Thorns

I make no claims about Europe, I do get the feeling it's a more complicated mess there. (Though even if race is less significant than class or national identity that doesn't mean it isn't worth discussing in it's own right where relevant)

And I agree whiteness and non-whiteness are not as well defined here as they are in America or (american dominated) academic discourse. But they still exist and are significant.

Perhaps I expressed my argument too narrowly (I tend to get too general and sometimes like to scale things down to specifics) But I think my base point stands: if someone is talking about their experience under oppression X then you don't get to equate it with your grandparents oppression under X, or your own under Y or Z. Specifically, someone with my sort of experience of racism doesn't get to say it's equivalent to the experience of someone who directly experiences significant racism right now (how "people who experience significant racism right now" lines up as a category with "not-whiteness" is I'll admit possibly more complicated than I made out, but I certainly don't experience it, and neither do the sorts of people who were irritating me)

(edited to no longer imply that white people are main victims of racism :))