racialize
verb
ra·cial·ize
ˈrā-shə-ˌlīz 
racialized; racializing; racializes
: to give a racial character to : to categorize, marginalize , or regard according to race (see race entry 1 sense 1a)
Just as racist power racializes people, racist power racializes space. The ghetto, The inner city. The third world.—
Ibram X. Kendi
Ibram X. KendiRacializing poverty helps to distract from the systemic factors at the foundation of both racial and economic inequality.—Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
racialized
adjective
a racialized society
racialized groups
In America, racialized women make up some 40 percent of all missing people, but receive only 20 percent of the coverage.
—Rawiya Kameir
Rawiya Kameir
Examples of racialize in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Woe to us if this racialized The Little Mermaid is a hit.
—Armond White, National Review, 26 May 2023
This crisis in mass incarceration, which only recently began to dip, has roots that run deep in efforts to politicize and racialize crime.
—Time, 3 Nov. 2022
Pohl also resisted calls to racialize the plague, even while other local medical experts persisted in drawing a connection between ethnicity and the disease.
—Bess Lovejoy, Smithsonian Magazine, 25 Mar. 2020
Too often Republicans racialize poverty, Democrats run away from poverty.
—al, 29 Feb. 2020
That, coupled with high levels of non-white immigration and a decline in the percentage of whites overall in America, has helped to racialize the Patriot movement, which in the past was not primarily motivated by race hate.
—Kaitlyn Tiffany, Vox, 2 July 2019
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Armond White, National Review, 26 May 2023
This crisis in mass incarceration, which only recently began to dip, has roots that run deep in efforts to politicize and racialize crime.
—Time, 3 Nov. 2022
Pohl also resisted calls to racialize the plague, even while other local medical experts persisted in drawing a connection between ethnicity and the disease.
—Bess Lovejoy, Smithsonian Magazine, 25 Mar. 2020
Too often Republicans racialize poverty, Democrats run away from poverty.
—al, 29 Feb. 2020
That, coupled with high levels of non-white immigration and a decline in the percentage of whites overall in America, has helped to racialize the Patriot movement, which in the past was not primarily motivated by race hate.
—Kaitlyn Tiffany, Vox, 2 July 2019
Cite this Entry
“Racialize.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/racialize. Accessed 23 Jul. 2025.
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