The word “racism” has multiple meanings, somewhat related, and the differences in those meanings leads people into some very sterile arguments. It is a 20th century word; there is no known use in print before 1902. It originally referred to a series of pseudoscientific theories about some fixed number of human “races” with distinct biological characteristics that went far beyond skin and hair color or facial features. There was always a hierarchy attached, too. These theories - despite being completely unfounded - were taught in schools and in museum exhibits and were treated as fact well past the Second World War.
The social systems - both legal and customary - of upholding white supremacy and policing that hierarchy have also come to be called racism. These systems actually were the main support of the fake science. Think about it: A color line policed by terror, everyday custom, and actual police confines African Americans to unskilled work except in their own community. White people can then be reinforced in the otherwise-bizarre belief that unskilled work is the biological limit of African American capacity. This second definition is what people mean when they say that racism = prejudice + power. It is the reason people argue that only white people can be racist; that other people may have prejudices, but that they don’t have the power to make turn those prejudices into the structure of society.
A third use is the one that puts people on the other side of that argument. They understand racism to mean dislike of another race. They point to the anti-black sentiments that white supremacy has successfully indoctrinated into so many other people of color and say, “See! These people are racist, too!” They point to the suspicion, resentment, and anger toward white people that so many African Americans have developed after 400 years of white supremacist rule in all its historic forms and say, “See! Black people can be racist, too!” I say this is a sterile argument because the two sides are using the word in different ways. What is decidedly not sterile is the observation that the people who say “You’re racist, too!” are drawing a false equivalence. Even when we have individual African American people holding leading positions (mayors, Representatives, a President of the United States) the system of white supremacy continues to make the relationships asymmetric.
There is another popular usage for the word that is still more problematic. The word racism has come to be identified as a form of hatred. This distracts us from looking at both social systems and their ideological supports. It directs our attention to individuals. It treats what should be understood in terms of political and economic power as the pathology of an individual. But that is not all. It concludes that those individuals are not moved by racism unless they are screaming epithets at others, unless they are burning crosses, unless they are actively participating in lynch mobs. I have made the observation above that a system with a strongly-policed and distinctly hierarchical color line actually encourages white and Black people to come into regular and intimate contact. That contact doesn’t require white people to “hate” Black people. Quite the contrary. Why would a child hate the nanny who raises her? Why would a family hate the cook who prepares their meals? Why would a man hate the servant who accompanies him at all times and assists him with his daily chores? Hate isn’t just unnecessary to white supremacy. For the most powerful white people it is almost inconceivable that they would “hate” people who - as their subordinates - are such close companions in life.
Every day we see the otherwise-incomprehensible spectacle of white people who quite obviously believe that Black people are fundamentally different, inferior, and frightening, but who nevertheless quite sincerely believe that they are not racist, and who are insulted and hurt by the thought that somebody else might think so! “I don’t call them that bad name; why are they saying I’m racist?” “I never personally owned any slaves; why are they saying I’m racist?” Or, in the case of President Donald Trump: I like to have my picture taken with popular Black entertainers and athletes; “I’m the least racist person there is anywhere in the world!” We look at those people and think that they’re lying, both to us and to themselves. But when we say that racism is a form of hate, we allow people to believe that they are free of racism because they are - most of the time - semi-courteous.
I am not going to make a fussy argument for precision in language. People use words the way they use them and we can’t fix that. But I will argue that if we understand the range of meanings a word can have it helps us see more clearly.
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