This is an interesting, and largely right, post, but there's one problem: It never defends the choice to use "white" to mean this. You accurately note that people who complain about this often conflate this meaning of "white" with the racial designation, but do not seem to see this as problematic.

I figured the problem was more its resemblance to certain kinds of children's candy.

Clearly the only kind of meaningful conflict is about people whose survival is at risk.

I was going to quibble that the 1947 Walter Mitty film is an adaptation of a short story, but then I remembered the many ways that didn't matter.