Racism is ...

Prejudice plus power.

That's a simplified version of the definition I learned in a dismantling racism training. (The one I attended was part of the Mennonite church's Damascus Road dismantling racism program; see http://mcc.org/damascusroad/.*) I find it helpful to start with this simplified version and build up and out.

* Many of the understandings I'll share in this post derive from the Damascus Road approach, though I depart into some different understandings and presentations along the way.

Let's start with prejudice. Different forms of pre-judging individual people and groups based on negative stereotypes of groups create different prejudices; anyone can hold a prejudice. There are prejudices based on virtually all aspects of social location, including gender, race, class, age, nationality, ethnicity, ability, religion ... the list goes on.

Individual prejudices have a lot of downsides: they keep us from really seeing the person in front of us. Prejudices are untruths that operate as truths, and so perceptions, thoughts, attitudes and behaviors based on prejudices are inherently flawed and out of touch with reality. Running into a person who is prejudiced against you can ruin your day.

But, running into a person who is prejudiced and holds power over you can ruin your life.

That's why the second part of the definition is important: Racism = prejudice plus power. In this case, we are focusing on a particular form of prejudice -- racial prejudice -- and asserting that the oppression known as racism is formed when racial prejudice is combined with power.

Defining racism this way doesn't mean individual prejudices don't matter; they do. We should all work to eliminate prejudicial thinking and behavior. But racism is here defined as more than racial prejudice: it is racial prejudice plus the power to enforce one's prejudices in a way that affects not just the person standing in front of you, but possibly many others.

So, we can build on our definition. Racism = racial prejudice plus the systemic misuse of power.

It's a simple logic: who will have a more detrimental effect, the racially prejudiced person who cuts you off in traffic or the racially prejudiced bank officer who decides no people of color will get house loans in a particular part of town? The first act is an instance of racial prejudice, individual in nature: the second act is an instance of racial prejudice, empowered by institutional position to have a systemic effect. Individual racism can get you annoyed; institutional racism can get you dead, or at the very least subject to a dramatically reduced quality of life.

Both kinds of racial prejudice matter; but the larger threat -- and the one we white people tend to ignore -- is the effect of institutional racism. Why are white people so oblivious to institutional racism? Because we benefit from racialized disparities in access to power, and its easier to maintain that disparity if we don't acknowledge it.

After all, who holds most of the systemic power in our society? White people. For a quick reality check in this regard, take a look at the roster of CEOs on the Forbes 500; the Senate; the House of Representatives; the board of directors for your local hospitals, schools, etc.

Let's pause here to note an important point. If most of the institutional power is held by white people, then people of color do not tend to have systemic power, and therefore cannot be racist.

I know this flies in the face of what a lot of people want to say; but it's a useful distinction, one which helps us keep power in the equation. Yes, people of color can hold racial prejudices, against white people or against other ethnicities; but people of color do not typically have the institutional power to enforce and benefit from their prejudices. There simply are no large-scale societal systems (think on the scale of our country's financial system, the educational system, the health-care system) run by people of color.

A second point also matters. The more power to be had (and money to be made) in a position, the more likely that position is to be filled by a white person, who is probably also male and straight. The fact that power tends to correlate with race, gender and sexual orientation points out the interrelations among not only forms of power but also forms of oppression.

Here I want to quote Audre Lorde's description of various forms of oppression, their interconnections highlighted by her elegant prose:

"Racism: The belief in the inherent superiority of one race over all others and thereby the right to dominance.

Sexism: The belief in the inherent superiority of one sex and thereby the right to dominance.

Heterosexism: The belief in the inherent superiority of one pattern of loving and thereby its right to dominance.

Homophobia: the fear of feelings of love for members of one's own sex and therefore the hatred of those feelings in others." (Sister Outsider, 45)

Each of these isms and their related phobias and prejudices can be and are magnified by connection with systemic power.

Each of us is called by the commandment to love to overcome these isms, phobias and prejudices in our selves. But I would argue that the commandment to love the neighbor as self means we are also called to address the systemic misuse of power that enables these isms to have such wide-ranging, life-destroying effects.

Love engages the system. Love doesn't quit because the system is too big. Jesus, the one who is Christ for us, said there is no greater love than the love that lays down its life for its friends.

We can certainly begin by laying down our prejudices, over and over. We can go on by thinking about power, what it is and who it is for, and whether it helps us choose life, or whether it is being used on our behalf to deal death.