I'm sorry, but this is horribly wrong Ibby. Racism is asumptions made based on race, period. They don't even have to be negative assumptions: the stereotype that all Asians are good at math is just as much racism as the stereotype that they are bad drivers.

"Stuff that helps contribute to the systems of oppression of minority groups" is just a longer phrase for "oppression."

Nope.
Via a good friend of mine, who has to keep this on her tumblr page cause tumblr sure is full of racist fucks.

There's a lot of hate in the room....

Your tumblr friend... she makes some good points, but the part about

is bullshit. I'm not going to argue with her through you. Your quote even mentions "prejudice" as the key factor of racism several times. It's about the prejudice, not about whiteness (sorry tumblr friend). There are without question many, many, many, many *white* racists. But being a "POC" does not immunize one from being a racist. As long as a person can exercise prejudice based on "race", they
can be racist, and the color of the racist's skin (or other "racial" identifiers) do not matter.

I think I see now what you meant by "reverse racism is not racism". Still wrong though.

PoC can be racist...
but not against whites. at all.

wrong again.

a person of color who makes prejudicial judgments about white people, that's being racist "against" whites.

You are still missing the point.

Sorry, but I still disagree.

I'd still like to pursue the idea that Mitt seems to be getting at despite his lack of commitment to it. Free stuff for everyone is a problem. Every government program from the F-35 to Head Start to corn subsides to tuition assistance to bank and auto bailouts builds dependence. Some folks would like to ask which ones are worth the price without being called an anti-American, racist, farmer blaming, middle class killing, capital hating, union buster. We attack because it is our livelihood, our support structure, or maybe even our belief system appears to be on the chopping block. We are dependent on a program. Is our level of dependence acceptable or unacceptable? If we grow government we grow dependence, at what point is that no longer sustainable? The USSR fell, obviously too dependent. Greece is close, probably too dependent for American sensibilities and let's face it, not a productive society. Our commitment to right wing spending (guns not butter) seems close to Greece's belief in left wing spending maybe we're already too dependent or just out of balance.

It is very hard to shed our skin and look at this rationally. I work for a non-profit with a Head Start contract. Is it happenstance that the only untouchable program in my previous list is Head Start? You are a very left wing kid whose views are probably largely unchallenged at a very left wing college, can you shed that skin when you talk politics, because we are talking about a whole country here not just conservative PA or liberal Vermont.

I'm not missing anything. You and I clearly just disagree about what the word "racism" means.

Prejudice against white people from poc is prejudice. It's not a good thing but it isn't racism.

Hundreds of years of institutionalized prejudice and hatred against poc from white people, and anything that plays into that, is racism. Never the other way around, until poc have oppressed white folk for hundreds of years.

It goes both ways. Believing one race is superior is just as racist as believing another is inferior. Doesn't matter which race is doing the believing.

Yet the question of "power" didn't enter into the OED or Merriam's definitions at all, and is only loosely mentioned in tandem with the Macquarie definition. Racism is prejudice based on race. The concept your friend is discussing is "institutionalized racism in America and Europe," which is a very valid and discussable subset of racism, but it does not account for all examples of racism.

So you're saying you misread my original post, because I never said shit about poc on white racism/predjudice.

as in, what romney said was racist because he's talking about "giving 'them'" - by who he specifically means the audience at the NAACP, by which he means black people - "free stuff", in a way that is A.) entirely disingenuous and B.) extremely othering and exclusionary.

as in, it wouldn't be racist for Biden to address a crowd of poc and (obviously sarcastically) say that they'd love to give them all free stuff, because saying "we DON'T favor taking away what little many of you already have" isn't racist.

What if someone else said, in all sincerity and with deep compassion, "we have to care for our black citizens because they simply do not have the mental capacity to raise themselves to our level"?

...but that's not what anyone's saying.
Yes, that would obviously be racist. Most of the most racist shit that's gone down over the centuries has been to "civilize" people of color and "improve" their condition.
But ROMNEY is the one who made this about race, by saying that the black NAACP crowd "wants free stuff". the policies in place or supported by the administration are overwhelmingly not racially, but rather economically, and in the case of things like affirmative action, the effort is made to counteract existing racial bias in hiring decisions.

If Biff weren't such a social awkward, he would've said "yeah, I'm your boo, that's right."

So... oppression is not a necessary, defining characteristic of "racism."

You sure?

...thats still oppression.