I know the answer seems obvious but when I tried to delve into deeper I realized that it actually is annoyingly hard to answer. I'll expand my question so there will be no confusion about what I meant.

When it's said that "Person P is racist", it's implied P is a bad person or P's certain qualities are bad. So racism has evaluative implications. In some of the cases (such as institutional racism -e.g., slavery, Jim Crow laws - or crude racism -calling a black person N-word) racism is obvious and we generally have an intuitive understanding of why that is bad. I'm not talking about these cases. What I have in mind is more subtle yet some people hold they too are obvious.

Suppose that in a fictional world W^Q, there are four racial groups: Tinky Winkies, Dipsies, Lalas and Pos. As a member of the Lala, Jonny believes that Pos have low cognitive capacity, they have low IQ. Does that make Jonny a racist and consequently bad person?

Further suppose that, Jonny also believes that while the Lala have low cognitive capacity, they are naturally great cooks. As a result, when he needs a help with something that requires more than average intellect, he never asks his Po neighboor who lives in next door for help since he assumes he couldn't properly help him. However whenever he needs help with his kitchen his nextdoor is always his first choice because of his belief about Pos' being great cooks. Does that make Jonny a racist and consequently a bad person?

Now, in the same world Sally,a Tinky Winky, holds the belief that Dipsies have unusually high cognitive capacity, they have high IQ. Does that make Sally a racist and consequently bad person?

Now, as we are supposing lots of things let's add some other things. Imagine that in W^Q, it's statistically/factually correct that the Po have lower intellect and Jonny is aware of that. So he's epistemically justified in his belief about the Po being cognitively inferior. Does this make a difference about his racism and bad personness?

Again, let's assume that it's the opposite and in W^Q, the Po are not statistically/factually have lower intellect, actually they are above average. However, as most normal people Jonny is a bad epistemic agent so he doesn't do his research properly, he just holds his belief "Pos have low cognitive capacity" because he heard somewhere it once and took it face value. Is he a racist because he's a bad epistemic agent? Even if Jonny holds these beliefs as mere descriptive propositions and believes The Principle of Moral Equality, that all people -regardless of their race, sex or any other group affiliation- all people are prima facie morally equal, is he still a racist and consequently bad person?

---The end of counterfactuals---

Maybe I can summarize my question in a more direct way: Our world consists of different groups and it's only natural that groups share some common qualities, it doesn't matter what these qualities are. Is believing this an inherently bad thing even if some of those beliefs include not-so-nice propositions?

My problem is I geniunely don't know the answer to the questions above and find them hard to answer. Is racism all about intent? Evaluative stance (i.e., not believing in Moral Equality Principle, saying some people have no or less inherent value)? Bad epistemic agency? What if being a good epistemic agent leads you to believe not-so-nice propositions about a race or a sex? If I believe that men are more prone to violence than women, does this makes me a sexist since data supports this? Or I believe men and women have different natures as a result of evolutionary history? Is it about in-group bias, not expanding your circle?

Ps: Btw, I think there's a big problem if a statement's truth value determines someones racism/sexism, because I think it requires an infallibilist epistemology in order to talk about racism/sexism in a meaningful way or at least absolves most racists/sexists from their racism/sexism but that's for another discussion.