So, for example, where once people might say that blacks are X, Germans are Y, or Jews Z because of intrinsic qualities--godly design, genetics, or whatever mechanism du jure--today such people might instead admit, at least to some extent, the historical accidents and cultural forces that assigned the supposed group traits.

So where once upon a time people claimed that blacks were more prone to criminal behavior by their nature, today they might say that rap culture teaches and perpetuates violence. They might admit that slavery and Jim Crow is at the root of black poverty, but then they'll say something like, "but now they have equality of opportunity", implying that any failures to advance are personal failures.

Jews are good with money not because they're greedy, baby eating Jesus killers but because they were relegated to that role by limitations on the types of work they were permitted it perform in Medieval Europe. (Even many liberals believe this, and while I suppose it's infinitely more true than Jews being baby eaters I think that narrative is much more self-serving and misleading than people realize.)

Such thinking often starts and ends in the same places in terms reinforcing hierarchies, but it's circuitous. These are narratives that people engage with more critically, as opposed to passively receiving and internalizing ideas about intrinsic traits. They tweak them to incorporate their own lived experiences, and the narratives are generally more dynamic. Crucially, they recognize the role of extrinsic factors.

Or take the narrative about how women's bodies can prevent pregnancy after a rape: it's obvious people who espouse this narrative are attempting to resolve some serious cognitive dissonance about a woman's autonomy. But that means they've already internalized the legitimacy of a woman's autonomy, it's just that they're not prepared to let it displace other deeply held ideas about women's role in society.

Even the most progressive Americans and Europeans struggle with the "problem" of the hijab. It's less of a problem for Southern conservatives--the hijab is clearly a symbol of male religious domination that should be opposed. It's just so weird. You would think Southern evangelicals would better understand how a women could legitimately and voluntarily take up such a strict cultural discipline. Where I lived many evangelical women, especially the Pentecostals, wore ankle length skirts, plain clothing, and kept long, straight hair.

This is all progress, I think. In many, perhaps most places in the world these aren't questions you ask. People will literally say that racism doesn't exist one moment and the next moment they'll explain how group A are the garbage collectors and group B the shop keepers as if their society was a carefully and perfectly constructed utopia. They tell you the sexes are coequal while finding the notion of a woman CEO preposterous. And I suppose in some way they're right. Can there be racism or sexism when people can't even conceive of an alternative world, or at least conceive of it as being anything other than farcical?