RE: Editorial: We need a clear definition of racism
As a lawyer practicing more than 50 years, I must remind you judges are nearly always judging matters “after the fact.” So, trying to determine whether a movie, book, performance, song or other expression is pornographic is perhaps best left to the “know it when I see it” standard.
Defining racism is made more difficult by the false claims of a constitutional right to free thought and speech used to allow racial hatred, bias, discrimination and generalized harm without facing any consequences, even if it is only peer pressure.
Too many have decided racism is an attack on white people that makes them, their families and children generally feel bad about themselves when “race” and the history of the treatment of non-white persons is discussed, even in the context of talk about historical events.
We cannot address a definition of racism unless we can openly look at its history. History in the United States regarding systemic racial discrimination is well documented.
Barring teaching the history of race and the treatment of all races by governments, schools, political parties, churches, society in general and in particular parts of the country—including the facts surrounding slavery from 1618 to 1865 and all the follow-ups that discriminated against persons who were and are not white—all this will prevent finding a definition of racism.
We have to be able and should be empowered by our churches and religious leaders to tell the man not wanting his daughter to date a Black classmate his thoughts show racist tendency, and his language is racist, and the woman who tells racist jokes, she needs to stop. The jokes are not funny and disparage another of God’s creation.
Bob Coleman
Dallas, Texas
Racism is the belief that a race—regardless of the presence or absence of any other characteristic of the members of that race—is inferior to another race.
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For example, without that belief of inferiority, one is not a racist who disagrees with or criticizes the opinions or actions of an individual who is Black—such as Eric Holder; a group of individuals who are Black—such as Black Lives Matter; or a culture whose members are Black—such as a small but loud part of Blacks in the United States that has developed over the last 60 years or so.
Harris Maynord
Fairhope, Ala.
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