Race:

• Race is an identity based concept evolved from what’s known as “race theory”, which is a pseudo scientific idea that developed largely in the 18th century among students and professors in northern European universities, particularly in the Lower Saxony state of modern day Germany.

• Johann Blumenbach (1752-1840), a young German medical student at Göttingen, who believed that intelligence was determined by skull size and shape, created a color coded classification system for the known world’s people:

  • “Caucasoid” - white (Europe)

  • “Mongoloid” - yellow (Asia)

  • “Negroid” - black (Africa)

  • “Australoid” - brown/red (everyone else)

• Despite being entirely specious (superficially plausible, but factually wrong), white land owners and businessmen in the colonies, and later in the newly founded United States of America, used this baseless categorization of humans as a moral or intellectual basis for their social classification system, which is still sown into the legal fabric of the entire United States to this day.

• Inherently, race in this country operates as a caste system, where having the legal designation of “white” affords you access to this country’s economic and social institutions, and if you are not white, access is heavily gate-kept if not outright denied.

Prejudice:

• Prejudice is a pre-judgement that informs the levels of empathy and respect someone instinctively affords someone else, often an implicit or sub-conscious bias.

• By definition, prejudice is not inherently negative or positive in nature, it can be either depending on the situation.

• This is a naturally evolved trait in humans, as well as other species, that helps protect us from danger, however, most of the prejudices we hold are not naturally occurring but rather are informed by the circumstances and ideologies we grew up in.

Race Prejudice:

• When we put these two words together, it describes the type of prejudice people harbor, and may allude to why they have this prejudice for or against a racialized group.

• All people in the United States have racial prejudices, whether it be a prejudice for or against a certain racial group; it’s one example of what is commonly referred to as an “implicit bias”.

• However, being racially prejudice is not the same as being racist…

Institutional:

• This is a descriptive word, used to identify things that are related to, or characteristic of, an institution.

• Institution has two definitions, both related, yet distinct:

  • A society or organization founded for a religious, educational, social, political, or similar purpose.

  • An established law, practice, or custom.

• In the context of government, both definitions apply; the institution of government institutes a state’s laws, so it refers to both the organization itself, as well as the practices and customs the organization establishes.

Power:

• Similar to prejudice, power is not inherently positive or negative, it is simply a part of evolutionary life. There are power dynamics within ever species of life on the planet earth, even power dynamics between the planet earth and other solar bodies.

• For all living things, as well as institutions, having and wielding power is essential to accomplishing anything, especially on a large scale.

• Even though power is a neutral concept, its inherent meaning does necessitate influencing others to do what you want them to do. On an interpersonal basis, there is relatively balanced power (or at the very least availability for it), but as it relates to institutions that dictate the laws of individuals, balance of power is incredibly difficult to find.

Institutional Power:

• While power itself is wielded by individuals for individuals, institutional power is wielded by individuals with the support, and on behalf of institutions for the benefit of institutions themselves (and the people who comprise them).

• Anybody can have power, however, you can only have institutional power if you align with the values, assimilate into the culture and customs, or have financial ties to that institution.

Racism:

What turns racial prejudice into racism is the backing of institutional power, and the internalization of this ideology.

So, in the United States of America, when you hold racial bias in favor of white people and/or against BIPOC, and you have access to, or influence over, institutions and systems sanctioned by the United States government, you are by definition racist, because the institutions supporting you share your racial prejudice in favor of white people and/or against BIPOC.

Now let’s pause, because this next piece is absolutely crucial…

Look at this again:

Racism =

Race Prejudice + Institutional Power

With this definition, what racialized group could be called racist? In this country specifically, on a nationwide level, who has the ideological backing of America’s institutions?

Because all people in this country harbor racial prejudices, whether conscious or sub-conscious, and all white people have some level of direct access to institutions of social support, which are themselves prejudice in favor of white people, historically and currently, this means that in this country specifically, all white people are racist and only white people can be racist…

Once again, let’s pause. I know you may feel defensive, and that reaction is perfectly normal when hearing this for the first time.

But let’s seriously think about these words for a moment…

Folks who are BIPOC living in the United States of America cannot be racist, by this definition, because they cannot wield the power of this country’s social, political and financial institutions, also, the institutions of this country’s government do not support racial prejudice against white people or in favor of non-white people. Although there have been rights written into law that benefit BIPOC (the Civil Rights Act for example), there is not a single law that has ever been passed in this country that was created specifically to support the lives of BIPOC.

. . . .

Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Anti-Racist, also offers his own definition of racism, which might resonate more with you:

“Racism: A powerful collection of policies that sustains racial inequities or injustices and is substantiated by ideas of racial hierarchy. Also known as “institutional racism”, “structural racism”, and systemic racism”.”

He goes on to argue that the word racist is an adjective only, not a noun, though many through history have appropriated it as such.

“Racist: In support of an inequitable or unjust policy through action or inaction, or expressing an idea of racial hierarchy, both of which produce and normalize racial inequities.”

All of this should bring new meaning to that quote at the top of this page, which I’ll expand into another sentence here:

“[Racist] is not the equivalent of a slur. It is descriptive, and the only way to undo racism is to consistently identify and describe it—and then dismantle it. The attempt to turn this usefully descriptive term into an almost unusable slur is, of course, designed to do the opposite: to freeze us into in-action.”