Political Memes

Yeah, there has been a movement in recent decades to redefine racism, sexism, etc. As only applying to stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination by a person from a dominant group toward people from a marginalized group. To some extent I get that--that is why anyone ever started caring about racism etc.--and language evolves. If we as a society decide that is the only set of valid definitions, I'll go with it, because I care more about the struggle for equality than about the words used in that process.

That said, my issue with this usage is that it is imprecise and bundles some extra judgments. This use of racism requires an extra assessment of the power dynamics between the groups each of the parties belongs to (and sometimes identifying that is a quagmire itself). I'd prefer keeping those judgments separate. For example, maybe responding to this racist troll by saying that some kind of racism cause and deepen harm a lot more than others, and he is ignoring that fact due to his own racism.

It's basically moving the goal posts. Language is a malleable thing, however when one word is being already actively used by the majority of people for an adjacent meaning then a new word is needed. If people can't use context other than the race of the victim to determine if you mean someone was racist or racist+ then your word sucks.

I'm a big fan of "oppression". Blacks in America are victims of racial oppression.

"Systemic racism" doesn't solve the "this is something that is bad and happens to blacks but not whites" inference while "oppression" is both implicitly bad and not something you can do tp the dominant group.

True racism had never been tried

Exactly, lazybear's take is very close to the moronic thinking making people believe that men can't be raped.

Stop making simple concepts complicated.

I'd say it's less that they are an idiot and more that they don't understand there is systemic racism and interpersonal racism (there is probably a more official term here but interpersonal covers it well enough for a Lemmy comment).

Systemic racism can only be done by the ~~majority~~ group with the power in a given system (usually government but it could be perpetrated in a religion, an institution, club, etc.). Red lining is a great example of that. Segregation as well. Things done by the group in power to the ones not in power of the given system. Throughout the history of the USA, this means white people oppressing other ethnicities but especially black people.

Interpersonally, anyone can be racist. They can hold racist views and hate others without knowing them beyond their appearance.

Edit: strike through on majority. While most commonly it is a majority group in power, it doesn't have to be a majority group, just the group in power.