Redefining Racism

The following is a class discussion post about whether or not I am able to relate to one of the articles I've been assigned to read. This is a subject matter about which I am extremely passionate and opinionated.

In the article “Believing is Seeing?” Judith Lorber states that, “Neither sex nor gender are pure categories.”  Why then do we as a society insist on separating every individual into the distinct categories of “male” and “female?”

Perhaps this relates to our inherent tendency as human beings to label, categorize, and fully understand everything and everyone around us.  In doing so, however, we run the risk of imposing a gender on an individual (a female athlete with masculine characteristics, for example) which they do not personally identify with.  In addition, this suggests that gender differences go beyond the physical and extend to one’s intellectual capacities, such as the ability to understand technological innovations. 

In the article “Defining Racism: ‘Can We Talk?’”, Beverly Daniel Tatum attests that, “racism cannot be fully explained as an expression of prejudice alone,” offering this new definition for racism: “a system of advantage based on race.”  She goes on to explain that "racism, like other forms of oppression, is not only a personal ideology based on racial prejudice, but a system involving cultural messages and institutional policies and practices as well as the beliefs and actions of individuals." (i.e. "white privilege")

The author then addresses several problematic questions relating to this somewhat controversial definition for racism, including the issue of whether minority individuals in our society are capable of being racist: “If one defines racism as a system of advantage based on race, the answer is no. People of color are not racist because they do not systematically benefit from racism. ”  (She adds that, "using the same logic, I reserve the word sexist for men. Though women can and do have gender-based prejudices, only men systematically benefit from sexism.")

Tatum then uses what I feel is a brilliantly simple example to answer the question of whether she is saying that all non-minority individuals in our society are racist by comparing the ongoing cycle of racism to a moving walkway at the airport.

Finally, the author points outs that the “task of interrupting racism is obviously not the task of [white individuals] alone.  But the fact of white privilege means that [white individuals] have greater access to the societal institutions in need of transformation.  To whom much is given, much is required.”
This article challenged my complacency toward the fact that I'm living in a society with deeply-ingrained cultural/institutional systems that are defined by racist attitudes.  In addition, it led me to ask myself the question “Why have my peers and I been exposed to such a limited definition of the word racism when the term clearly encompasses more than just the concept of racial prejudice?”

In order for racism to be challenged in our society, it must be defined within the context of our society—that is, as a “system of advantage based on race.”  I believe that because we are living in a white heterosexual patriarchal society, our understanding of the term racism has been systematically, culturally, and institutionally limited to a definition which enables the racist attitudes that dominate our society and allows for their perpetuation.  By limiting our understanding of racism to racial prejudice only, white individuals are able to dismiss this problem as having little or nothing to do with them.  The mainstream definition for racism makes it dangerously easy to have an attitude of “Sure, racism is bad, but because I do not view myself as being racially prejudiced, it really isn’t my problem.”  In other words, such an understanding of the term results in a lack of personal responsibility on the part of white individuals.  For this reason, we as a society must embrace Tatum’s more complete, albeit controversial, definition for racism in order to order to cut off the cultural, institutional air supply of the self-perpetuating monster that is racism.