But these two things aren't the same at all.
Yes, there is a degree to which I'm suspicious, even prejudiced, against everybody. In a very real sense, life for all of us is THEM vs ME. I make assumptions about people based on their size, their facial expressions, their clothing, their sex, every day. But I don't make assumptions based on their skin colour. At least not consciously (there's a degree of unconscious bias that's universal and also invisible to us, so I won't include that in my analysis).
Racism is bias and or prejudice based on skin colour. So while you could accuse me of many other biases, I don't think I'm racist.
I'm not saying I don't think black people should be given preferential treatment because I want to be objective, I'm saying it because that's what I genuinely believe. I believe it about all skin colours. I believe it in the same way I don't think preferential treatment should be given to people because of their height. Or because of their eye colour. Or because of the circumference of their nipples.
To put it as simply as possible, I don't think people should receive preferential (or discriminatory) treatment based on any immutable, non disabling characteristic.
But if you asked me whether, for example, poor people should receive preferential treatment, regardless of their skin colour, this might be a more interesting point (I still wouldn't advocate their release from prison, but I'd certainly advocate greater resource for them to improve their situation).
Everyone is afraid of releasing people from prison because the prison population is, on average, far more dangerous than the general population. This isn't a great sociological insight. So if you want to do it, you need to have clear, comprehensible and good reasons for doing so.
So yes, my focus is, and remains, why do you want to release people from prison based on their skin colour? What positive effects do you imagine might come from this? Don't you think that artificially inflating the number of dangerous people with a particular skin colour into society would lead to an artificial increase in crime from that demographic, further cementing the negative stereotypes about that community?
