I generally try to avoid racist people, because they'll treat me and many of my friends poorly. That's what "racism" meant in the culture I was brought up in - a racist person was by definition one who treated certain races poorly.

Because of that, it's very hard for me to have normal interactions with people who explicitly identify as racist, even if they say they're a special kind of racist who intends to treat me well.

So it's a matter of definition, not behavior. Because the point of unconscious bias training is to help people see the ways in which they are racist even if they don't think of themselves as racist.

In other words, there's no magically non-racist person out there. Everyone's a little bit racist.

It's a magical, shifting definition that means whatever the high priests need it to mean at the moment.

Making people confess to being 'racist', at institutions where being Racist gets you fired, is a power-move.

Those of us who can see that aren't objecting to the idea of unconscious bias, we're objecting to the power move.

If only there were some kind of, I dunno, training to help clarify and de-magic these words. ;)

Do you believe racists should be shamed and fired?

I don't believe people should be shamed and fired for having unconscious bias and confronting it.

There's a world of difference between confronting one's unconscious bias and unapologetic, willful racism.

And, we're back to the magical shifting definition.

If there's such a world of difference, why conflate the two using the same word?

That's a question for the English language and dictionary authors, not for me.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/10/us/merriam-webster-racism...

Any thoughts of your own on the matter? We're way in the sidebar, don't worry about downvotes. Tell me why.