Now, some character who represents a district in wherever Iowa, Steve King, made an obviously racist comment: “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?” If you say something racist, others can confidently assume that you are a racist person. But not so with NBC. According to Huffpost, its news department sent an e-mail to reporters that said: “Be careful to avoid characterizing [King’s] remarks as racist,” but that it is “ok to attribute to others as in ‘what many are calling racist’ or something like that.” After this story went viral, NBC quickly changed its tune and told staffers: It’s “fair to describe Rep. Steve King’s remarks on white supremacy as ‘racist.'” Apparently, he is still not a racist. He just said racist things. Now, is this an anomaly or systemic? I put all of my money on the latter. White Americans, for the most part, hate and reject the racist label. You just can’t say it even with all of the evidence as clear as day. King is a racist because he says racist things. That’s that. And we can also confidently conclude that those who vote for him are also racists.
But recall how problematic it was for the young and very popular representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to call Trump what he is on 60 Minutes: a racist. The White House claimed he wasn’t and that was enough said on the subject. But when she continued to state the obvious, The Hill ran this headline: “Ocasio-Cortez doubles down on accusation that Trump is racist.” In this bizarre state of affairs, we can even expect a person who burns a cross on a black man’s lawn not to be called a racist; but we can accuse them of a racist act. It’s debatable.
Trump has shutdown the government because he wants to build a wall to keep people of color out of the US. Plain and simple. He only wants immigrants from Scandinavia. He actually said this. But that’s not enough. Trump, after 21 people were killed by Islamic terrorists in black Kenya yesterday, has yet to tweet anything about it. (Someone should let him know that a white American was among the dead.) Yet, that’s still not enough. Trump calls black Africa a shithole. Still not enough. Even after all of this and much more, to call him a racist only amounts to “an accusation.” Or statements that are “not helpful.”
But here is the problem. White people in the main hate any white person being called a racist even if that white person is blatantly racist. Why? Because they know the great weight and risk that comes with that word. They know to use it widely means to see a large part of this society in painful terms. It means, for instance, hundreds of thousands of men are not in prison because they are inherently bad, but because they are black. This fact is painful not because of moral feelings, but a real fear of action, which would require changing the society as it is. The fear is: Where would you be in a radically transformed society? Worse off? You do not know. You do not want to know. It’s better to avoid the word racist than to actually do something about the situation.
