Racism has been the talking point around the world ever since the George Floyd protests began. It’s been a revealing time that showed just how many people don’t understand what that term actually means. But thanks to the efforts of a uni student, online dictionary Merriam-Webster is finally updating its outdated definition of “racism” in order to accurately reflect what it means in 2020.
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22-year-old uni student Kennedy Mitchum sent Merriam-Webster an email arguing how its current definition of “racism” was outdated and inadequate at properly conveying what the term means these days.
According to The New York Times, Kennedy says people often use Merriam-Webster’s definition of “racism” to argue that something is not racist or to overlook the broader problem of racial inequality because they don’t personally feel that way.
She wrote: “Racism is not only prejudice against a certain race due to the color of a person’s skin, as it states in your dictionary. It is both prejudice combined with social and institutional power. It is a system of advantage based on skin color.”
For those who are unaware, Merriam-Webster’s current definition of racism reads:
- a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
- a) a doctrine or political program based on the assumption of racism and designed to execute its principles,
b) a political or social system founded on racism - racial prejudice or discrimination
To Kennedy’s surprise, not only did Merriam-Webster respond to her email but its editors will update the online dictionary’s definition of “racism,” conceding that the “entry has not been revised in decades.”
Merriam-Webster editor Alex Chambers says the dictionary will revise definitions or add new ones “when we see large-scale changes happening in the language,” which is exactly what’s going on with the George Floyd protests and the issue of racism.
Merriam-Webster editor at large Peter Sokolowski says while the dictionary’s definitions aren’t meant to be “promoting any particular viewpoint,” he says the team “have concluded that omitting any mention of the systemic aspects of racism promotes a certain viewpoint in itself.”
While there’s no word on when the changes will be made, Sokolowski says he hopes the revision will be revised to better convey how racism can be systemic while including examples while making the wording less “opaque” since the current outdated definition is “very abstract.”
Kennedy tells CNN that she’s “super happy” with Merriam-Webster’s response to change its definition of “racism” and feels like it’s a “step in a good direction for a lot of positive change for a lot of different positive conversations.”
Hard to argue with her there. Many people still don’t know what racism and what better way to tackle that issue than to fix its outdated dictionary definition – i.e the first place people go to when they don’t know the meaning of a word. It’s definitely a more effective method of tackling the issue of racism than an Avengers: Endgame fan edit, regardless of how epic it is.
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