Waiting On Reparations is a podcast hosted by rapper and visual artist Dope Knife and rapper and politician Linqua Franqa, discussing how public policy affects hip-hop culture and what hip-hop culture tells us about political realities. On this episode, they sit down with Kennedy Mitchum, the 22-year-old woman who got Merriam-Webster to change the definition of racism to include the reality of power structures. Dope reads the definition of racism from several dictionaries – these existing definitions are incomplete, he says, because they make racism out to be “strictly a moral failing,” a doctrine or belief system that’s limited to individuals. But racism is so much more than that – because it is intrinsic in our political and educational institutions, it has a greater effect on Black lives than just an individual person’s belief system. And because in politics, “definitions matter so much for how resources get allocated, what services are funded,” Linqua points out, it’s extra important to get this one right.

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