Racism in the Region

[ijmorlan]

Racism to me would be judging, making assumptions about, or discriminating against an individual based on their immutable genetic background.

I would insert “assumptions about” in front of “their”. Racism is generally not a carefully-considered activity, where we find out a person’s genetic background and then discriminate against them based on that; it’s based on assumptions about who they are. Sometimes people who aren’t in a marginalized group get a glimpse of what it’s like to be in that group when somebody misidentifies them for whatever reason.

Obviously, my point isn’t that it would be better if racists were more careful and more precise in their racism; the point is that being racist is inherently ignorant and anti-intellectual.