Does racism exist in the United States?
It still exists, but the charge of racism is over-used, imprecise, inflammatory and usually too general.Racism is “the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.” Thus, racism is a belief.There is a great difference between belief and action. People who are racists have that belief in their head, but we’d never know it unless they said or did something in furtherance of their belief. We cannot read the minds of other people. There must be something in their behavior or speech to conclude they are a racist.Racism comes in all degrees, types and amounts, from just a little bit of unconscious racism to the most racist and violent member of the KKK.Racism is a generalization about an entire race. Attributing racist beliefs to an entire nation is also a generalization. Attributing racist beliefs to another race, based on their race, might itself be a form of racism. No matter how the word “racist” is used, it means that the person or group termed racist has a belief in their head. When that charge is leveled against a country, it accuses most everyone in the country with having racist thoughts, but we can be sure that the level of racist beliefs varies from person to person.The racist label is therefore a very broad and inaccurate brush stroke across the entire nation in this question, without any indication of the strength, type, degree or manifestation of racism.