I think there's a small amount of truth to it especially when people target someone like Luna Oi, but at least for now it's in the vast majority of cases an equivalent of chud or lib etc. and historically was a term made by mostly white British leftists to make fun of other mostly white British leftists, not something to describe groups of people in the global south.

I think this is pretty similar energy to right wing ppl / libs last year claiming using gusano is racist, obviously the people who get called gusano are almost always more reactionary than people that get called tankies outside of maybe like 1 or 2 of nazbols, but I think neither in his words are frequently racist, and it's a weird energy especially as Ben Norton is a white American guy and seems more about wanting to own the people who use tankie as an insult than it is about making a stand against any racism happening.

https://unofficialbird.com/BenjaminNorton/status/1609586255641169921#m

  • Abstraction [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Eh, it's not really any more racist than any other insult in a racist society. When a group of people is criticized, even if the object of criticism is the whole group, it is often in practice directed disproportionately at the more oppressed parts of the group. This is further amplified by how the internet works. The use of term is of course affected by a racist worldview, but so is the use of every other term, and I don't think racism is very primary in this case, or else you would also have to argue that "liberal" is a racist term.