Racism must, indeed, be a strong force.
It is the only force that can take words and completely change meanings to add emotional hurt and suffering. And yet, these are just words. Sounds of symbols put together into a particular order. The word alone can be used in an effort to offend or degrade people.
Additionally, it's a force so powerful that people cannot really talk about it. Let me explain what I mean.
We have blogs popping up all over the place trying to define racism: what it means, what it emtails, just how bad it is, which form of racism is worse than the others. We talk about covert racism and open racism. Political racism and plain old, run-of-the-mill name-calling.
Even on this site, any blog that comes up about racism turns into commentary defining racism. We talk about racism because it is controversial and affects everyone at one point in time or another. But no one addresses the real issues of racism. We are all much too concerned talking about "is that truly racism" or "isn't this racism"?
I think it's time everyone stop arguing about defining racism or determining what caused it or what brought it about; and instead start focusing attention on how to end it--all of it.
Good point. The most of us know it's bad. What needs to be done, rather than blabbing on about what everybody already knows, is how to put a stop to it.