I think “racism” is one of those terms that people don’t bother defining because everyone “knows” what it means. But after a few go-rounds in different debates we often see that different people mean very different things.
So, let’s define it. I’ll start.
I think “racism” means the following: **the conscious belief that at least one race is inherently and irredeemably inferior to at least one other race. ** A “racist” is someone who holds this conscious belief.
Some aspects of this definition:
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“Belief” is what matters here. There are lots of reasons why one person may support or not support a particular policy, and I don’t think it’s helpful to call a person a racist just because they don’t support a policy that is likely to help people of a race different than theirs.
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The word “conscious” is in there because I think we should only condemn people for the beliefs they choose to hold. If you think that every single person has an unconscious aversion to races that are different than their own, then I don’t think that makes every single person a racist. “Inherent aversion to other races” is just a different phenomenon than “racism” and may be interesting to discuss on its own in certain contexts–but it shouldn’t get lumped into racism.
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The “inherently and irredeemably inferior” part is to get at the Bell Curve idea. That is, I don’t think that people who perform studies that show that certain characteristics vary along racial lines are racists for that reason alone (and same goes for people that don’t automatically reject those studies). Stated another way, it is perfectly OK to think that white people on average have a lower IQ than Asian people on average if that is what is shown by legitimate scientific research, and thinking that doesn’t make one a racist.
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I have made the definition neutral as to one’s own race. Therefore, if a black person has a conscious belief that Asians are inherently and irredeemably inferior to white people, then I think that black person is a racist. I don’t think there’s a lot of value in this aspect of my definition, but it’s in there so far nevertheless.
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Some people like to think that “race” doesn’t exist. So, one part of my definition is that “race” does exist, at least in the mind of the person that we are trying to determine is a racist.
OK, there’s my definition. Please feel free to fiddle with it or propose your own.