1-Prejudice vs. Racism
The first thing to understand, is that “racism” and
“prejudice” are no longer one and the same. I know change is hard and
irritating, and the idea that words can change meaning over time, especially
without running it past you first, can be a real pain. But we have accepted the
change in certain word meanings over the decades. We no longer use words like
“gay” or “terrific” the way they were used originally. This is no different.
And yes, I am asking you to ignore the dictionary’s definition of the word “racism.” The people who experience racism have corrected the definition. They are the only ones who should be defining what it is.
“Prejudice”
is a feeling word. Anybody can have anger or hate against another group of
people, for whatever reason. All people have to deal with this issue, nobody is
immune from it. Non-white people can be prejudiced against white people.
“Racism”
is systemic. It is our government, education, health, policing, and judicial
systems. These systems were set up in this country, and the western world, by
white people, to benefit white people, at the detriment of all non-white
people. white people benefit from racist systems, automatically, from birth, as
did our ancestors, whether or not they were enslavers.
Many
say that the concept of racism is “prejudice plus power.” Anybody can be
prejudiced, but in this nation’s systems, only white people have the actual
power. Racism is generally used interchangeably with the term “white
supremacy,” which makes sense as that implies the power structure. Because it’s
systemic, our individual feelings and actions don’t really matter. We don’t
need to take it personally when our benefitting from a racist system is pointed
out to us. Because it’s systemic, it must be worked on collectively. And
because white people built this system to benefit only us, only we can
dismantle it. It’s literally not personal, it’s just our business to get rid of
it and rebuild a system, with everybody, to be equitable for all.
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