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A Missouri woman asked Merriam-Webster to update its definition of racism and now officials will make the change
CNN ^ | June 9, 2020 | David Williams

Posted on 06/09/2020 5:38:32 PM PDT by Stravinsky

(CNN) Kennedy Mitchum wasn't expecting much when she emailed Merriam-Webster last month, but she wanted to let the dictionary publisher know that she thought its definition of the word racism was inadequate.

So she was surprised when an editor responded and even more surprised that the company agreed to update the entry.

Mitchum has gotten into a lot conversations about racism and injustice where people have pointed to the dictionary to prove that they're not racist. It's happened a lot more lately as the world reacts to the death of George Floyd while in the custody of four Minneapolis police officers.

The 22-year-old Mitchum recently graduated from Drake University and lives in Florissant, Missouri, just a few miles away from Ferguson, where protests over the 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown helped solidify the Black Lives Matter movement.

...

Merriam-Webster's first definition of racism is "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."

Mitchum said many people she's talked to use that to dismiss her concerns about racism and overlook broader issues of racial inequality because they don't personally feel that way about people of color.

Mitchum said she sent her email on a Thursday night and got a reply from editor Alex Chambers the next morning.

After a few emails, Chambers agreed that the entry should be updated and said a new definition is being drafted.

"This revision would not have been made without your persistence in contacting us about this problem," Chambers said in the email, which was provided to CNN. "We sincerely thank you for repeatedly writing in and apologize for the harm and offense we have caused in failing to address this issue sooner."

(Excerpt) Read more at amp.cnn.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 1984; alexchambers; dictionary; kennedymitchum; marxism; racism
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1 posted on 06/09/2020 5:38:32 PM PDT by Stravinsky
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To: Stravinsky

So now we’re actually changing dictionaries to match leftist dogma?


2 posted on 06/09/2020 5:40:06 PM PDT by Rocky
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To: Rocky

Either that or something suggesting only white people can actually have racism.


3 posted on 06/09/2020 5:42:11 PM PDT by woweeitsme
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To: Stravinsky

I have old dictionaries...and old history books...for a reason


4 posted on 06/09/2020 5:43:33 PM PDT by goodnesswins (Anyone tired of the Chinese Fire Drill (tm) yet???)
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To: Stravinsky

Racism: the physical state of having light-colored skin.


5 posted on 06/09/2020 5:43:43 PM PDT by Telepathic Intruder
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To: Stravinsky

Let me guess, the new definition of racist will be: All Trump supporters.


6 posted on 06/09/2020 5:44:59 PM PDT by EvilCapitalist (Fire Fauci)
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To: Stravinsky

Well when ever some black celebrity trashes whites for whatever then we can call out racism against them too.


7 posted on 06/09/2020 5:45:19 PM PDT by SkyDancer (~ Pilots: Looking Down On People Since 1903 ~)
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To: Stravinsky

How very...Orwellian...of them.

Hang onto books, everyone. Electronic media is going to be constantly massaged to reflect the agenda “reality”


8 posted on 06/09/2020 5:46:38 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion or satire. Or both.)
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To: Rocky

Well, they changed the definition of ‘marriage’ that had stood for thousands of years.......why wouldn’t dictionaries change the meanings of other words? You know, it’s the ‘fluid’ Society we live in............


9 posted on 06/09/2020 5:53:12 PM PDT by originalbuckeye ('In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act'- George Orwell..?)
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To: goodnesswins

I’ve got a 1966 Encyclopedia Britannica.

The science is great.

Looked up hermaphrodite. Got a straight answer, no politics.

Mao was still loved in 1966.

All the flags are in there, on color plates.

Hope it does not fall overboard from my houseboat.


10 posted on 06/09/2020 5:53:27 PM PDT by Scrambler Bob (This is not /s. It is just as viable as any MSM 'information', maybe more so!)
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To: Stravinsky

“‘Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.’” Syme, “1984”


11 posted on 06/09/2020 5:54:19 PM PDT by Tench_Coxe
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To: SkyDancer

Oh, I was schooled on that several years ago. Blacks cannot be ‘racist’ as they don’t have the Power of oppression. they can be BIgots, but not Racists. (This was in a hospital orientation for a jb. An important mostly white hospital in SoCal.


12 posted on 06/09/2020 5:54:53 PM PDT by originalbuckeye ('In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act'- George Orwell..?)
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To: Stravinsky

Activist academics campaigned to change the meaning of an ordinary word to a politically freighted meaning.

Now the MW dictionary agrees to let the political, academic definition replace the ordinary use.

Now the activists can browbeat ordinary people with the dictionary definition and prove that they are wrong.

Newspeak.

The above has all been crimethink.


13 posted on 06/09/2020 6:00:33 PM PDT by heartwood (Someone has to play devil's advocate other.)
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To: goodnesswins

Yes, I do too and I purposely seek out certain materials because things are being destroyed or re-vised to fit a political agenda. For example, read materials written in 1965 - 1968 about the 1965 Watts riots in Los Angeles. Don’t bother going to Wikipedia - you’ll get a sanitized, politically correct version. Or don’t bother with the newer articles that “help” explain Watts. Comparing Watts to demonkrap controlled Minneapolis 2020 begs the question - why are we still in the same place despite all the “improvements”?


14 posted on 06/09/2020 6:01:29 PM PDT by Susquehanna Patriot
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To: BenLurkin

The usual suspects, the same woke wordsmithers who declared “they” as the word of the year for 2019.

I thought it was funny because that particular agenda reality (good one!) is all about gender confusion validation.

THEY —> THE Y

There you go. “They” would be the man.

Fine young Christian men, no less.

:)


15 posted on 06/09/2020 6:02:01 PM PDT by Ezekiel (The pun is mightier than the s-word. Goy to the World!)
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To: Stravinsky

I have been subjected to anti-white racism in education and employment my entire life—and I want my reparations and I want them now!


16 posted on 06/09/2020 6:02:21 PM PDT by cgbg (Kneeling is a half measure--lefties need to dig a six foot hole and bury themselves in it.)
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To: originalbuckeye

I think they’re racist against Asians and Hispanics, and now with black celebrities joining in they’re racist against whites; like Samuel L. Jackson and others.


17 posted on 06/09/2020 6:02:26 PM PDT by SkyDancer (~ Pilots: Looking Down On People Since 1903 ~)
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To: Stravinsky

“Words mean whatever I say to them to mean at that point in time. No more, no less” - Humpty Dumpty

Watch them put “BIPOCs cannot be racist” in the definition.


18 posted on 06/09/2020 6:05:30 PM PDT by Skywise
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To: Stravinsky
an asymmetrical power structure

The asymmetry comes from many black people being poor, ignorant, and content to blame whitey for these facts rather than doing the work to change them.

19 posted on 06/09/2020 6:06:22 PM PDT by NobleFree ("law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual")
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To: Stravinsky

Racism occurs when white people are allowed to exist.


20 posted on 06/09/2020 6:06:56 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum ("Black lives matter" is dog-whistle for "kill Whitey.")
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