What exactly is racism? Mauve Maude defines, from prejudice to privilege.
June 25, 2020
In recent discussions, I’ve heard people on both sides of race arguments use the term “textbook racism” or “textbook racist” to label and discredit their opponents. It sounds like a very strong and effective way to make one’s point. But in many contexts, unfortunately, I’ve been left to wonder if the accusers actually knew what the textbook definition of racism is. In order to be a racist of the textbook variety or any other, one must actually practice racism. But the definition can seem somewhat complicated. So what is racism? I’d like to preface this explanation by pointing out that a label of racism doesn’t have to be a permanent one. Racism can be changed, hence the discussions.
Merriam-Webster defines racism as (italics and parentheses added):
1. 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
2a. a doctrine or political program based on the assumption of racism and designed to execute its principles
2b. a political or social system founded on racism
3. racial prejudice or discrimination
I’d like to talk specifically about prejudice and discrimination shortly, but first let’s secure some other understandings in the definition above. Politics, or things political, pertain to the art or science concerned with guiding or influencing governmental policy, or to put it harder, the art or science concerned with winning and holding control over a government. So a political system that is founded on or runs under the assumption of racism, of bestowed superiority and power, granted and assumed accordingly, would be a definitive racist political system. Society, or things social, pertain to an enduring and cooperating social group whose members have developed organized patterns of relationships through interaction with one another. A social system that is founded on or runs under the assumption of racism, would be a definitive racist society. The term “systemic” means of, relating to, or common to a system: such as (being) fundamental to a predominant social, economic, or political practice. Systemic racism is racism that’s woven into socioeconomic and sociopolitical fabric, and therefore, an essential part of that fabric.
“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”
Merriam-Webster
So let’s clearly define race, as it’s the basis of what we’re talking about:
- a breeding stock of animals (which scientifically, we, the human race, are)
- a family, tribe, people, or nation belonging to the same stock
- a class or kind of people unified by shared interests, habits, or characteristics
- an actually or potentially interbreeding group within a species (hmm)
- a category of humankind that shares certain distinctive physical traits
When we attempt to categorize people by race, we tend to organize them, the people, into as few distinguishable groups as possible, with some variances in specificity. Typically we start with African, Asian, Caucasian, or Hispanic. But if you look just a little further, considering the geography of where humans have moved on this planet, you’ll find that you have to start breaking those categories into smaller groups pretty quickly. And lots of them. Because in the thousands of years we’ve been crawling around this little planet, we’ve done a lot of traveling, and we have done a lot of breeding. So realistically, all these categories do for us is give us a way to sort ourselves, which our brains are programmed to do. It helps us all to survive, and we can’t help it. But beyond that, rationally, it’s more or less just imagery. I only took a few classes on this point, in several different subjects, so forgive my brevity. But really, scientifically, we’re all just one race with more similarities than differences. Until social order and politics come in.
Side note. My observation: Most of us want to operate on this knowledge of shared humanity. We all want to just get along. We want to feel warm and fuzzy sometimes, and feel free all of the time. Save for a few who haven’t found contentment in that, and feel that ruling the world is the only thing that would make them happy. More on them later.
Racism, as we determined earlier, is a power structure based on the idea of inherent racial superiority, meaning that one racial category of people is superior in all things to another, just by virtue of race itself. One must believe they level above, and for that to happen, another must level below. So logically, a racist group of any kind is one that aims to level their power as high as possible, with others below. This would serve the obvious purpose of lessening their worry over the ordeals we suffer under the human condition, by getting other people to worry for them. Are there other ways to lessen worry? Many think so and would prefer them. Does admitting we’re all just one race kind of destroy the idea of racial leveling? Yes. Does it destroy the reality that racism exists? No.
“a category of humankind that shares certain distinctive physical traits”
Merriam-Webster
So can anybody of any race be a racist? Sure. If one subscribes to the belief that one race should be in power over another, or if one commits or contributes energy to keeping a racist system in place, that person would qualify. We can even hold a racist attitude toward ourselves, and I’d venture to say plenty of people in this country have learned to do so and struggle to unlearn it. But due to the nature of racism, as it’s defined, a racist mindset points downward on the sociopolitical scale, not up. The point of racism is to keep a group of people, or many groups of people, disempowered. Down. Below. And time only moves forward; we can’t back it up. That’s why the idea of reverse racism is an invalid one. There is only racism. It has no reverse.
If there’s any question as to how a given society or government has utilized the assumption of racial superiority for its power structures, one might just study that nation’s history. Admittedly, that can get complicated. Some lands have been occupied longer than others, and many nations have risen and fallen on them. And even if we were to take one of the younger nations on the planet as an example, we would still have many years of history to parse through. Fortunately we have professional historians who spend their lives doing just that, and can provide us with nuanced snapshots of days gone by. Fortunately we have records and documentation, thanks to journalists, writers, photographers, filmmakers. For the rest of us, we tend to skim over the most exciting plot points, learned in secondary school and beyond, and if we’re further interested, study up on our own. And of course, all of us who are still living, have our own personal accounts and perspectives, or the ones handed down to us from those who came before.
I am not going to break down the history of this country for you.
This combination of historians, professionals, students, seekers of personal interest, and living witnesses, have managed to cobble together an account of this country’s history that’s, well, quite a bit racist. Our society and government were clearly formed under an assumption that one group was superior over the others present, and therefore deserved ultimate power. It is documented and undeniable. And you may have noticed we seem to have come to a sort of crossroads in our discussions and handling of it. Now I am not going to break down the history of this country for you. I am not going to provide you with links or titles or very many examples. It’s history. That means it’s out there, recorded, for us to study. People wrote it down or put it on film or audio, exactly for us. If we want to know it, we must study it, like anything and anyone else. If we don’t want to know, we’re free to ignore it. But if we choose to ignore it, it doesn’t behoove us to contribute an opinion, and our opinions on this topic aren’t as useful as targeted efforts anyway. We can certainly open our mouths and speak them, or punch them out furiously in a comment box. But anyone who has studied this country’s history, whether it be in books, journals, documentaries, or lived experience, will know how little an unstudied speaker knows. And in that case what we say is meaningless. We are not infants. We have to pay attention to earn attention.
So let’s talk about how this might have happened. Here’s where we come back to prejudice and discrimination. These are two of racism’s most powerful tools.
Prejudice and Discrimination
Prejudice is 1) injury or damage resulting from some judgment or action of another in disregard of one’s rights, especially : detriment to one’s legal rights or claims, 2a) a preconceived judgment or opinion, an adverse opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge, 2b) an instance of such judgment or opinion, 2c) an irrational attitude of hostility directed against an individual, a group, a race, or their supposed characteristics. This tool has been used in American society since indigenous people began sharing their land with explorers and settlers, and subsequently had their power violently stripped from them. It was reinvigorated when slaves were emancipated. Prior to that point in time, slaves had no legal rights, and the Bible was used to justify their enslavement. When that was no longer the case, when slaves were freed, race-based judgments and their subsequent actions came to work, and freed slaves were systematically deprived of the rights they had gained for another century, before the government took legal action to try to start making it right. Biases, sometimes even subconscious ones, still remain today from prejudice used then and since, to try to keep indigenous and Black people disempowered, and other people of color as well, as they arrived. (Bias is an inclination of temperament or outlook, especially : a personal and sometimes unreasoned judgment : PREJUDICE.) Stereotyping has also played a key role, for stereotyping props up the rationale for prejudice and bias. (A stereotype is something conforming to a fixed or general pattern, especially : a standardized mental picture that is held in common by members of a group and that represents an oversimplified opinion, prejudiced attitude, or uncritical judgment.) It is what “allows” a prejudiced mind to apply judgment to anyone of a given race, based on the behavior or character of others of that race, with little or no regard to the individual.
Discrimination is prejudiced or prejudicial outlook, action, or treatment (for example racial discrimination), the act, practice, or an instance of discriminating categorically rather than individually. America’s segregational history would provide multitudinous examples of racial discrimination, but there’s been plenty of discrimination for other categories of human beings as well. And these definitions can absolutely apply to them too.
Now, though these two bedfellows are very important to the construction of a racist society such as ours, they are not necessarily racism in and of themselves. Can someone of any race be prejudiced? Certainly. Anyone who judges another based on their racial category alone, and not on individual behavior and character, is exhibiting prejudice. Can someone of any race discriminate? Yes. Anyone who takes adverse action against an individual, or treats them a certain way solely because of their race, is practicing racial discrimination.
“an adverse opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge“
Merriam-Webster
However, key as prejudice and discrimination are to racism, they’re not the most important tool. The most important tool, the very foundation the other tools stand upon, is ignorance. In order to support prejudice, the individual must be ignored. And this ignorance doesn’t actually present itself as outright bigotry, or devoted cries of committing society or the world to racial supremacy (the world-rulers I spoke of earlier). Those are just the noises drowning out what’s really working, and that is silence. What progress has been made to dismantle racism in our country, has depended on oppressed people calling it out, and the beneficiaries of racism listening, and stepping up to help. Acknowledgement of the problem is the first step in solving the problem. Where racism isn’t acknowledged, it will fester. Where it is ignored, it will flourish.
Who’s Responsible?
The reasons one would choose to ignore racism are fairly obvious. Racism keeps people in the social structure that was built to empower one group, and disempower others. Some who are disempowered will accept that lot, be complacent, and stay where they are. Others will fight. Some who are empowered will also accept that lot, be complacent, and stay where they are. But where the empowered people are, no matter their comfort level with it, is on top. They receive the benefits of the system, as it was built, and as it was designed, even though they weren’t there when the building started.
This is what we call racial privilege. But there are all kinds of privilege. Anybody of any race can recognize the privilege they have. It can come into any area of our lives: our abilities, our sexual or gender identity, whatever reflects society’s attitudes towards us. It’s important not to associate the word “privilege” with wealth in this context. The wealthy are certainly privileged, especially those who are born into generational wealth. But anybody with an advantage over others, by no means of their own, has privilege also. It is simply an advantage over others that you did nothing to earn. And because you did nothing for it, you don’t get to choose whether or not you have it. It’s important to also acknowledge privilege. Because those who have privilege can help those who don’t. If they so choose, they can use it to empower the disempowered.
Where racism isn’t acknowledged, it will fester. Where it is ignored, it will flourish.
But alas, some of those who wish to keep the benefits of racism will also fight. They will view the empowerment of others as a threat. They will fight to hold their position, their power, sometimes very openly, sometimes perhaps subconsciously. They will fight to keep their privilege, often by denying it exists. They will push others down and attempt to silence them. They will attack or dismiss their complaints. They will resist doing the right thing even when they know what’s wrong, because they fear what will happen if they lose that seat. They will deny responsibility; they will refuse to respond to the problem. They will refuse to even acknowledge it. They will remain silent. They will uphold the system. Willingly. And all of this will come at the further expense of those who’ve been oppressed.
That is textbook racism.
What is not racism?
Discussing race. Discussing racism. Calling racism out, currently or historically. Stating facts. Lifting up the rug and sweeping out the truth. Calling privilege out. Calling ignorance out. Pointing out inequalities and injustice. Talking about trauma. Imploring the beneficiaries of racism in your country to step up, step out, and help dismantle an oppressive system. These things are actually textbook anti-racism.
“a preconceived judgment or opinion”
Merriam-Webster
Can a person be prejudiced against racists? No. Because you can’t tell by looking at someone’s face whether they’re a racist or not. Racists and anti-racists look the same. You might say “I don’t see color”. It sounds nice, but that’s not true. Stereotypes and biases exist. We know stereotypes, and we all have biases, everybody. But I and many others have learned that they’re best not applied. We can learn to rationalize them out of the equation when we meet a new person. No person of color has the luxury of ignoring and dismissing their allies, so perhaps nobody should. I personally have seen racism up close and personal many, many times, and I always remember its face after I’ve seen it. But I didn’t identify it by the color of the person’s skin. I identified it by their behavior. And because I don’t easily give up on a racist’s human ability to learn, I will keep talking about it.
So next time you hear me or anyone else decrying racism or racists, if you feel personally hurt or angered by what’s been said, if you feel targeted, I would suggest that you mind this piece of advice and try to remember. Before you say something you can’t unsay, ask yourself what it is inside you, that you recognized in what was said. Go from there.
[And an update on second thought: You can find more about racism in America’s past under American History. Because it turns out I still have plenty to write about.]