The term 'racist' is a political term. No surprise no one will label themselves as such.

I would agree with you that evidence points pretty firmly away from genetic differences accounting for differences in whites and blacks. But it one does not really understand that evidence, then one can believe one is justified in a belief in a genetic cause, and thus believe one is not racist, just an empiricist. (you and I agree they are just BAD empiricists, but given their poor empirical reasoning there is little confusion why they would see themselves as not Racist.)

But the term itself is not really well defined. For example Blacks are more likely to suffer from sickle cell anemia than whites, and thus are genetically inferior in that way. (that same mutation confers resistance to malaria so they are superior in another that way.) But the point is, that few would call a doctor racist for holding such a belief. And you might say "well it is ok to hold a belief about advantage as long as it is well supported by the evidence."

But suppose someone made this claim: "African American culture today is one of the factors that put African American youths at the notable disadvantage they find themselves today."

That would loudly be decried as a racist claim. One would need go further than to notice that blame is being placed upon the victim, thus the claim is racist. And I am not saying its NOT racist, I am a bit unclear on what counts as Racism. Does empirical evidence have ANY bearing? Can one believe something well supported empirically and still be a Racist?

For the claim above consider the overwhelming empirical evidence that children raised by single parents are at a notable disadvantage (likely resulting from financial and other factors.) This is strongly supported empirically. Further we have very strong empirical evidence that marital rates of African Americans are notable lower than say Hispanic Americans. I suspect this effect is so strong that it will persist even when we carefully match demographic features of sub-populations of African American and economically similar Hispanic American.

If that also holds true then one might indeed conclude "African American culture disadvantages African American youths." Of course one must still acknowledge the many external factors that also have strong empirical backing too.

What bothers me about this debate, and actually ANY debate about human sub-cultures of any kind is that there are really two camps: the everything is due to internal factors verses the everything is due to external factors. Both groups bend reality to fit their narrative.

I agree with your earlier claim that GENETIC factors likely don't play a strong role in social outcomes... we see that sub-groups are too genetically diverse for that to happen. But CULTURE on the other hand often plays large role in social outcomes. It would be striking (and unlikely) that EITHER internal or external culture would play no part in the outcome. Evidence is clear, your mamma has a big outcome on you, as do external social norms, beliefs, attitudes, and expectations.

Even when this above is accepted by the Racist and non-Racist alike, they both will tend to blame the other group for "starting" it. For example "well of course cops are biased, because Blacks are more likely to kill them" or "Of course Blacks are more likely to be involved in killing a cop, because cops are biased against them" Both are likely accurate since cultural factors often stem from earlier cultural factors.

What is messy regarding our current state of discourse is that we are not free to equally consider various causal models even when supported by evidence unless it is supported by overwhelming evidence. But when it comes to the relationship between cultural factors almost NOTHING is supported by overwhelming evidence.

Thus in practice "Racist" does in fact mean 'blaming the minority for some negative outcome' regardless of evidence involved.

If we were open that this is the meaning of that term, I suspect many of your fellow debaters would be fine being labelled as a racist.

PERSONAL NOTE: I find genetic explanations for social outcomes to be nearly DISPROVEN as a cause. I find many external cultural factor causes to be strongly supported, with fewer internal cultural factors to be equally supported. And I see both internal and external cultural factors as hopelessly circular in the sense that they are likely causing each other. AND regardless of the breakdown of causal factor, I view discrepancies between groups as an ill that has arisen from the collective culture of the country, thus it is the collective responsibility of the country to solve them. I just think the best way to achieve this is by being open to cultural causes where ever those conclusions take us to, knowing that even if we find reason to want to shape behavior of some group we need to acknowledge that this behavior did not grow in a vacuum but it grew within our national context.