A recent college graduate from St. Louis has called out the Merriam-Webster Dictionary for what she says is an incorrect definition of the word “racism.”
Kennedy Mitchum has taken a different approach to making change as thousands continue to march to raise awareness about racial injustice and the need for police reform.
The graduate, who studied law, politics and society, said she noticed that the definition of the word racism didn’t tell the whole picture.
“With everything going on, I think it’s really important that everyone is on the same page,” she told KMOV.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines racism as “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities” and that “racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.”
She decided to email the staff at Merriam-Webster to offer her suggestion.
“I basically told them that they need to include that there’s a systematic oppression upon a group of people. It’s not just, ‘Oh, I don’t like someone’,” she said.
She said the definition of racism should say it is a system designed, especially in America, to oppress black and brown people.
“They were basically like, ‘Yeah, we’re not gonna change it because (…) we focus on literature. The dictionary definitions have to come from literature, and they focus on the majority and the way they write and see racism,’” she said.
“And so I was just like, ‘it doesn’t make sense because the majority aren’t the people who are experiencing racism’,” she said.
She said she later received another response that Merriam-Webster’s Board of editors agreed that not including systemic oppression in the definition is a problem and they are working to make a change.
Drake University shared the dictionary’s response in a tweet. The statement said, in part: “A revision to the entry for racism is now being drafted to be added to the dictionary soon, and we are also planning to revise the entries of other words that are related to racism or have racial connotations.”
Merriam-Webster went on to say: “This revision would not have been made” without your persistence.
“I think everyone really needs to realise what their strengths are and how they can contribute to the movement,” she said.
“And once they do that, I think we’re really going to be able to get some places,” she added.