I understand what you’re saying and why you want to define “racism” as “colonial oppression.” But “racism” isn’t “colonial oppression.” Many countries that haven’t colonially oppressed each other still have huge problems with racism against other types of people within their country and abroad. And as someone who is ethnically from a country that was colonized — my parents’ generation remembers the British Raj — I am absolutely not going to hold that against all Britishers today. I don’t think it’s that Indians weren’t/aren’t racist against white people then or now, but that we lacked the power in that fight and the British did lots of terrible things during colonization. (Also, there are white people who historically haven’t colonized us and are still racist…just like there are white people who have and are not.)

Finally, few people think through some of the darker implications of holding future generations responsible for colonization. For example, during Mughal India, Muslim invaders colonized and massacred many Hindus in India. There are far more Muslims than Hindus in the world today and many Indians continue to see them as ex-colonizers and a serious, racist threat to their way of life. The Mughals did many terrible things, including forced conversions and slavery.

Holding modern-day Muslims responsible for those things is extremely terrible and I doubt you’d justify that. The Hindutva and the right-wing in India have now forced Muslims into concentration camps, created anti-Muslim policies, and taken away their citizenship. Applying American-style logic to every country in the world is just not helpful or working.

So it’s not really about who was historically awful; it’s about who holds power today and making sure they don’t abuse it. Why it’s different in the U.S. is because many white people STILL hold and abuse far too much power.