnic differences."
Yoshie