Has the term ‘racist’ become devalued through overuse?

One of the key charges made by the hard of thinking is that because the devastating accusation ‘racist’ has been thrown around so casually in these days of febrile public discourse, it no longer has meaning. Similarly, ever since Rik called Vyv (and a bank manager and the BBC) a fascist in The Young Ones, that insult has been devalued to the point of meaninglessness. Or has it?

One can never truly know the heart of another person, so short of them lighting a crucifix on their front lawn and perpetrating violence exclusively against one racially designated group over another, we are compelled to only assume that if you often say things that sound a bit racist you might be legitimately given the identity of ‘a racist’.

When a powerful nation freely chooses a leader who has consistently expressed racist views, and whose political discourse is alarmingly redolent of the only two examples in history when a free people elected an actual fascist and racist leader, we are in a bit of a pickle.

If we have devalued the term racist through overuse – and I don’t necessarily accept this charge – a question that follows is: ‘Does racism exist?’ The answer, obvious to anyone paying the slightest attention, is ‘yes’. Specific interpersonal racism exists, including abuse aimed at racialised people – the desecration of Jewish graves, or such as when a third of Roma or black people report that they have been subjected to physical assault as a result of their ethnicity, race or religion. Structural racism also exists as embedded prejudices in institutions and society, evidenced by the fact that black and minority ethnic people are more likely to receive custodial sentences than white defendants who have committed similar crimes. We live in a society whose history includes deeply held racisms that were widely accepted, built with the credibility of specious science, and though things were different then, and are better now, the legacies of our racist past echo in our present.