The university is partnering with alumna Pinky Cole to offer full scholarships to the four children of Rayshard Brooks, who was killed by Atlanta police at a Wendy's drive-through earlier this month.
www.npr.org
Though
no one should be satisfied with superficial or symbolic change, one such measure that I have been heartened by has been the willingness of dictionaries to incorporate a more accurate definition of racism, long recognized within social science, into future editions.
There exists a hierarchical gravity to racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, and other forms of systemic inequality that must be accounted for and distinguished from other forms and expressions of prejudice.
Absent this distinction, the dictionary definition of "racism" acts as a persistent thorn in the side of anyone who endures discussions about injustice with the privileged and oblivious. (For instance, it's a constant point of resistance when we have to explain our policies, as in
this recent example. Even now, I have a complaint alleging our community's "reverse racism" in my PM inbox.) Dictionaries should
treat ignorance, not cause it.
There was a nice piece on this in the Atlantic yesterday by John Whorter, which I highly recommend:
Dictionaries can lag behind societal developments, and the idea that a “word” indisputably “means” what dictionaries say is simply sloppy.
www.theatlantic.com
Society as a whole is in dire need of reformation - and, as in an explication or negotiation, defining our terms is a logical place to start.