If we are going to have a conversation on race, we have to stop throwing words around incorrectly. The Harry Reid “…controversy” is a good place to start. People are claiming that Reid’s statement was “…racist.” Right now, if you Google Harry Reid one of the things you get is “Harry Reid’s Racist Comments.”

Here is what we have to get straight. There are differences between prejudice, bigotry and racism. The word “…racism” is thrown around with so much inaccuracy that it has lost its real meaning. Let’s begin by rectifying that problem.

Racism is institutional; racism does not reside in individuals. Prejudice resides in individuals as “…just because” negative feelings toward some stimulus; males, females, African-Americans, Hispanics, you get the idea. Must prejudice be visible to others? No. A well socialized person can have prejudices that never show up in behavior.

Bigotry is what we have when a prejudice comes out in behavior. Outward use of gender slurs, racial slurs, and ethnic slurs is bigotry. Making a decision to discriminate based on one’s prejudice is bigotry. Avoiding interaction with a person of a certain group, because of your negative feelings about the group, is bigotry.

When we see those old pictures of whites yelling at, spitting at, beating African Americans, we are seeing bigotry. Outward hostility and violence from white individuals toward black individuals was the face of racism, but not racism itself. Racism was the laws and customs of the society that supported and encouraged bigotry. Racism was what gave white individuals the level of comfort and safety white’s felt showing their bigotry. Racism occurs by way of institutional, societal, authorization.

Racism is always institutional, organizational and societal. When laws of a society or customs of an organization actively, or through indifference, support and encourage individual bigotry, we have racism. That is why it is very difficult for any person today to be racist. American society won’t tolerate bigotry; the outward expression of prejudice.

Last Spring (2009), at North Carolina State, I gave a campus wide presentation on “Living on the New Racial Frontier.” In that presentation, in response to a question, I talked the audience through the distinctions between prejudice, bigotry and racism. After that presentation, one of the college deans, a white man, came over to talk to me about this point. I reiterated my point and added that it is very difficult for a person to be racist today. He was a little puzzled. People were still milling about the room. So I said to him, “…ok, go over and stand in the middle of this room and yell out the word nigger.”

The Dean stepped back from me. He said, “…no way.” I said, “… that’s the point.” “You are very aware”, I said, “…that in this room people would be coming over to you tell you to shut up.” “Not only that,” I said, “You know that if you did that, by tonight you would no longer be a dean.” Why; because the institution would not tolerate such behavior.

Senator Reid’s statement was not racist. And as far as I can tell it was not bigoted; not an expression of his prejudice toward black people. But Strom Thurmond’s statements when he ran for president were bigoted and in support of maintaining racism through legal racial segregation. In public, out loud, Thurmond said:

“I wanna tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that there’s not enough troops in the army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the nigger-race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches.”

When Senator Trent Lott said that he wished America had listened to Strom Thurmond, Lott was saying directly that he wished America had remained a racist nation. But because there is so much racial anxiety and confusion now, with the word racism being used as a catch-all for any race-related behavior, we can’t see the difference between a person wanting legal racial segregation and a person using the word Negro while talking about racial dialects and a skin color dynamic.

With his statements, Senator Reid seemed to be saying that this is the way he thought the racial dynamic worked around the election of President Obama. What is most important for we-Americans is to have a conversation about race that is without unnecessary and inaccurate name-calling. Name-calling is just name-calling and, as in any relationship, is counterproductive to a real conversation.

1. Richard Lee Oskarżony w Sprawie o Nielegalne Bukmacherstwo Says:
   September 19th, 2011 at 2:27 AM

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