I see your point. I think it wasn't the best counter.

You made me realize that its actually certain things that we as a society decide as sacrosanct and not grounds for prejudice. So it can be with race, which involves no choice, but also religion, which does involve choice. Or political affiliation, which also does involve choice.

The only thing that really matters is people's ability to make decisions. Their religious and political views can very easily reflect a failure to make good decisions, and that has a real social cost. Race is nothing like that. Neither is most physical disability, sexual orientation, nor suitably passive statements about political matters or religious affiliation. That's why those things are protected.

>Are you suggesting that having the option to make that choice is somehow a way out? It's merely symptomatic and utter blasphemy.

This hypothetical doesn't really go anywhere because you can make the beard choice with worldly experience vs. choosing race at birth and growing up as that race. It doesn't even compare.

Even if we were to change this around and ask "What if people could change their race only once in adulthood after some life experience?" the racism chart just gets two additional hate columns for the race-changers.

My point is that nobody should ever have to choose; it's de-humanizing in every regard.

I am. It's about conforming to a norm and not conforming to a norm. If the norm is whiteness, no matter how much you may want to conform as a non-white person, it's not an option for you. You can't just weigh the discomfort of conforming and the discomfort of deviating and decide ultimately to go with the flow, or switch between conforming and not conforming as the cultural climate changes.

As for any sentiment about whether someone "should have" to conform or not: if many people don't have the option to conform, then that angle is a part of a different conversation. It also confuses the issue - in that it places innate characteristics (which have absolutely no functional implications other than the ability to stay in the sun longer in the case of dark skin) that are focused on within a particular culture on the same level as any expression anybody wants to take i.e. once we accept everything, we'll accept black people, therefore we should be working on general acceptance of all things rather than racism specifically.

It's a cop out. We have a race problem. We have a lot of problems, but race is a very serious problem. Not everything should be accepted; people need to conform in a huge number of ways, or else we don't have a civilization. Things should be taken on a case by case basis based on the degree of human suffering and the societal costs of accepting or ignoring variations from the norm. Race, in America, is maybe the most important thing we need to deal with (second only to sexism in my estimation.) Race, especially anti-black racism, pervades and corrupts everything in the US.