This past week I lay immobilized on a board in a hospital emergency room at about that same time the Democratic Party found itself in a similar situation. In that hallucinatory state between coherency and darker places, a cell phone rang through the pain and an epiphany came to me: the Democrats have become the Cell Phone Party.

The intrusion of cell phones into public spaces represents one facet of the larger erosion of mutual respect and public dialogue that has become a central feature of the Era of Bad Feelings. In supermarkets, on public transit–even in the doctor’s office–people construct electronic walls by the simple act of holding a tiny device to their ears. Intimate conversations reinforce the message: we don’t matter. We are no better than mannequins.

It has this in common with another obnoxious feature of the Era of Bad Feelings–road rage. Road rage is about drivers doing whatever they want on public highways because they have little respect for what binds us together as a society and even less respect for other people. They have no use for laws if a cop isn’t lurking around the next corner. Like cell phone addicts, road ragers flaunt their contempt for their fellow citizens.

In my younger days, public places represented opportunities for conversations that promised insights and friendships. These discussions kept us centered by cluing us into what was on the minds of the rest of the world. Sometimes we awkwardly bumped into people we might not normally associate with, broadening our perspectives.

Today, in the insular environment we seem bent on erecting, the cell phone eliminates the possibility of awkward encounters with those who do not share our tastes in blogs or politics. In public gathering places, cell phones allow us to electronically construct intellectual gated communities that only admit people who promise not to disturb us.

A cell phone-like isolation appears to have infected the Democratic Party. In reports filed after the head-on collision of the Iraq War funding vote, the common theme stresses that the Democrats apparently regard the public with an irrelevancy verging on the contempt that characterizes their Republican rivals. In their refusal to hear the American people, the Democrats resemble cell phone addicts who dismiss those around them.

Instead of reaching out to the public, the Party has a hand cupped to its ear in an indecipherable conversation. Congressional Democratic leaders have become as insular as people strolling the malls oblivious to those around them while they babble away.

In this isolationism, the Democrats have forgotten how to dial into those voters and groups that brought them their congressional majority: people of color, the poor, the elderly, the have-nots of America along with union voters, blue collar workers, and those fighting for equity and morality in domestic and foreign policy.

Perhaps more alarming, the Democrats apparently have little clue about what is happening to America. They face an administration that ranks as the worst since Warren Harding briefly occupied the White House, an administration in which the Iraq War characterizes a larger moral corruption that is becoming more clear as light begins to shine into the dark corners of the Republican Counterrevolution.

Yet the Democrats have no coherent strategy for challenging George W. Bush and the GOP. The Party appears to have lost its sense of purpose as it wanders in directions that make little sense to the rest of us. Sadly, no American knows what the Democratic Party stands for any more.

The Cell Phone Party has lost its moral compass because they have lost touch with the American people. We are not on their “quick call list.” The Democrats seem to be living in a lost world, where they keep their ears covered as they conduct a one-sided conversation with no discernible ideas or values, where they are unable to carry on a dialogue with America, where there is nothing on the other end of the line but static, and where the bill marked “past due” must be paid for by the American public.

Since I am still laid up after a serious accident, I thought it would be appropriate to publish the first Memorial Day proclamation for this weekend. In its words lie the essence of what people used to call Decoration Day, and, by implication, those values this nation holds in common. Memorial Day is about what unites us, not what divides us.

The historical origins of Memorial Day date back to the days after the Civil War when towns decorated the graves of soldiers who had died in that conflict. Hence the other name for this holiday, “Decoration Day.” Waterloo, New, York was officially recognized by Congress as the first city to officially hold a Decoration Day, which it celebrated on May 5, 1866.

It is generally agreed that the first national celebration began with the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union veterans. An unknown veteran wrote to GAR Adjutant-General N.P. Chipman who took the idea to GAR Commander-in-Chief General John Logan who issued the proclamation that appears below. In 1887, Congress finally recognized Memorial Day as a legal holiday for all government employees.

The South, however, held their own separate holiday for Confederate dead until after World War I when Memorial Day was changed to honor dead from all wars. So in a large sense, this holiday acknowledges not only the sacrifices of our service men and women but also the coming together of the nation.

This weekend, above all, marks what we Americans hold in common not our differences. There is no better statement of that than what Abraham Lincoln said at Gettysburg:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

“Dedicated to the Proposition that all men are created equal.” That belief in equity, in the level playing field, is what has distinguished this nation. As I wrote in the first chapter of The Strange Death of Liberal America:

The experience of the American people since [the Revolution]–and in many ways the key theme of American history–has been that each succeeding generation applied this principle to dealing with the latest attempt by the Haves to stomp on the Have-nots…

What these people share with communities like Lincoln, Big Meadow and countless others stems not merely from an intellectual or even emotional attachment to egalitarianism, but something elemental to the very meaning of the human condition: hope. Farmers dripping sweat on red clay, nervous families juggling monthly bill payments, and workers fearing a layoff notice still live under pinched horizons where hope can seem elusive. For them as for all of us what we proudly call the American Dream represents not merely a balance sheet of our material accounting, but more importantly a moral tally of the ideal that everyone can achieve the promise of their talents and character.

General Logan recognized this in his proclamation, writing:

Let us in this solemn presence renew our pledges to aid and assist those whom they have left among us as sacred charges upon the Nation’s gratitude.

I write this with a laptop computer lying in bed, a first generation American whose family fled political tyranny, and offer humble thanks to all those who gave their lives to assure the playing field continued to remain level.
No. 11
Headquarters, Grand Army of the Republic
Washington, D.C., May 5, 1868 I. The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land. In this observance no form or ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.We are organized, comrades, as our regulations tell us, for the purpose, among other things, “of preserving and strengthening those kind and fraternal feelings which have bound together the soldiers, sailors, and marines who united to suppress the late rebellion.” What can aid more to assure this result than by cherishing tenderly the memory of our heroic dead, who made their breasts a barricade between our country and its foe? Their soldier lives were the reveille of freedom to a race in chains, and their death a tattoo of rebellious tyranny in arms. We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. All that the consecrated wealth and taste of the Nation can add to their adornment and security is but a fitting tribute to the memory of her slain defenders. Let no wanton foot tread rudely on such hallowed grounds. Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and found mourners. Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time, testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten, as a people, the cost of free and undivided republic.If other eyes grow dull and other hands slack, and other hearts cold in the solemn trust, ours shall keep it well as long as the light and warmth of life remain in us.

Let us, then, at the time appointed, gather around their sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above them with choicest flowers of springtime; let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved from dishonor; let us in this solemn presence renew our pledges to aid and assist those whom they have left among us as sacred charges upon the Nation’s gratitude,—the soldier’s and sailor’s widow and orphan.

II. It is the purpose of the Commander-in-Chief to inaugurate this observance with the hope it will be kept up from year to year, while a survivor of the war remains to honor the memory of his departed comrades. He earnestly desires the public press to call attention to this Order, and lend its friendly aid in bringing it to the notice of comrades in all parts of the country in time for simultaneous compliance therewith.

III. Department commanders will use every effort to make this order effective.By command of:

JOHN A. LOGAN,
Commander-in-Chief.

N. P. CHIPMAN,
Adjutant-General.

Image: New York Times

The current issue swirling around the Obama campaign focuses on the question of whether a black man or woman can be president. It’s the wrong question. Instead we should ask why hasn’t there been a black president? And please spare me the line about “there hasn’t been anyone qualified.” As qualified as Warren Harding or Millard Fillmore or, yes, George W. Bush? You can even throw in Abe Lincoln whose resume at the time he walked through the door of the White House was rather skimpy.

If qualifications are not an issue what is? The next easy answer has always been racism, but when used by white people this excuse often has about it a tone of resignation and inevitability. Black folks and other people of color have heard white folks recite the same speech for over 200 years, one that usually goes something like this, “Yes, there are racists, but you can’t change people overnight.”

So-called “liberals” often accompany this sentiment with an “it’s too bad” tone of deterministic fatalism that says “We enlightened liberals (some of us even have friends who are people of color) know racism exists, we empathize with its victims, but human nature being what it is it is not something we can fix tomorrow.”

“Human nature being what it is.” That phrase pretty much sums up what many white people I know say when you ask why no person of color has ever been president. People of color apparently can be presidents in other parts of the world, but not the United States. The people in those countries know our statistics despite our attempts to not look into our own mirror. What message do you suppose that sends? And what kind of reception can an American company, diplomat or tourist expect?

As Thurgood Marshall and others made clear over half a century ago–and W.E. B. DuBois and Frederick Douglass before that–racism is a system. They saw that at its heart lay a series of de facto and de jure practices that systematically oppressed people of color. If anyone wanted evidence of that they just had to read the transcripts of the trials of the murderers of Emmitt Till. That was the way the “system” worked.

A century ago, DuBois characterized the political situation of African Americans:

The laws are made by men who have little interest in him; they are executed by men who have absolutely no motive for treating the black people with courtesy or consideration; and, finally, the accused law-breaker is tried, not by his peers, but too often by men who would rather punish ten innocent Negroes than let one guilty one escape.

Those words still echo today. DuBois recognized that segregation was a system. If he were alive today he would ask something like the same question he did a century ago: how has the system prevented an African American from becoming president?

Almost every president in the last 100 years or so has come from either the vice-presidency, the United States Senate, or a governorship (Hoover and Eisenhower are two ringers). How many people of color have occupied those offices over the last century? Obviously no people of color have served as vice-president or even been nominated for the office.

The standard defense of this always focuses on the South, as if Dixie hung like an albatross around the neck of America. Yet Dixie has voted for either segregationist or Republican presidential candidates since 1948. So the Democratic Party cannot claim nominating a person of color to the vice-residency would cost them a South they have not captured for sixty years.

Move to the Senate. Over the last century you can count the number of African Americans who have served in the Senate on one hand. Let us name them: Barack Obama, of course, Carol Mosely Braun (also from Illinois), Edward Brooke (Massachusetts). There have been only five African American Senators in the history of this country! As for governors, when Deval Patrick won the governorship of Massachusetts last fall it made him only America’s second black governor since Reconstruction. The other was Douglas Wilder of Virginia who won in 1990.

So in the entire history of the United States we have had only seven African Americans ever elected to the positions that have served as the major paths to becoming president. You do the math, but the percentage has to be around one or two percent! Now try to tell the Shiites in Iraq that they should share power with the Sunnis and do that with a straight face!

Like canaries in a mineshaft the lack of African American presidents, vice-presidents, senators and governors signals that the air of systematic discrimination that DuBois spoke of still remains foul and unlivable, literally killing African Americans at an alarmingly high rate entirely out of proportion to their percentage of the population.

Those canaries signal that a half century after people such as the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, jr., Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer, John Lewis and thousands of others fought to end segregation, the playing field still remains tilted.

That systemic discrimination is alive and well can be seen by examining the four cornerstones of Liberal America: economic and social justice, educational equity, voting rights and media fairness. It is that tilted playing field that any person of color wishing to become president must climb–and the steepness of that tilt–which has always been precipitous–is becoming steeper under the Republican Counterrevolution.

Economic discrimination, which was Dr. King’s last, great cause still remains. Anyone seeking evidence can find it in employment and health care statistics, both of which have worsened under George W. Bush.

Education has been backsliding into “separate but unequal,” especially in the public/private schools of the South and the inadequate inner city inner-city schools of the entire country. Instead of helping these schools, the Republicans have created the draconian No Child Left Behind which instead of helping poor performing schools penalizes them (a Simon Legree motif more than familiar to any person of color).

Voting rights has taken a step backward under the Republican’s openly aggressive policy of discouraging people of color from voting. Republicans sought to derail the renewal of the Voting Rights Act and have discouraged measures such as same-day registration. The Civil Rights Commission severely reprimanded their performance in suppressing the votes of people of color in Florida in the 2000 election.

While people of color have made progress on the visible side of the media, ownership and management of media outlets by people of color has actually declined. In commenting on media ownership FCC Commissioner Michael Copps stated:

The facts are downright chilling. While people of color make up over 30 percent of our country’s population, a study from Free Press last fall tells us that they own only 3.26 percent of all broadcast television stations. Unpack these numbers a little further and you’ll find that African-Americans own only 1.3 percent of all stations. And it’s sad to say, we’re not making progress.

As a result of this tilted playing field, few young African American men and women grow up wanting to be president. They just want to be able to grow up, period.

They hope a random bullet or one with their name on it does not hit them as it has so many of their brothers and sisters. They hope they will not die because of a health care system that serves them poorly if at all. They hope maybe a few teachers and administrators in school where the toilets don’t work and the textbooks are missing pages will treat them as living not dead. And they hope the media, including the so-called blogosphere will not look through them as if they had already become ghosts.

As for politics, how many people of color occupy party leadership positions at the state or national level? Usually at this point I find a study or studies–more often than not totally ignored by the media–that provides the data I need.

Now maybe I’m just a lousy researcher, but searching the Internet I could not find that ANYONE had done a study of people of color in either party organization. That’s even more appalling than number of elected officials! So if you are reading this and know someone who could use a good dissertation topic–stick them on this one!

What I did find was a list of Democratic National Committee members put out by the DNC and another list of DNC members who are African American. However, both lists are somewhat out of date. If there are going to be an African American presidents, senators, governors it has to start with the DNC.

The DNC is governing body of the Party, but it is also where candidates are nurtured and chosen. Its membership consists of state party officials, national elected officials, a variety of Democratic Party-related organizations and at-large members chosen by the Party.

The roster I located lists 90 African Americans on the DNC which has a total of 435 members. This translates to 20%, which exceeds the U.S. figure of 13%. So the DNC has walked its talk about African American representation. You would think twenty percent might guarantee you some leverage, but it hasn’t guaranteed the candidates.

For that you need to look at the state committees. A quick run through the DNC state delegates shows that most states have two African American members–some even have three. But I was unable to find a source that gave the percentage of African Americans on various state committees.

A second place to look is voting patterns. The African American candidates who have attained higher office all follow a similar pattern–they come from states that have significant numbers of African Americans, mostly in large cities such as Chicago or Boston. Illinois accounts for 40% of our African American Senators and two-thirds since Reconstruction.

The states with the largest percentages of African Americans almost all lie in the old South ranging from 36.5% in Mississippi to 25.8% in Alabama. New York, Illinois, Michigan and Delaware fall in the next group with populations in the mid-teens. I have argued for some time that Democrats could take back the South merely by organizing African American voters, but so far they have shown little interest.

So where is the leverage to change this? Certainly grassroots organizing needs to get stronger. People of color in organizations such as the DNC also need to hold their organizations’ feet to the fire. Finally legal and legislative challenges to discrimination need to continue.

But in addition to these there exists a powerful weapon that remains largely unused: the franchise. African Americans and other people of color essentially hold the veto power to decide whether the Democrats will be the majority or minority party. Since the Republican Counterrevolution began with Barry Goldwater supporting the Dixiecrats and continued with Nixon’s Southern Strategy, people of color have not mattered very much to the GOP. The result is that for over a generation the Democratic Party has assumed the votes of people of color were theirs because the alternative was so bad what else could they do?

Neither Al Gore nor John Kerry aggressively sought out or attracted the support of people of color. They behaved as if they didn’t need to. As a result both lost because people of color stayed home and Gore and Kerry failed to match Bill Clinton’s voting percentages. In 2006, people of color turned out in large numbers, providing the margin of victory for the Democrats. They–not the Iraq War–allowed the Democrats to again assume control of Congress.

Now people of color have the power to determine the results of 2008. What would happen if a national coalition of African American, Hispanic, and Native American leaders organized an umbrella organization that would lay out a list of positions–much as feminist groups have done–and endorse candidates who supported them?

As we all know, African Americans and other people of color are deciding whether to support one of their own–Barack Obama–or the wife of the president who probably did as much for people of color as anyone since Lyndon Johnson. That an African American man and white woman are fighting for the same position should be deja vu all over again for many people of color. Having a unified position would help to sort out this dilemma.

Originally posted on the Francis L. Holland Blog. With many for thanks for inspiring me to think and write about this issue.

I would use the term “ECA” instead of the conceptually faulty and denigrating term “racism.” This is “Extreme Color Arousal,” whose acronym (ECA) is pronounced “EE-cah.” It sounds bad, right? And it should, because this is a very destructive illness, particularly in its most extreme forms. “

Now that many of us are acknowledging that the term “race” is a pseudo-scientific white supremacists’ fantasy word that stigmatizes Black people and other people of color every time it is used, we are also coming to accept that all words that are based upon and that presuppose the fallacious existence of “race” are equally damaging to our struggle for equality in America, precisely because they teach us, every day, that we from a separate “species” than white people. The US Supreme Court declared in Brown v. Board of Education that “separate but equal” is inherently unequal. Now, we are coming to realize that for so long as we concede that we are from a separate “race” we will continue to receive separate and unequal treatment in America.

And so the question immediately and anxiously arises, “If we don’t call our difference “race” and we don’t call antagonism against our difference “racism” then how WILL we refer linguistically to these fundamental facts of our existence? Won’t we necessarily discard our analysis of the problem if we discard this fallacious word? Will we have to trade our hard-won deconstructive understanding of our position for denial and childishly simplistic solutions like “color-blindness?”

Absolutely not! We need a new vocabulary that accurately describes and helps us and others to deconstruct, what actually exists in the sciences of biology, sociology and politics, using the renaming process and our new understandings as a starting point for powerful social change.

Today, a reader e-mailed me, saying, “With human nature being what it is, I think a new terminology to replace the words race, racist, racism, etc. would catch on faster if it were concise and catchy. Maybe we could ask for suggestions. Something along the lines of colorist, colorism. It’s just a thought.”

Below, I explain why “colorist” and “colorism,” although well-intentioned suggestions, are terrible alternative terms scientifically, linguistically, politically and strategically, and I propose alternative solutions. We do not need a new synonym for an old and false concept. We need a new understanding that can lead to positive and even revolutionary change in America’s thoughts and its social order. What we need, in my humble but insistent opinion, is not merely to change the fallacious words but also to change our entire way of thinking and analyzing the problem. We need not just a new word but a new solution.

The reader may be right that a simpler terminology would catch on faster, but I’m not sure that would be better, particularly if it - once again - leads to a misunderstanding of the nature of the problem, or if it relies on the simplistic solutions and denial implicit in proposals such as “color-blindness” (which, thankfully, the reader did not propose). So below, after sorting through this problem scientifically, linguistically, sociologically and politically, I propose some linguistic solutions that are both catchy as well as scientifically, sociologically and linguistically accurate.

The easiest part of this linguistic and analytical problem is naming the visual cue that elicits the negative response in what we used to call “racism.” When Blacks are on the highway and are stopped by police at a rate two or three times that of whites, the police cannot see our “ethnicity” and have no access to sublime genetic analysis that would allow them to target a fallacious “race.” From sixty or one hundred yards away, the police cannot even distinguish our African facial morphology very well, if at all. And many of us, like Barack Obama, don’t even really have strictly African facial morphology.

So, what police perceive visually and what arouses the negative behavioral response in them is, quite simply and uniquely, our “skin color.” In this case, there is no need to embellish or complicate a phenomenon which is really quite simple. When police perceive that a person’s skin is darker than white skin, be the victims Latino or Black, there often occurs within police officers’ brains a series of thoughts and feelings which are then manifested in behavior, like stopping us, searching us, beating us and/or arresting us.

Although white people would like to insist that they are responding to our “race” in such instances, partly because it allows them to imply that there are a series of important but imperceptible qualities that they are targeting beyond our skin color, the hard fact is that it is simply our skin-color that that arouses their attention. When aroused by perceiving the color of our skin, they then often also are aroused to dislike anything in us that is associated with our skin color, even if these cues would be acceptable in others who do not have our skin color. (For example, if the Irish, Jewish or Russians were Black, every aspect of their culture and their persons would come under sustained attack in America, regardless of their “ethnicity.”) Therefore we should replace the insulting misnomer of “race” and simply use the more accurate and relevant term “skin-color” instead.

But, if we discard the word “race,” then what term which will use for that which we historically but incorrectly referred to as “racism”? Obviously, once we agree that “race” does not exist as between human beings who are all of the same species, we cannot logically continue to use words which depend for their meaning of the fallacious existence of “race.”

The alternative term “color-arousal” properly and appropriately focuses on what happens inside the color-aroused person’s head at the moment when s/he perceives the color of another, in combination with an awareness of the person’s own color, identity, beliefs, ideation emotions and behavior. And in the head is precisely where the focus of our analysis should be: on what happens inside the head.

Consider this analogy: No “eating problem” like anorexia nervosa or bulimia can be resolved until we consider what goes on in the brain (thoughts, emotions) and mouth (behavior) of the ill person, because those physical areas within the body are the locus of the eating “problem.” Over-eating and under-eating involve a decisional process that occurs in the brain and is manifested in the behavior of the mouth. So, to help a patient, doctors study the emotions, thoughts and behavior of the patient. While overeating also involves food, the locus of the problem is not the supermarket; the locus of the problem is in the persons mind, and so it is a “mental problem,” not a “food problem.”

If you call bulimia a “food problem” (analogous to a “color problem”), then your focus will eternally be on the outside stimuli (food) rather than on what occurs in the head of the person who chooses to binge and purge. When people binge and purge, the locus of the problem is not in the food itself, but in their minds. Ask yourselves this: Could we ever solve the problems of bulimia or anorexia nervosa if we defined the problem as a “food problem” and went looking for the causes and solutions in the supermarket?

We can only discover the causes of anorexia and bulimia by studying the ideation, emotion and behavior of those who refuse to eat or who binge and purge. Likewise, the problem of color-arousal is not in our “race” but in other people’s perceptual arousal in response to perception of our skin-color, and then the emotions, ideation and behavior that follow within those subjects heads.

Some few psychiatrists are now studying “racism” (sic) and we should read what they say, as well as the new and revolutionary Position Statement of the American Psychiatric Association.In the problem of what we used to call “racism,” the locus of the problem is actually “color-arousal.” This is the preferred term because it focuses our attention precisely on what happens when the perception of skin-color arouses extreme emotions, ideation and behavior in suffers of extreme color arousal disorder (ECA).

To begin to identify, diagnose and treat extreme color-arousal, “color arousal” is also the preferable term scientifically, because we need to measure the level of arousal, the particular circumstances in which it occurs and the ideation, emotion and behavior that follow.

Although it is impossible to identify or measure “racism” in any individual with any even minimal degree of scientific agreement, it is actually quite easy to measure “skin-color-arousal” and many studies are based on this successful measurement. Unfortunately, until recently the psychiatric profession and other professionals had almost completely ignored and discounted extreme color-aroused emotions, ideation and behavior as an area in which patients are in need of diagnosis and treatment.

It is important to note that not all thoughts and behaviors aroused by the perception of skin-color are antagonistic thoughts or are necessarily dysfunctional or negative. When we see someone with exactly our mother’s skin color, we may feel good inside without knowing why. The problem occurs when subjects perceive the color of another and this arouses unrealistic thoughts, powerfully negative emotions and dysfunctionally antagonistic behaviors. I call this Extreme Color-aroused Emotion, Ideation and Behavior Disorder (ECEIBD). But this term can easily be shorted without losing anything to Extreme Color Arousal (ECA), which is pronounced EE-Cah.

Here’s another reason why the term “colorist” is a poor substitute for Extreme Color Arousal (ECA): When you add the suffix “ist “to a noun in the English language, as the BBC notes, the meaning becomes “a person who does or specializes in a certain area,” for example a “biologist,” a “gynecologist,” a “therapist.” Are people who experience extreme color-arousal the “specialists” in the disease that ails them or are they people in need of specialists? Isn’t extreme color-arousal characterized by the subject’s extreme denial and ignorance of what is going on within his head and why?

Do we really want to exalt the status of people who are extremely color-aroused, and create a new linguistic and conceptual fallacy, by calling them “specialists” in color-arousal? To the contrary, the specialists in color-arousal ought to be the “psychiatrists” who examine what goes on in the heads of people who experience dysfunctional and extreme color-arousal.

There are also important political and psychological reasons NOT to use the term colorist. The suffix “ist,” when added to a noun in the English language, becomes an adjective that modifies the description of the person being referred to, for the purpose of signifying that that person advocates or approves of the noun to which “ist” is applied. For example, “Marxist,” “Leninist,” “monopolist,” “capitalist,” “leftist.”

A person who feels extreme color-aroused animus is clearly not someone who “advocates or approves of color,” like a “capitalist” approves of the aggregation of capital. The truth is exactly the opposite. People who have extreme color-aroused disorder often hate others’ skin-color (or their own) and feel intense phobia, fear and anxiety when they perceive skin color and their feelings are aroused.

Linguistically, to simply add the suffix “ist” to the word “color” would denote precisely the opposite of what is intended, by implying that “colorists” are either experts in or advocates of color, when the exact opposite is true. This would have the effect of further confusing and retarding efforts to better understand, diagnose and treat extreme color-arousal.

For the moment, I would use the term “ECA” instead of the conceptually faulty and denigrating term “racism” “Extreme Color Arousal,” whose acronym (ECA) is pronounced “EE-cah.” It sounds bad, right? And it should, because it is a very destructive illness, particularly in its most extreme forms.