racism+description

By Racism, I mean the mythology/belief systems from which decisions are made based on the elements which make up "race", including but not limited to pigmentation, historical and dynamic ethnic identification, and shared community and social justice concerns arising from the actions of groups identified as being in competition with one's own.

If the implications and tremendous impact of this are not clear, consider the following:

Most people use "racism" to mean the negative/damaging decisions based on race, because that is common usage. What would you say if someone suggeted that "-isms" are fundamentally ambivalent, always including all desirable and undesirable elements of the big idea involved?

What would you say if they then said that Racism, therefore, can refer also to Affirmative Action and other race-based activism, even as they are made necessary by individual crimes as well as ongoing, discriminatory, systemic violation of basic human rights?