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"Racism" isn't about words, it's not "rudeness" or even "bigotry"; it's about the power to delineate/exclude groups of human beings
First of all, "races" aren't a thing. They don't exist. The idea of biological races is archaic pseudoscience
Here's a piece by @jeffersonfish, a Professor Emeritus with 12 books on race, on why races don't exist: psychologytoday.com/blog/looking-i…
So what is "race"? It's a social construct. Who constructs it and why? Those in power do, in order to delineate and include/exclude people
What do I mean by include/exclude? Well, include or exclude from the rights/protections the state purportedly ensures everyone equally
"Oh but I do advocate equal rights". Well of course you do. The question is the long list of exceptions, all the "but's"...
"All people are equal, but some are more equal than others". Some can be shot extrajudicially, excluded physically, left to die, expelled...
You see this? The whole "they're others, they're a threat, exclude them" thing? Racism is about having/applying the power to do so. 
Racism is, then, tightly coupled with statism, "sovereignty", and power - by those in power or those who aspire to power.
Now go back to these few statements:
"I'm not a racist, I have many Black friends": Do you want Blacks on the whole to have the same status in society as everyone else?
"You're being racist towards white people": Do I have any power to exclude white people, and indeed am I advocating excluding them?
"Islamophobia isn't racism because Muslims aren't a race": Do you advocate excluding Muslims as a group and treating them as a threat?
Races don't exist (except as a social construct). Racism is about the power to impose this social construct and all its legal ramifications.
