Merriam-Webster will change its definition of racism due to Missouri woman’s efforts

Merriam-Webster dictionary will changes its definition of racism because of a Missouri woman’s efforts.

Kennedy Mitchum, who lives in the St. Louis suburb Florissant, says it took several disagreements about the meaning of racism and people quoting the dictionary for her to email Merriam-Webster, according to her Facebook post.

“It’s not just disliking someone because of their race,” Mitchum said. “This current fight we are in is evidence of that, lives are at stake because of the systems of oppression that go hand-in-hand with racism.”

For weeks, people have protested against police brutality after the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a Minneapolis police officer pinned his neck to the ground. The officer and three other cops who stood by were fired and later charged in Floyd’s death.

Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines racism as “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.” It also includes a second meaning, which says racism is “a doctrine or political program based on the assumption of racism and designed to execute its principles; a political or social system founded on racism.”

Mitchum says the definition falls short of including the systemic oppression of certain groups of people, KMOV reported.

“I know what racism is,” Mitchum told KMOV. “I’ve experienced it time and time and time again in a lot of different ways, so enough is enough. So, I emailed them about how I felt about it.”

Mitchum and Merriam-Webster editors emailed back and forth for about a week until finally they agreed to update the definition, she says. She included their response in a Facebook post.

“This revision would not have been made without your persistence in contacting us about this problem,” editor Alex Chambers wrote in the email, which was obtained by CNN.

Peter Sokolowski, editor at large for Merriam-Webster, noted the secondary definition that includes racism as a “doctrine or political program,” which he says includes systemic oppression, CNN reported.

“I think we can express this more clearly to bring the idea of an asymmetrical power structure into the language of this definition, but it’s there,” Sokolowski told CNN.

In a statement to McClatchy News, Sokolowski said the second definition covers the sense sought by Mitchum, and “we will make that even more clear in our next release.” Similarly, Merriam-Webster released a new definition for systemic in April to include the use in terms of systemic poverty and systemic racism, Sokolowski said.

“This is the kind of continuous revision that is part of the work of keeping the dictionary up to date, based on rigorous criteria and research we employ in order to describe the language as it is actually used,” Sokolowski said.

The change is expected to occur within a few months.

“Any victory feels great right now,” Mitchum posted on Facebook.

This story was originally published June 9, 2020 at 5:57 PM.