Definitions of Racism [View all]

[Chitown Kev]

Really.

I have a BA in classics and was one class short of a double major in classics in English.

On my bookshelf, I can easily put my hands on a number of dictionaries, including a Latin-English dictionary, a Koine-Greek lexicon, an old Webster's Unabridged, Merriam Webster's Collegiate (10th), a dusty copy of H.L. Mencken's "The American Language" (Supplement One) and I believe that I may even have German-English and French-English dictionaries floating around somewhere in the house.

In the course of writing this post, I JUST looked up and noticed that I have a mini-law dictionary (Barron's and not Black's.

Never mind other reference materials about the English language and its evolution that I can't put my hands on at this moment.

And folks are going to come on here and think that I'm impressed that they can give the meaning of "racism" as it stands in the dictionary at this moment...as if I don't know that word meanings and language grammars don't evolve over a period of time.

And as if I don't know that if a term is used in a certain context enough, that definition will be recognized in any reliable and up to date dictionary in due course...you may want to reference recent controversies of the word "marriage."

But...no, I'm too lazy right now to do a small amount of research. So I'll link to a couple of items that I found online about the definition of the word "racism" and let y'all have at it...

Let's use Oxford:

[mass noun]

1Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior:

Let's use Wikipedia, which keeps rather up to date and is protean rather than fixed, with the many controversies surrounding the mere issue of the definition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism

here's the link to an npr story

http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/01/05/260006815/the-ugly-fascinating-history-of-the-word-racism

any other materials you might have would be welcomed.

Point being: Language is very rarely fixed and highly variable. Neither "racism" or many other words have a "fixed" definition. Preferences abound.