Welcome back!! I hope you feel well rested and ready for some good quality back and forth. It's always a pleasure to see your name pop up.

99% of most animal species have cultures that centre around elevation at the cost of other people. That's the literal bedrock of human evolution. You can call it patriarchy if you like, but it predates the concept of sexual selection by an absolute age. Most higher order animals fit themselves into a hierarchial system maintained by the dopaminergic and seratonergic systems in their brain. It's not that I don't agree with you - I know that you're right, I just don't see the point in applying modern political ideologies over the top of it.

Racism is a product of outgroup thinking. That's a product of competative resource management as displayed by primates. In group and out group happens in chimp populations all the time - and they all have the same colour fur. Racism is just one way of exploring this psychological predisposition... but then so is everything else. That's why historical events such as the Rape of Nanking, the Rwanda Genocide and to some extent the holocaust weren't along the lines of skin colour. In group and out-group thinking can't be defeated - I can assure you, even if the entire world was a wonderful race blend of mocha, we'd fall out about hairstyles or geography. We're a violent ape.

I agree that structural issues can be mitigated. I'm a fan of a meritocracy and always have been, but woke-ism won't push us there. You can't breed tolerance and compassion at gun point. You have to create equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. That's where we'll find agreement and where we can structure a way forward. Screaming 'everything is racist and patriarchal' doesn't aid the discussion, it hinders it. It ignores human nature in favour of an unqualfied utopian ideal. A dangerous way to run a society.

There's no pity party here. I'm in favour of people reading our discussion and listening to the arguments. Sure... I wanna win, but so do you - and that's kinda my point. Now go read about what happens when you try and screw monkeys out of grapes and come back to debate how social engineering feels unfair and consider whether that matters more than whether it is actually fair or not.

And also welcome back. :o)