You're mischaracterizing the use of the strawman example, I think. I used it as a rhetorical device for highlighting the weak points in an argument with greater clarity than in the original; once the weak points are identified, they can be addressed as they actually are, not in exaggerated form.

Anyway, it would be good if you would highlight the differences between racism and not-racism with very clear examples of each type: this is almost certainly racism, that is almost certainly not racism. Your blanket assertions that seem to say that racism is vanishingly rare are not the least bit convincing.

This is one reason why your conversation with Mia was so unproductive. It was mostly a back-and-forth of "you're seeing things", "no, you're blind", "no, you're seeing things", "no, you're blind" with no progression in evidence or argumentation.

If you lead with examples, at least you have an opportunity to make progress by agreeing on the most egregious cases and then working on less obvious ones. It still might go nowhere but at least there's a chance of coming to greater understanding and agreement through dialog. it's not the only way to have a chance, but it's better than what was in evidence.