No banning of words. Shun, avoid, make it known that misuse is socially unacceptable. Don't ban. Don't put laws on the books for thought crimes. The founders had lots of flaws and bad ideas but freedom of speech was the greatest gift anyone ever gave us. We just take it for granted. No word bans. "I'm not mad...I'm disappointed" is a better tactic than arguing from authority

I don’t support banning much of anything. The word has already lost all meaning and therefore all the power it once held.
My friends and I constantly call statements and each other racist and have for the past few years specifically to rob the word of its moral power to condemn.
To most progressives I am a racist. Yet I have never harmed, disrespected or denied anyone based solely on the color of their skin.
I am white. My parents are white. My children are white. My wife is white. I am proud of the contributions my ancestors have made to the world.
Many others whose ancestors did not look like me or mine have also contributed much to the world and they should take pride in that and themselves.
So call me what you like. Maybe they can start with super duper mega racist.

A tool for the left, eh? Thats a cop-out that the left hopes that you use to shut down open dialogue. For example, how fruitless does a conversation become after someone uses the "racist" card? Its so frustrating when a valuable conversation redirects to this narrative, and all the points get lost when the outrage bomb detonates. It doesn't matter who uses it, talks cease. One might say there's no point in continuing the conversation if somebody gets pegged as such. If someone calls you racist and you walk away, it is you that ended the dialogue- not them. The left remains standing, proud and victorious. I do think that @ObiRonMoldy and @Aurelien are onto something here, and I hope this contributes. I think that it would be better to identify these dialogue ending words and phrases as "check" and not "checkmate." Do not ban! Instead, find a way to hold your ground when "racist" cheapens the point, and do not let one word, or any like it, end the conversation. Learn how your ground may evolve while holding it, even as someone is venting. Let them exhaust themselves. Best case scenario- they recollect and the conversation continues. The alternative is that they walk away (hopefully no one gets hurt). Easier said than done, right? Just remember that the "racist" card trumps anyone who does not/can not counter it, or doesn't value their own growth/opinion enough to learn how to deal with it.

Only if "Islamophobia" is banned first.

at first the word "racist" was latched onto by the socialists to use as a way to shame white people and it really implied mal-treatment of Black people.
I think it's more to the point and effective to point out that so many leftist ideas and policies were in actuality acts of hate toward Black People first and others as well.
Examples would be the whole abortion thing was started by a hater of Blacks of the first order - her name was Margaret Sanger.
Another example would be all the hateful rhetoric about Jews and Israel itself. Rather than calling the leftist "racists" just get to the point and call them out as Jew haters...that's what they are.
Yet another example is the Political Lefts encouragement of poor and destitute Hispanic people to trek with children in hand across more than a thousand miles of bad country to illegally enter USA. They certainly do NOT have the well being of those hispanics in mind - they are doing this for political expediency. The poor hispanic children and adulst are nothing more than fodder for the lefts political aspirations. So they are the true haters of "brown skinned refugees". Call them what they are. Haters of poor brown skinned refugees. These things I say are objectively true. I feel no regret for calling a Jew hater a Jew hater, a hater of Black persons a Black hater...etc.

Fuck competitive running.

Banning a word that is used incorrectly does not make sense to me. Being born in the human race, with blue eyes and most of my life living in Southern California, I laugh when called racist. I will admit I don't like insects and reptiles, they carry germs and bite. Have had co-workers and friends from almost every nation in the world, so when called "racist" by someone who has trouble pronouncing three syllable words, I realize they do not know me and it is they who are "prejudice" and need to mature to hold a conversation with. That's just me tho'.

Regardless of whether or not I agree with the individual using that word, I still think people should be able to speak freely and use whatever words they wish to convey their point(s). Same is true with that other "dreadful" R word (retard). From a personal stance, I don't often use either of those words.

sure the word racist has lost its meaning...I've taken to simply calling leftists jew haters instead of racist or anti-semites. works for me.

No.
The DemLeft uses it to death ... and, at this point, to their detriment ... but that’s on them.
They’ve ruined so many words through overuse or misconstrued and mangled definitions but I simply stop using the words (mostly). I wouldn’t want them “removed” from the lexicon.
Most people here use words contextually correctly ... so it’s not US ... it’s THEM.
To stop doing stuff ... using words ... accepting THEIR Point of View is to simply accede to them some sort of “Win”.
To hell with them.

The word isn’t ambiguous, it has a specific meaning. The fact that leftists use it against anyone who disagrees with them is immaterial.

Btw, it’s been abused so often that using it is now meaningless.

My God, we need to expand our language, not reduce it. We already recycle so many words.

I suggest that we ban any and all "banning" regarding to anything psychologically/spiritually/metaphysically related. Those areas are the jurisdiction of "Natural Law"

I don't know why we should ban it. Especially considering the fact that it gives half the country such a vicarious thrill every time they think of it and makes 'em happier than a pig in shit every time they get to call someone a racist. Why take all of their fun away. Besides, they're going to be mighty disappointed come election day, we ought leave' em with a little something they can do for fun, you know?

Seems like this is true of most things. We use words outside their meaning and we create a society that has little respect for language or the consepts that language is trying to communicate. We use stuff wrong, we use stuff so wrong we break it. THIS is why we can't have nice things lol.

Few people are true to their word anymore because the words coming out of their mouths don't have much meaning in the first place. Ban a word, it's the mentality behind how we use it driving us in the wrong direction and we will use any word you replace it with wrong and break that to, eventually.

It seems like philosophy has a lot of questions and answers we need, but somehow philosophy has been largely discredited as a practical way of creating change.

"the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline."

Not sure how most of the questions, answers, and perspectives here even exist without a strong philosophical thought, it's like saying you don't believe in water while ignoring how much water you consist of.

How do you keep yourself hydrated while discrediting the one thing that can hydrate you?

The answer for me is simple, if we all show each other the respect we expect others to show us then there is little room for name calling, which is usually the intent behind this sort of descriptor. If your having a discussion about how someone is racist, you don't need to call them a racist. Same can be said for "victim", when people bring up these words they are never concerned with what the other person thinks, if the person is a victim or a racist. They are looking at something they don't like (an action, a belief, behavior or maybe personality trait) and they are saying because I don't like this thing (and probably don't understand it or want to) I've decided to categorize it as immoral so that I can proceed to ignore the details.

If both sides where not doing this, at least one side would be making significant progress. Instead we are not just fighting one battle but we are creating multiple small wars going on between opposing sides without a clear understanding of what or who we are fighting for.

The problem is the confusion, now we have a mass generalization of right and wrong battling individual perceptions and struggles wrapped up in the same battle with different definitions. All because it's too difficult to have uncomfortable conversations. Banning one word will only lead to more band words, and more of the same problems surrounding those words.

For instance, we could all stop arguing about what is or isn't sexist if we just thought of it as normal for a woman to say "please don't do that" and without questioning why, the other persons natural instinct was to be respectfull of the womans wishes without questioning why she finds the behavior respectful or disrespectful.

We are so busy trying to call everyone out on their shit all the time, but rairly do I see or experience people being respectful of each other without trying to alter the persons boundaries. It's like this ultimate game of cat and mouse where we show surface level respect while trying to get away with anything we can under the other persons nose but also under our own moral radar. We end up treating others this way because we expect it from them and the cycle continues while we justify ourselfs as right and moral and the other as less than.

Banning anything implies that one has authority over it, and who can claim authority over a word? Or a book? I certainly believe people should use the word correctly. But many do not. I can try to educate them, until that process becomes overwhelming. Then I have to walk away.

Racism
Merriam Webster - racial prejudice or discrimination [merriam-webster.com]

Lexico/Oxford - Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior. [lexico.com]

Bing - prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against a person or people on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized. - promotion of the minority class over the majority within it's own definition seems prejudicial.

Prejudice - preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience. - I highlight this because there is group going around saying that people who support the results of IQ data as it pertains to race are committing "scientific racism" [en.wikipedia.org] (ex. Stephan Molyneux, Charles Murray, ...)

Further from MW - "Racism appears to be a word of recent origin, with no citations currently known that would suggest the word was in use prior to the early 20th century... Dictionaries are often treated as the final arbiter in arguments over a word’s meaning, but they are not always well suited for settling disputes."

First, I move to erase discrimination as part of the definition. If I was making an accurate historical drama based on ancient Japan, I would categorically discriminate against non-Japanese for the cast. I would not consider that racism.

So I would support a modified Oxford definition of - Prejudice, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior.

I think having discussions on racism is healthy. And, the misuse of the label identifies people who are tools.

[theguardian.com]

Yep. Islamophobia is now racism, as above.

Why? The problem is nobody feels very empowered by a mere concept like “cultural aversion.” Then all you are left with is: “Child-marriage, clitorectomy, gay-stoning, misogeny? Not my cup of tea, but whatever floats your camel.”

Words get degraded. Like “fascism.” It’s just Com-speak for “We don’t like it politically.”

“Racism” continues this. It is Left-speak for when a “fascist” doesn’t like something (anything at all) about anybody who doesn’t look exactly like them.

The word DOESN'T have 'so many different meanings depending on the context.' It has a very specific definition, independent of political agendas and audience.

It's the language used by people tossing such words around, with no care for their very specific meanings, that should be banned.

What we need is not a ban on words; but a reshaping of how we debate and engage with each others (as opposed to demean, caricature, insult...).

The problem, as I see it personally, is 'political' correctness: both whose who defend it (by using such words carelessly to silence opponents) AND whose who denunce it (using it as an excuse to spout more hate and divisions, in the name of freedom of speech). We need to get rid of 'political' (=partisan agendas) when dealing with correctness (courtesy, respect).

Politics has turned into a noisy jungle where politicians act like gorillas in the mist at the expense of dialogue, compromise, and reason. That's why the political landscape is fucked up. The problem is not the dictionaries. It's the morons governing us -Right and Left. Don't let them impose their 'newspeak' on us all.

No we will need it again one day. After all the childish subversive leftists stop throwing it around like a cheap yo-yo!

The thing about racism is people are over-using the word, expanding or rewriting the definition of the word to the point where it becomes overly vague, contradictory, and confusing, and applying the word to people who generally don't deserve it as an intellectually lazy political smear.

It's been repeated so often, and to so many people who don't deserve it, we've basically reached the point where the child has cried wolf too many times when there was no wolf, and now when someone cries wolf and there actually is a wolf, nobody believes them.

You also approach semantic satiation after a point. For those who aren't too familiar with linguistics, semantic satiation is what happens when a term gets repeated so often it essentially becomes meaningless.

My white, tattooed, Harley Davidson motorcycle riding son is often called "white supremacist", "racists", and "Nazi" because he supposedly looks the part. His wife, my favorite daughter-in-law, finds it amusing as she is a beautiful woman of color. Their daughter is a bright little girl who adores her parents and the rest of her family. I have often thanked them for "saving" my son from hypocrisy.
The word "racists" has been used, abused, and tossed about so much it has lost any and all impact and viability in our family.

Here's an example of why the word needs to remain, apart from the fact that banning the use of a word buys into the SJW culture vulture narrative, how would I be able to say the following?

As a little context for the true racist types, those who hide behind the color of their skin, while condemning those for whom they infallibly identify by skin color - ethnicity is not a skin color and is the true subject matter, imo.
Maybe, if we could get away from that and talk about differences between cultures in the context of racism and not use the word as both a bludgeon and shield to hide behind, honest discussions might be had.
Banning words is a harmful and ridiculous concept, it is ideological in its implementation and its only purpose is to shut down debate. Not to fix any social ills, but indeed make them worse. Symbolically putting a strip of duck tape over the mouth might work for some as a signal of virtue, but for me it screams - captive hostage taking!

No, use it with its correct meaning.
Allow the others who use it incorrectly and change the meaning as many times as they change their gender to continue their asininity. Eventually, they'll try something else.

I'm not a racist, I'm a f#*+ING Nazi, for saying that I know indigenous Australians who state that they enjoy Western medicine, technology, transport, agriculture, communications, education, etc. I'm related by marriage to an Aboriginal bloke, but, what would I know?