ADL Changes Definition of 'Racism' Again After Breitbart News Report; Asks Public for Help

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a once-respected civil rights organization that has joined the activist left, appeared to change its definition of “racism” on Wednesday after Breitbart News and others pointed out an earlier, anti-white change.

As Breitbart News’ Allum Bokhari reported on Monday, the ADL’s definition of racism used to be fairly straightforward:

Racism is the belief that a particular race is superior or inferior to another, that a person’s social and moral traits are predetermined by his or her inborn biological characteristics. Racial separatism is the belief, most of the time based on racism, that different races should remain segregated and apart from one another.

By late 2020, under the influence of the Black Lives Matter movement, which the ADL was desperate to appease (to the point of joining antisemitic left-wing groups in calling for a “Black-led movement”), the organization changed the definition:

The marginalization and/or oppression of people of color based on a socially constructed racial hierarchy that privileges white people.

By Wednesday, the definition appeared to have changed again to a new, “interim” definition of racism:

Racism occurs when individuals or institutions show more favorable evaluation or treatment of an individual or group based on race or ethnicity.

The ADL cited Harvard professor Robert Livingston, a social psychologist who is also a “diversity consultant.”

In a separate essay published Wednesday at Medium, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt attempted to explain:

A few years ago, ADL updated our definition to reflect that racism in the United States manifests in broader and systemic ways and to explicitly acknowledge the targeting of people of color — among many others — by the white supremacist extremism we have tracked for decades. While this is true, this new frame narrowed the meaning in other ways. And, by being so narrow, the resulting definition was incomplete, rendering it ineffective and therefore unacceptable. It’s true, it’s just not the whole truth. It alienated many people who did not see their own experience encompassed in this definition, including many in the Jewish community.

Greenblatt said that the ADL would “open ourselves to comments on our new definition of racism from the public.”

Last week, as Breitbart News noted, the ADL gave fellowships of up to $25,000 to “Jews of Color.” Judaism does not recognize distinctions of color in any way; the term “Jews of Color” simply excludes “white” Jews of European origin.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His new novel, Joubert Park, tells the story of a Jewish family in South Africa at the dawn of the apartheid era. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, recounts the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

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