Racism and Right Relations

Sometimes it raised "couldn't we find a better word than racism to designate unpleasant, and culturally incompetent interactions between white folk and People of Color in which the white person has good intentions.  My initial response is defensive, and I recall that old cliche about the road to hell being paved with good intentions. 

Racism (as it is institutionalized in the United States) is the systemic oppression of people of color based on the social construction of "whiteness and the racial other."  Anti racism is the commitment one makes to work to overcome that oppression.

Those who raise the question of "a better word" use a different definition.  For example, racism is hatred of People of Color.  So they argue if I do not hate People of Color, I am not racist.  My obnoxious behavior toward People of Color is really a reflection of my age, social class, deficient character or mental state and has nothing to do with racism.  Apparently it is better to be labeled an elitist bore, than a racist.  David Duke is a racist, but I am a narcissist. 

Despite my sarcasm, I think the objection contains a good point.  The word racism is used by many people as a slur, rather than as an analytic aid.  I am thinking that perhaps we should use the term racism to describe the social situation, the institutions that need deconstruction, and general set of attitudes that defend  the power and privilege of "whiteness."  And then we should posit that our short range goal is right relations, between so called racial groups, between those who live and breath the dominant culture. and those whose cultural community is oppressed, between those from affluent classes, and those who are economically oppressed, between men and women, between straight and gay.  I could go on, the point is to indicate the concept.

Thus what we might see as racist incident, turns out to involve a break down of right relations played out against the back drop of  power and privilege.    It might be helpful for the work of anti oppression to call those incidents break downs of right relations, and exegete the racism, or other oppressive power relation in the process of solving the concrete situation.