I am not sure the author of this piece has a clear understanding of racism, racial prejudice, or just how pervasive many of these ideologies are. Generally, when speaking academically or socioeconomically, "racism" means the way in which various power structures discriminate against groups of people based on their race in a negative and detremental way. Policies like redlining, police brutality and it's lack of punishment, and exclusionary governmental tactics that see people in camps, reservations, ghettos, etc. "Racial prejudice" is typically used to note certain people not getting along due to racially motivated reasons or poorly thought out stereotypes. Colloquially, we use the word "racism" to describe every type of racial discrimination, but are seldom looking to be exceptionally accurate when doing so.
A major aspect of racism is "power" for instance, and it isn't mentioned at all. Also, there seems to be a greater focus on who is or is not racist without enough focus on the conceit of the article that Racism is a religion. Also, the breakdown of "true racisim" and "not true racism (I'll call it 'fake racism") is not described well enough to help me understand how or why the author broke things down in that way.
As far as beauty standards are concerned, due to a long history of racism, plunder, and racial profiteering in the united states, beauty standards are absolutely affected by racism. People are able to like who they like for whatever reasons they wish, but excluding peoples of a different race from one's romantic interests is most definitely racially motivated and prejudiced.
In other words, it's not "not racist" just because preference is involved. It's still racism. It just not as or affecting as something like burning crosses or lynch mobs.
Racism is about more than what people think, and very much about how they act and what they do. Because the most racially prejudiced things to me are how people don't really read books on or study racism enough to give themselves a greater understanding of it before commenting as if they were authorities. Books like The People's History of The United States, the work of Ta-nihisi Coates for the Atlantic and his own book "Between The World and Me", and several other Black and Brown Authors do a great job of outlining race, racism, and the insidious networks and thought processes that keep it around and en vogue.
RE: Racism is a religion I do not (and will never) subscribe to