Well stated. I think we need some new words for racism. Just like the urban legend that Eskimos have hundreds of words for snow, I think America needs a dozen or so words for racism (and for the same reason). There's explicit racism, implicit racism, reverse racism, "positive" racism (e.g., intelligence and Asians), active racism, passive racism, and just plain ignorance. Even the ignorance falls into a broad swath of varieties: cultural ignorance, historical ignorance, physiological ignorance, and just plain silly ignorance (well, this is a subset of those others).

A racist takes his or her learned, embraced or implicit racialized biases and then seeks to impose them upon the world through policy and action, individual and institutional violence, or other structural means that impact everything from housing to education, air quality to wages, health care to equal legal protection.

You write the above, then become an apologist for Geraldine Ferraro. So her taking her RACIST view of why Obama is winning this primary election and attempting to win other people over to her RACIST perspective in order to win an election doesn't qualify as a RACIST deed, according to you? By your own definition she is a racist.

African Americans are quick to use the term "racist" as quickly as weshoot the imaginary people in the study Kristof cites

Nice generalization.

I'd say there is more of a need to curtail actual racism than there is a need to clean up the interpretation of the concept. Either that or me and mine are just genetically predisposed to be criminals.

I think you should set up the situation where you are unable to discuss certain things because of violating some notion of political correctness.

None of this helps us define what policies and practices need to be examined for their racial legacy; none of this helps us engage in the kind of poly-logue this nation needs to have around biases, discrimination and the future; and none of this allows us the space to examine our actions in the world.

Bullshit. There is no obstruction to the removal of racist policies and legacies other than the dominance of the perpetrators of those policies and legacies in government, politics and business.
You really think a guy who calls the old white woman, who clutches her purse when he walks by, a racist is stopping our society from initiating social justice? GTFOH It isn't happening because they don't want it to happen. What would happen to the prison industrial complex if African Americans were represented proportionately in prisons? How many billions would be lost?

Total fucking bullshit. The thing that stops America from pursuing social justice is the lack of moral outrage from people who don't view themselves as being affected by such things.

TM- Thanks for yoru response; i think you missed my central point and are making some pretty off base assumptions about who and what i am.

You write the above, then become an apologist for Geraldine Ferraro. So her taking her RACIST view of why Obama is winning this primary election and attempting to win other people over to her RACIST perspective in order to win an election doesn't qualify as a RACIST deed, according to you? By your own definition she is a racist.

no, by my definition, a racist who served in public life for 30 years as ferraro did would have a clear record of voting and taking other positions that are clearly expressions of her racial baggage. i don't know her personally to say whether she is prejudiced towards people in terms of her interactions, but i can say that her comments and subsequent defense reflect a common myopia among white liberals about their own racial attitudes and biases. as the stokely carmichael and charles hamilton formulation goes, racism=prejudice+ power.for generations, black people could hold their prejudices, but had no power to translate that into racism-- thus, this was, and largely still is, the argument against alleged "reverse racism." i scoff at her claims that she is now a victim of reverse racism because nothing that has been said about herridiculous comments have affected where she lives, what her income level is, whether she has access to quality health care or whether her kids will have access to opportunity-- she is not the victim of racism, she is the target of imprecise invective. with a clearer formulation, we can understand racism, its true manifestations, and also its applications in other contexts, e.g., many brown skinned people from the dominican republic often are prejudiced against darker skinned people from haiti, and there are many institutional structures that dominicans control in the dominican republic that are absolute expressions of racism against haitian people.

African Americans are quick to use the term "racist" as quickly as we shoot the imaginary people in the study Kristof cites

Nice generalization.

you are absolutely right; this was poorly written. many african americans are quick to use the term racist, as are many white, brown, yellow, red and purple people.

I'd say there is more of a need to curtail actual racism than there is a need to clean up the interpretation of the concept. Either that or me and mine are just genetically predisposed to be criminals.

absolutely, but these are not mutually exclusive. part of curing a problem is properly diagnosing it, and one problem with the discourse is that people are taking around and at each other without understanding what the other is saying. to eradicate racism means we have to help 21st century americans who think that racism ended in 1964 to see the many manifestations of racism today. i talk to african american college students every day-- THEY need to have a better understanding of what 21st century racism looks like.

Bullshit. There is no obstruction to the removal of racist policies and legacies other than the dominance of the perpetrators of those policies and legacies in government, politics and business. You really think a guy who calls the old white woman, who clutches her purse when he walks by, a racist is stopping our society from initiating social justice? GTFOH ...

Total fucking bullshit. The thing that stops America from pursuing social justice is the lack of moral outrage from people who don't view themselves as being affected by such things.

From a power perspective, you are partially correct-- those who experience the effects of racism are not obstructing its elimination. But if you want to talk power, then you have to develop an analysis of how to obtain power-- and, to generate the moral outrage you refer to in your closing. So do you generate moral outrage and build capacity by shouting at people that they are racist? Or do you win people over by showing them alternatives to mass incarceration, profitable business practices that do not exploit workers or the environment, better planning methods that do not place an unfair environmental burden on communities of color, better ways to fund education-- oh, and different ways to think about our cultural differences, our collective history, and our mutual aspirations? I think you will be far more effective actually doing something about racism than talking about it if you open the poly-logue in this country.

lastly, don't get it twisted-- i was born and raised in the bronx; half my crew is caught up in that prison industry, so i work everyday to find solutions. what are you doing? that's a sincere question, not a challenge.
peace,
gkp

Every time I hear the term "post-racial", I snicker. If the Honorable Shirley Chisholm were still alive, she'd have given Ferraro one helluva verbal smack-down. Institutional racism is real but so is the more visceral type that Ferraro personally espouses.