I always thought that racist means basically “something that involves racism” and that racism means “the idea that there are races”.
By that definition this sentence would be racist, bcs it speaks of races. However, I met someone who said this and then claimed that this wasn’t racist. What does racist mean then?
I didn’t find it ridiculous. Why do you?
Here’s why:
Is it racist to say that you’re blonde? You’re describing a physical feature. Hair color isn’t “generally” something that people get racist about so simply saying “this is what my body parts look like” isn’t racist.
Now, if you announce that you’re blonde and that all dark haired people must be eliminated from society, you’re racist.
Coming from the US, I had no idea until I became friends with an Australian, but some people in AU and the UK really hate people with red hair and call them ‘gingers’. I suppose it’s some anti-Irish thing.
“Ginger” as a term is not, in itself, derogatory or hateful in my experience.
Describing gingers as soulless or hot-tempered is about the same kind of destructive as describing blondes as stupid, which is to say it’s a silly stereotype that’s often the territory of playful insults between friends, while some small minority of people do run it into the ground and cause real hurt.
(This might be exacerbated by tensions between England and Ireland in that specific area, but… for most of the world “ginger” is a pretty harmless thing.)
It can be light hearted, or not. As you note some people do take it a bit seriously. The wiki article addressing the history and present nature of anti-ginger discrimination has some interesting examples.