Reply to Kim Burnett: Incorrect and sophistic

Submitted by Alain Jean-Mairet (Switzerland), Nov 27, 2005 at 14:42

You wrote: "Racism, in the Oxford Dictionary, at least, has SEVEN definitions."

Well, no, it hasn't. The (New) Oxford Dictionary (large edition) has only the following to say on racism:

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racism > noun [mass noun] the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.
prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed againt someone of a different race based on such a belief: a programme to combat racism.
– Derivatives racist noun & adjective
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The word "race" has several definitions indeed, one of them being "a group of persons… with a common feature". But that is just a "façon de parler" and cannot amount to a broadened definition of the word race.

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