Is Merriam-Webster Changing the Definition of Racism?

I decided to check out the snopes.com as I remember it being a mentioned a lot during the 2016 presidential debates. The website factchecks a lot of articles, claims, posts, and other places where internet rumors originate. While browsing, I came across one claim that said, “In June 2020, Merriam-Webster said it planned to change its entry on ‘racism’ in its dictionary to show only white people are racist”. I thought this sounded ridiculous and immediately I felt frustrated. Then, I clicked on the claim to see whether it was true. It turns out that the claim originated from the website bluntforcetruth.com. The article entitled “Merriam-Webster To Change Dictionary Definition of “Racism” to Show Only White People are Racist”, was then tweeted out by a man named Chuck Woolery on twitter. The researchers at Snopes reached out to Merriam-Webster editor, Peter Sokolowski, who said the claim was “entirely untrue”. It was concluded that the assertion originated after Kennedy Mitchum, a Black college student, urged editors of the dictionary to include language about systemic racism. However, the editors did not plan to do anything as drastic as changing the definition of “racism” to only include white people. Instead, the had plans to “simply clarify and contemporize the wording in the second definition”. Sokolowski further elaborated, “our research shows that the word (racism) is not being used in new ways so much as it is being used more frequently, especially when referring to systemic oppression. Our revision will help people understand all the word’s meanings, and that meaning in particular, more easily”. The misinformation is likely to have occurred when far-right publications such as FrontPage Magazine began to cover the issue. It made me realize how easy it is to get frustrated over these headlines that are simply not true. [1 Image, 1 link, 2 quotes, 298 words]