Antedating of "Racism"

[Ben Zimmer]

On Wed, Feb 27, 2013 at 9:14 PM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> This is a remarkable antedating of "racism," posted by Evan Kirshenbaum on
> alt.usage.english.  Jesse, do you monitor alt.usage.english and send relevant
> information to the OED, or is there too much there to wade through?
>
> racism (OED 1926)
>
> 1902 _Proceedings of the Twentieth Annual Meeting of the Lake Mohonk
> Conference of the Friends of the Indian 1902_ (1903) 134 (Google Books)
> Col. R. H. PRATT. - ... Segregating any class or race of people apart from the
> rest of the people kills the progress of the segregated people or makes their
> growth very slow.  Association of races and classes is necessary in order to
> destroy racism and classism.

Ironic that Richard Henry Pratt should get the credit for earliest
known use of "racism," in defense of a policy toward Native Americans
that would today seem pretty darn racist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Henry_Pratt#Cultural_assimilation_of_Native_Americans

--bgz

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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