Let me be very clear: I am saying you are a racist independent of whether or not you recognize differences between races, real or imagined.
Of course it has negative connotations. Most people don't like racists. You can't seem to deal with that, and your weasel words make you a coward. Whose respect are you trying to earn (or keep) anyway? I'll tell you something, owning up to it won't lose you any more respect. But at least you'd be less insufferable.
Okay then, I'm a racist, and I'm only saying that because I don't want to seem as insufferable as you make me out to be. See? I can be accommodating. However, your first sentence is not at all clear, because you contradict yourself. You are saying that I am a racist independent of whether I recognize differences between people based on the concept of "race". Well, no, calling me a "racist" is absolutely dependent on whether I see race as a real thing, not a concept, and on whether I use it to gauge people based on their differences, which are most obviously indicated by skin color.
"Racism is generally defined as actions, practices, or beliefs that reflect the racial worldview: the ideology that humans are divided into separate and exclusive biological entities called "races". This ideology entails the belief that members of a race share a set of characteristic traits, abilities, or qualities, that traits of personality, intellect, morality, and other cultural behavioral characteristics are inherited, and that this inheritance means that races can be ranked as innately superior or inferior to others."
Of course it has negative connotations. Most people don't like racists. You can't seem to deal with that, and your weasel words make you a coward. Whose respect are you trying to earn (or keep) anyway? I'll tell you something, owning up to it won't lose you any more respect. But at least you'd be less insufferable.