My thoughts on this aren't that well put together yet but I still think I want to add some things to the discussion.
you cannot say “…‘white people’ should really be the ones oppressed (lol).” and then when it is brought up that that is not what we fight for, and any opression is an injustice, we fight for the working class
To me this is just the class struggle of decolonization and national liberation of the third world. Much like in the class struggle of proletariat vs the bourgeoisie in the imperial core where the goal absolutely is for the proletariat to oppress the bourgeoisie by way of the dictatorship of the proletariat (in the long term, of course the goal is achieving communism). That same concept applied to race and colonial relations is solved not by putting the colonized on the same level as the colonist but by putting the previously oppressed on top. As Frantz Fanon says in The Wretched of the Earth: 'Decolonization, therefore, implies the urgent need to thoroughly challenge the colonial situation. Its definition can, if we want to describe it accurately, be summed up in the well-known words: "The last shall be first."'
Even with Cuba they have not and will not cultivate or hold hatred to the American People, and yes it is because of their political ideals, that being Marxism-Leninism, and their International Conscience.
I think the situation is different before and after the revolution and when considering the particular circumstances. Look at what Che said in 1954:
'Given this background, with American reality being what it is, it’s not difficult to suppose what will be the attitude of the working class of the North American country when the problem of the abrupt loss of markets and sources of cheap raw materials is definitively posed. (...) Let us prepare, then, to fight against the entire people of the United States...'
I agree that race is not a real thing, and so cannot be biological, and because race not being a real thing, the definitions are not consistent, and fusing on this made up division, only devides us, and does not in any way unify us
The ultimate goal is no division by race but that cannot be achieved simply and quickly as currently racialized people (by the very fact that they're racialized) are still not fully accepted into the category of people into which white people are fully accepted (white men specifically).
Again to quote Fanon: 'This compartmentalized world, this world divided in two, is inhabited by different species. The singularity of the colonial context lies in the fact that economic reality, inequality, and enormous disparities in lifestyles never manage to mask the human reality. Looking at the immediacies of the colonial context, it is clear that what divides this world is first and foremost what species, what race one belongs to. In the colonies the economic infrastructure is also a superstructure.'
And: 'It is not the factories, the estates, or the bank account which primarily characterize the "ruling class." The ruling species is first and foremost the outsider from elsewhere, different from the indigenous population, "the others."'
I think that to truly be against racial divisions we must be anti-white, just as to build a communist world we must first have a revolution and oppress the bourgeoisie out of existence. The concept of "white" presupposes and necessitates the existence of the other "black, or colored in general". The whole concept of "white", we know, comes from the colonial exploitation of the world by the imperial countries of Europe and North America so I think we as Marxists should be "anti-white" and not talk dismissively about race as it currently exists.
I am not saying you're chauvinistic but when talking like this about colonized and racialized people I think we can easily fall close to what Domenico Losurdo warns about in his book Class Struggle with regards to internationalism: 'This is a general rule: when it ignores the national question, internationalism turns into its opposite. The repression of national particularities in the name of an abstract ‘internationalism’ facilitates things for a nation intent presenting itself as the embodiment of the universal; and this is precisely what chauvinism—in fact, the most fanatical chauvinism—consists in.'
I agree that study guides should be updated and that for a basic study guide that one is a bit long and could be overwhelming. I always like sending people Blackshirts and Reds early on. Everyone recommends Principles of Communism, and for me it was the second work I've read (after the Manifesto) but I don't know how important it really is. It does answer some important questions but for me at least it wasn't that much of an impactful or formative work at the start. Maybe I'm just misremembering but I would like to hear if anyone had similar experiences. I still do like Lenin's Karl Marx and The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism as foundational works but I read those a bit later on so I don't know how they are for someone just coming into Marxism. The Five Essays I do like but I'm not familiar with the Red Deal so I can't comment on it. Also something like State and Revolution and What is to be done? are also very important IMO, but the latter needs a bit more context before jumping straight into it I think.
I think socialist history is in good part already covered through Marxist theory in general. Imperialism is definitely important but I don't know which works I would recommend apart from Lenin's. I don't know what the best book about modern day imperialism is. I know there is work by Michael Hudson, Zak Cope, Samir Amin, Emmanuel Arghiri, etc. but I don't know which I would recommend.
More and more I think Losurdo should be included fairly early on. His writings on a lot of topics are very clarifying, even for more advanced Marxists, and I think should be studied more widely. Maybe a good start would even be some articles like this one? Again, I guess it depends on where the person is coming from.