[aurelian]

If you call a person a racist, you're saying 1) that he has certain views about race, and you may also be saying 2) that he takes certain actions in line with those views. Saying someone can't be racist without power is saying "if criteria for definition 2 aren't met, then criteria for definition 1 are not met," which is silly.

[moo]

Racism Is any action or attitude, conscious or unconscious, that subordinates an individual or group based on skin colour or race. It can be enacted individually or institutionally.

Source: US Civil Rights Commission

How does your point 1 above satisfy the "subordinates an individual" criteria for the definition of racism by the US Civil Rights Commission? It doesn't! For your point 2, to subordinate someone you need power or institutional power backing you up. If you don't have institutional power then the person you're bothering ignores you, tells others and gives you a bad reputation with people, takes you to civil court, calls the police and you are then in jail. The repercussions commensurate with your actions. I argue that your point 2 does not subordinate a white person beyond that of being attacked by an individual or small group of people because you do have recourse by law to defend yourself or have them arrested. The same with any physical assault. The significance of racism is when the person may not have recourse to defend themselves or protection by the law because of racial bias then they are put in a position of subordination and controlled.

[moo]

Then you think racism can be fixed by just condemning publicly open displays of racial prejudice. So if a Michael Richards torpedoes his career by doing a public racist rant, I guess you would argue that is proof our society is not racist instead of saying that only public displays of racism is unseemly. Racism is institutionally perpetuated, that is where you fix things. Otherwise you limit condemnation of racism to public displays instead of finding the source of group behavior.