> I agree, as long as it can be established that it does indeed have a useful purpose as a descriptive term.

But it does. The definition has become more refined in order to be more useful. This is commonly done in science.

> You are surely aware that one fashionable definition of racism, with some academic support, is that it is equivalent to power or privilege, and therefore no member of a disadvantaged group can be racist, and all members of a privileged group are by definition racist.

This is very inaccurate. The "fashionable definition" you're is really a very simplified, catch-phrasy shorthand for something much more subtle, which is this: Racism is the property of a society or social dynamics that create and perpetuate an unfair distribution of power between groups viewed as races. It is this definition that is shortened to be "discrimination plus power". Obviously, groups that are powerless in a society cannot shape it to withdraw power from themselves, which is why we say, as shorthand, "blacks can't be racist". But it is important to understand that in either case the word does not refer to individuals and certainly not to their sentiments, but to the way they are a vessel for social dynamics. Blacks, by being less powerful, are not as strong conduits for social dynamics, and hence they are not the mechanism for the perpetuation of racism, and hence "they" "are" not racist.

> In addition to being needlessly provocative and drawing attention away from "real", intentional racism, this kind of definition is utterly useless from a descriptive standpoint. After all, if it is completely equivalent to power/privilege, why not use those words?

This is perhaps better called xenophobia, just as "intentional sexism" is better called misogyny. I don't think it is more or less real than the academic definition, but it's not as useful because research has shown that the main mechanism by which racism is perpetuated has little to do with people's conscious intentions. You want to use the description of the main effect, not secondary ones that are perhaps more emotionally obvious but far less influential in practice.

> And if racism occurs completely without choice on the part of the accused, is it not paradoxical to use it as a term of moral condemnation, since morality presumably requires choice?

Without intent does not mean without choice. When I smoke a cigarette I don't intend to make myself sick, but if I know that is the likely outcome, then by smoking I choose to increase my likelihood of getting sick even though it is not my intent. The "moral condemnation" of smoking is effective in reducing smoking by drawing attention to this unintentional choice.

> If abstract, nonhuman entities (societies, governments, etc) can be racist, apart from the racism of their constituent members, how can the same term be used as a term of moral condemnation?

This is related to my smoking analogy. Once you know that your actions are part of an unwanted social dynamics, you can choose to change them.

> But I am arguing that conflating these things with overt racism (or anything involving conscious choice, and therefore subject to moral condemnation) is intellectually muddled, counterproductive, and is at the heart of why conservatives are so angry about this issue.

Right, but as in my reply to 794CD01[1], the difference is what you view as the main issue. Conservatives may view the issue as merely ethical, and when it comes to ethics, intentions matter a lot. The left cares a lot more about the result, and it turns out that what you call "overt racism" has very little effect on the result, and it is racism in the broader sense that is much more important. The left wants to draw attention to what it views as the bigger problem.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12981522