Like others, the Merriam-Webster dictionary has, up to now, given us what we might consider the 1.0 definition of racism, the one we would cite for the curious child. That is, what used to be referred to as prejudiced: “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.”
Since the 1960s, however, racism has often been used in terms such as societal racism and institutional racism, referring to structures of society that disadvantage people of subordinated races because of the collective effect of bigoted attitudes. For example, one might say that societal racism is to blame for neighborhoods with decaying infrastructure, because white flight lowered tax revenues.
Read Full Article »