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Racism
Also written: prejudice
structural-vocabularycontested-definitionevolving-usage
At a glance
Source-by-source
“Racism, in order to be dismantled, must be uprooted at every level, from the foundations of institutions that dictate the practices and policies enacted by personnel to the attitudes and beliefs that we reinforce through repeated social interactions and deeply internalized messages.”
SumOfUs frames racism as operating at every level at once — institutional practices and policies down to individual attitudes and internalized messages — and treats the writer's job as language that helps dismantle it at all of those levels rather than naming it only as personal bias.
“These beliefs and behaviors are conscious and unconscious, personal and institutional, and result in the oppression or people of color and benefit the dominant group, white people. A simple definition is: Racism= racial prejudice + power”
DCFPI defines racism as a system spanning conscious and unconscious, personal and institutional levels, and offers the compact formula "Racism = racial prejudice + power." Its separate "Prejudice" entry defines prejudice as an unjustifiable negative attitude — making clear, by contrast, that racism is prejudice plus the structural power to enforce it.
SEIU Use with care
2020 VERIFIED-ARCHIVED
“interpersonal racism [Interactions and behaviors with other people that are influenced by our private beliefs about race. It's when people act upon their prejudice or unconscious bias, with or without intent.]”
SEIU's bilingual stylebook gives short definitional entries for the forms of racism. Its "interpersonal racism" entry ties the term to acting on private beliefs, prejudice, or unconscious bias "with or without intent" — locating racism in behavior and effect rather than only in conscious hostility.
“Racism entails systemic relationships of power that elevate one race of people over another. … While it's true that white people can be subject to negative assumptions and stereotypes, these are examples of prejudice, not racism.”
Sierra Club anchors racism to "systemic relationships of power." Under its "Reverse Racism" heading it draws the racism-vs-prejudice line explicitly: white people can face negative assumptions and stereotypes, but those are prejudice, not racism, because they lack the systemic power dimension.
“A system of power that structures opportunity and assigns value to people based on their ancestry and phenotypic properties … It encompasses interpersonal interactions involving racial discrimination, cultural imagery, and harmful stereotypes of people of color and macrolevel policies and practices that systematically disadvantage people of color …”
APA defines racism as "a system of power" expressed at multiple levels — interpersonal discrimination through macrolevel policy — and catalogs cultural, institutional, structural, interpersonal, and internalized forms. Its separate "prejudice" entry states that "prejudice based on racial grouping is racism," keeping the two terms distinct but linked.
“universally agreed upon language on issues relating to racism is nonexistent. We discovered that even the most frequently used words in any discussion on race can easily cause confusion, which leads to controversy and hostility. It is essential to achieve some degree of shared understanding …”
Racial Equity Tools opens its glossary by stating that there is no universally agreed-upon language on racism, and that even common terms cause confusion. It urges groups to build shared definitions deliberately while leaving room to disagree — treating the vocabulary of racism as contested rather than settled.
“A complex system of beliefs and behaviors grounded in a presumed superiority of the white race. These beliefs and behaviors are conscious and unconscious, personal and institutional, and result in the oppression of people of color and benefit the dominant group, white people.”
Movement Strategy Center carries a racism definition near-identical to DCFPI's system-level framing. Its companion "Prejudice" entry defines prejudice as a preconceived judgment leaning on stereotypes, and its "Reverse Racism" entry rejects the term on the ground that racism is rooted in power imbalances that the racial majority does not face.
Audience notes
- Journalists and editors
- When sources disagree, name the level you mean. Most guides here define racism structurally (a system of power), so a one-off interpersonal slight is more precisely "prejudice" or "bias." Reserve "reverse racism" with care — Sierra Club and Movement Strategy Center both reject it because the structural power dimension is absent.
- Campaigners and organizers
- DCFPI's formula "Racism = racial prejudice + power" is a useful shorthand for the distinction these guides share. Use it to keep "racism" pointed at systems and outcomes rather than narrowing it to individual intent; SEIU is explicit that interpersonal racism operates "with or without intent."
- Internal comms and DEI writers
- Racial Equity Tools is explicit that there is no settled vocabulary here. For shared documents, define your terms up front rather than assuming consensus, and decide deliberately where your team needs agreement versus where disagreement is acceptable.
Synthesis
The sources converge on a structural definition of racism. DCFPI and Movement
Strategy Center share near-identical language — racism as “a complex system of
beliefs and behaviors, grounded in a presumed superiority of the white race,”
conscious and unconscious, personal and institutional. APA frames it as “a
system of power that structures opportunity,” and Sierra Club anchors it to
“systemic relationships of power that elevate one race of people over another.”
SumOfUs makes the same move from the writing side: racism must be “uprooted at
every level,” from institutional policy down to internalized messages. Across
all of them, racism is not reducible to individual hostility.
From that consensus follows the racism-vs-prejudice
distinction, which DCFPI states as “Racism = racial prejudice +
power.” Prejudice is the attitude; racism is prejudice backed by structural
power. APA’s glossary draws the same line in two linked entries: prejudice is
“a negative attitude … formed in advance of any experience,” and “prejudice
based on racial grouping is racism.” Sierra Club and Movement Strategy Center
extend the distinction to “reverse racism,” rejecting the term on the ground
that the racial majority does not hold the systemic power the structural
definition requires. SEIU’s bilingual entries keep the levels separate
explicitly, defining interpersonal racism as acting on prejudice or unconscious
bias “with or without intent.”
The divergence is about settledness rather than substance. Racial Equity Tools
opens its glossary by stating that “universally agreed upon language on issues
relating to racism is nonexistent” and that even common terms cause confusion —
a deliberate caution against treating any single definition as final. The
chronology runs from SumOfUs’s 2016 movement-framing and DCFPI’s 2017
prejudice-plus-power formula through APA’s 2023 multi-level taxonomy and
Movement Strategy Center’s 2024 glossary, with the structural consensus holding
steady across the span while the named sub-forms (institutional, structural,
interpersonal, internalized) grow more finely distinguished over time.
Audience notes
See the structured audience notes above: journalists should name the level they
mean and treat one-off slights as prejudice rather than racism; campaigners can
lean on DCFPI’s “racism = racial prejudice + power” shorthand to keep the term
pointed at systems; and internal-comms writers should define terms up front
because, as Racial Equity Tools notes, the vocabulary here is not settled.
Related terms