"racism" ra-cism, is a term that refers to an ideology. Much like most of these philosophical / psychological terms (ology's, ism's....)
if one believes in "race" then they are racists.
Now on the flip-mode, in any philosophical discussion, we start with definitions. If one wants to use a word to mean something slightly different than it's typical discussion (which Koala rocks), then they make that known at the start of a discussion
OR... if they rock it poetic style, they use metaphor to make it obvious.
In other words, don't jump on cats 'til you know what they're saying.