I agree. Empathy is empathy and exists independently of race. However, to create a universal empathy one would need to overcome the psychological predisposition towards arbitrary groupings. That's very strong. Us and Them. Them and us. You can swap and change round the idea of who 'we' are and who 'they' are - but it's very different to overcome that natural psychological inclination. I think society can become less racist but it would need to create a different set of groupings in order to do so first.

If, for example, I gave you the choice of shooting either your mother or some random paedophile guy who lives down the street. You would likely make a hierarchical us and them judgment based on familial ties. You might have empathy for the paedophile guy who was going to be shot, but that wouldn't prevent you from making the choice. It's hard wired.

I believe the most we can ever do is mitigate against it - and that can and should be done by structural social and political changes. I don't think it can be done by wishing away whiteness. It's a sort of amorphous catch all linguistic hedge that can mean whatever we want it to mean. It's like fighting a general ill-defined fog and falling head first into a Kafka-Trap. Any push back on the concept of whiteness, becomes further evidence of whiteness itself. Whiteness is defensiveness about whiteness until we hit a regressive circle.