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Gentle reminder that in a survey I did of 7,381 people, only 17.3% defined racism as "prejudice + power." Traits most associated with using this definition were being nonbinary, black, highly educated, middle aged (?!), and US-based. aella.substack.com/p/how-do-you-d

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LLB

@LLB24693515

Mar 21, 2022

From a friend that works at Home Depot, this is the kind of crap on display in the lunchroom

5:11 PM · Mar 23, 2022

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One of the most interesting things in language is words having multiple definitions due to strong usage in varying contexts. So both are right! Problems arise when people blindly disregard the differing definition as ‘wrong’

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and

Hitherto, what’s not an inconvenience is a privilege, and all Velcro wearers will be punished accordingly.

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What's the function of this word-capture by these demographics? Strikes me as a calculated weaponization of the word that permits it to carry the devastating weight of its old definition, while dressing it up to mean any perceived "power" or "prejudice" disparity.

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The fatal flaw with that definition is that at the individual level, everybody has power, if only the power to make people around us miserable, and that's enough to give a sting to prejudice. But the woke don't see individuals: for the woke, there are only groups, statistics.

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I’m not confident that the police exist to protect me so I am exempt from where privilege unfortunately

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I’m not sure this tells you very much. Your majority definition is easily understood and has the word “race” in it: “Prejudice + power” people would say “yes, but also” to that. The latter concept extends/adds nuance to the former.

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