(speaking while white...)
Not well understood by any means, but well enough so the terms are "out there".
Even those of my family and friends who tend to be more of the reactionary kind understand and accept these meanings as being factually descriptive, even while knowing that the whole of the story will forever remain untold.
So these words signify an *opening* rather than a closing.
European colonialist racism.
Of course there are many who I might "meet on the street" who don't get it and who would be extremely defensive on hearing those terms. But those people aren't defining the language that we use to describe fact.
I'm in Canada. Maybe our police don't shoot down people for "walking while black", but our police have done things, systematically, like drive natives (First Nations prisoners) out into the middle of nowhere, in the extreme cold of the Prairies in January, and shove them out to die of cold. We've denied First Nation children the right to be raised in their own culture, using their own language and according as their own customs. We created entire institutions with buildings, infrastructure, laws, personnel, social systems, to implement it -- all while claiming to serve God. And then, of course, we judged the results. l I think we're at the stage now where we recognize that these aren't problems caused by individual police, teachers, people. They are caused by the systemic racism of a cultural milieu which hasn't overcome roots in European colonialist racism.
I think the Canadian system is the same as the US system, but with different demographics. But the same root problem: European colonialist racism built right into the founding law and structure.
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