The ADL’s Definition Of “Racism” Isn’t Inclusive

Equally–if not more–disturbing is how this definition makes it impossible for numerous ethnic hatreds, rivalries, and crimes against humanity in a non-Western context to be classified as racism. According to the ADL definition of the word, the following list of atrocities cannot be considered as being the consequences of racism:

• The 1915 genocide by the Ottoman Turks of millions of Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians. (Perhaps this shouldn’t come as a surprise; the ADL lobbied against congressional recognition of this as a genocide for many years.)
• The Istanbul Pogrom of 1955 by Turks against Armenian, Greek, and Jewish minorities.
• The Burning of Smyrna’s Greek and Armenian Quarters by Turkish Nationalists in 1922.
• The 1994 Rwanda Genocide of Twa & Tutsis by Hutus.
• The 1980s Al-Anfal Campaign of Genocide against Kurds by Saddam Hussein’s Arab Supremacist regime.
• The Khojaly Massacre of Azerbaijanis by Armenian forces.
• The Baku Pogrom of Armenians in the Azerbaijani capital.
• The “Rape of Nanking” by the Japanese Empire. Or, for that matter, the mass rape of Korean “comfort women” by Japanese imperial troops. Both were made through systems that privileged one ethnic group over another, but since the perpetrators are Japanese and not White, this cannot be racism, according to the ADL.
• The Farhud and Hebron pogroms of the early 20th Century by Arab Nationalists against Jews.
• The 2000s Darfur Genocide in Sudan by Arab Nationalists against indigenous, Black African communities.

Given that the ADL is supposed to be an international organization that promotes anti-racist work around the world, one would think that such insensitive, ignorant, Western-centric ideas and definitions of racism would never be given such a stamp of approval.

Yet the ADL has been rather disappointing as of late.