Thanks for the response, you make some pretty compelling points.

The video I was talking about was this one, but thanks for the clarification about the Bernie Sanders one; I was curious about what the whole hubbub about it was and was tempted to use it as an illustration as well. In any case, I don't know enough about the race issues currently facing the United States, so I'll try and gear my thoughts more towards the issues in a more general sense.

In any case, I agree Ireland is hardly a glimmering bastion of hope when it comes to overcoming racial adversity. My ex-girlfriend was English who grew up in a primarily Irish Catholic area of Belfast, she went through hell just for being there.

I do believe that that a huge part racial problems stems from the us-them mentality. I agree with you, eliminating this idea is not something than can be done easily, but it is the place to start. Taking my ex's ordeals in Belfast as an example, a lot of the problems occurred because Catholics and Protestants refused to associate with one another. Now, there is no obvious solution I can see to the issues in the north, but, by creating a "white only" or "PoC-only" space you are creating an issue that parallels the issues in Northern Ireland. You are creating and/or deepening an us-them mentality, when the goal should be to obliterate it. Even if the intention of this segregation is innocuous, it will still result in a huge mess.

Your last argument is an interesting one and I'll have to mull over it for awhile, but nevertheless my previous point still stands. All of those people didn't benefit from a historical hierarchy of power, and so the "all white people are inherently racist" argument still doesn't hold.

Anyways, I'm glad to see you don't subscribe to that ideology, and that tells me that at least on the whole we're in agreement, and right now we're just discussing the details and nuances.