(bumped up from Tuesday morning)
Funk & Wagnall’s Dictionary Definition of racism: A belief in or advocacy of the superiority or inferiority of a particular group on the basis of supposed racial differences.
Not so much anymore…
Real racism exists. And it’s bad news. It devalues who we are as thinking beings. It exposes innocents to hate and oppression. It disrespects, as Martin Luther King observed, the option to assess people as individuals and on the basis of their character.
Not too long ago, to call someone a “RACIST” was a condemnation reserved for those who displayed their ignorance and intolerance against an entire people.
But the term has been watered down so thin that it has almost lost its meaning.
Currently you can be called (and may have been already) a racist IF:
You were a Hillary Clinton supporter. (That’s when most of us got first stung with the label.)
You are a Republican (and maybe a Blue Dog Democrat).
You attended a town hall meeting because you were concerned about what was going to happen to your health care.
And most notably, you disagree with anything President Obama proposes or endorses.
Obama’s supporters and campaign started expanding the use of the R word by suggesting that criticisms of him on the basis of his Chicago associates, his razor-thin resume, and the blanks in his record were mere smoke screens to hide seething racism. That many of us could have genuine concerns about an individual candidate that transcended race was summarily dismissed.
Damage has been done. But the victims are no longer those who endured that dreaded label slung wide to politically intimidate us. The attempted manipulation was soon seen for what it was. And with that discernment, the term “racist” became neutralized.
But there are victims. Those who endure true racism are now deprived of a once powerful term to describe what it is. And words matter. If there is no word to clearly describe something, it essentially doesn’t exist.