There is an awful lot of talk about the word racism. What it means, who has the correct definition. Who can or can not be a racist. Thus far, I haven’t found a better definition than this.
Still, I was curious about the word itself. I was pretty shocked by what I found.
The dictionary was not where the word was born. In fact, the word (at first) had nothing to do with our current ideas on racism. It was first found in a book called “The coming American Fascism” published in 1936. The second time, was also in a book. It was called “Racism” published in 1938 and this is what made the word popular.
The interesting part was the actual meaning of the word when it was created. It did stand for separation but not of ethnic race. Not at first anyway. It was about Religious race. It was made famous because the topic of the book was the study of sex. The word racism was being used to describe how (according to the book) Christians were more “Uptight and repressive” about sex. It was about sexual liberation. Then, the word racism was used to compare Socialists groups to other groups. Finally, it was used in ethnic races.
Even when talking about ethnic races, the word was not used as it is today. It was used as a negative to describe your enemy’s ideas. Even when your enemy’s ideas were about things other than race. It was eventually called “The useless word” because everyone was using it against anyone that didn’t agree with them.
Here’s the REALLY interesting part…”Racism” as we know it today came from the word “Racialism.” Why is this interesting? Well, it’s because the definition, the one in the dictionary today, was coined in 1907. NINETEEN HUNDRED AND SEVEN!
This is the definition racists use as proof that everyone can be racist? Really? No…REALLY? Can you think of a reason THIS particular definition at THAT particular time, might be fucking WRONG?
I’m just gonna leave this here for you to digest.
