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Why Do We Continue To Use The Word Racism?
Racism is a divisive word. There is only one race of humans on the planet, the human race.
How can a person be “racist” towards a person of different skin color when that person is 99.9% of the same genetic makeup? If we continue to use the word “racism”, we are perpetuating the myth that the human race is divided into races or sub-races based on skin color.
When a person discriminates against another person of different skin color, that is bigotry. Pure and simple. Or, call it discrimination. Or call it exclusivism; According to the Oxford dictionary, the meaning of “exclusivism” is; an action or policy of excluding a person from a place, a group, or a privilege.
Or we could use the term “bigotry”. This means: excluding a person or people on the basis of their membership in a particular group. In this case, a particular group or groups of people would be groups of people of different skin colors. Makes sense to me.
However, I do not see any change coming. The word “racism”, even though it is incorrect, is ingrained and just plain wrong. We are not a planet populated by different races. We humans are all one race.
The following is an article published in the Atlantic Magazine in July 2019 that states:
