Defining Racism

Racism’s sinister word games: 
What a white-supremacist talking point tells us about modern politics

Social Justice and Racism

A couple of weeks ago we were talking about social justice and what it means. During the discussion the hackles of a conservative in the group went up. He pointed out that justice means many things to many people and what we were talking about should not be applied, because it might not be his definition. I don't want to imply that the conservative is a racist. I don't know that, but his argument is strikingly similar to the argument used by Pat Goodwin in an interview with a reporter from the Guardian.

"Pat Godwin, president of Selma, Alabama’s United Daughters of the Confederacy, on the question of whether viewers are right to assume Godwin’s expressed views are racist. Godwin replies, “Well, you have to define ‘racist’ to me. What is a racist?”

Rhetoric as Deflection

Her comment was meant to deflect. It was rhetorical. It was meant to take the onus off herself and her group and justify her stance. The conservative in our discussion group was doing the same. He was trying to redirect and scuttle the discussion by implying there can be no social justice because it means something different to everybody. Is his alternative chaos?


The focus of the discussion was well defined. The parameters were clear. We were talking about Jesus and social justice. Specifically, we talked about what Jesus had to say about social justice in Matthew 25, verses 31-46. Social justice in this context is clear. Christians are to come down on the side of the poor and oppressed. They are to be welcoming of strangers. They are to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. They are to minister to the needs of the sick and the prisoners. It seems clear that you cannot...as a Christian...minister only to your needs. There is a greater good, and we're supposed to be a part of it.

Specifically Defined

Aaron Hanlon's Article in Salon.com points out the only way to counter rhetorical arguments like Goodwin's is with a historical perspective. 

 It’s important we understand such rhetorical tactics not simply as forms of racism, but as part of an important history that parallels, and lives symbiotically off of, the history of racism: the history of denying the existence of racism. Whether it’s borrowing the multiculturalist language of discrimination in accusations of “reverse-racism,” or expropriating the term “racist” as a symbol of white pride, the perpetrators subject themselves to a double-bind: They respect the idea of race-based discrimination when they themselves feel embattled or diminished as whites, but deny the same when the victims of discrimination are minorities.“Define racism” is not an easy prompt with an easy answer, but we do have answers much better developed than Godwin’s opinion-based approach to the question. If we historicize racism, rather than treating it as abstraction or opinion, we find that racism in the U.S. is not just discrimination in general, but a history of a dominant class of European whites subjecting minorities by means of things like the theft of land, the destruction of native populations, slavery, internment, Jim Crow, voting restrictions, restrictions on access to education and home ownership, and hurtful or defamatory portrayals in entertainment and media.

It doesn't matter if you can't change Pat Godwin's mind. That's on her. It does matter that more people discover what racism is all about so a change can come about. There is more to this life than our own self interest. We can't change the past, but we can become aware and steadfast for a better future based on social justice.