Written by Margaret Gasparik
Too many times I have been sent a screenshot of simple black font, contrasting its white background: “Racism:,” it reads, “the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.” An easily Googled definition that attempts to define something that’s not that simple. It’s the forefront rebuttal of someone who believes in ‘reverse racism’. But it’s not an argument, it’s just that person reaching to be oppressed.
Dictionaries are subjective; meaning that they reflect a point of view, not necessarily fact. Popular dictionaries that include that definition of racism were written by straight, academic, white men. The authors all had a say in how a word was to be defined. Dictionaries are kind of like a guide to how people should speak during that specific time period, it didn’t intend to be strictly followed throughout all of history. The dictionary is updated often and language is constantly evolving. But one book isn’t going to capture every essence of every word. The dictionary doesn’t have any depth. One sentence can’t define a word that’s so complex.
Terms like racism and sexism are better defined by people who actually experience those things. In other words, it’s simply disrespectful to speak over those people’s experiences and tell them that they’re wrong. If you put yourself in their shoes and they kept sending you screenshots of Google’s definition, not listening to your experiences- how would you feel? Just having a dictionary definition of racism doesn’t make you an expert, the same way having the definition of brain surgery doesn’t make you a brain surgeon. Audre Lorde says it best: “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”
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