The word "racist" is now used as an all-purpose synonym for "bigoted" or "offensive" or "hostile to other countries." independent.co.uk/news/uk/politi…
Language changes, and if this is what the word now means, there's nothing to be done about it, but again, it leaves us lacking a word that we *need* to discuss our political situation, a word that specifically means, "hostility to those seen to be of another *race*--
and the classification of human beings into hierarchies based on physical traits and genetic heritage. We really need to be able to discuss this specific concept, because "racism" remains a real and specific kind of evil. If we use the word "racism" to compass all bigotry,
we lose the ability to locate that particular *form* of bigotry in its historic context. If the leave.eu call Merkel a "Kraut," they're not expressing what anyone until recently would have called "racism." I assume they see themselves as of the same race.
It's rude, bigoted, insulting, jingoistic, aggressive, stupid, and low-class. But it doesn't involve a *racial* theory.
