It’s Not Good Enough to Call Trump a Racist
There are better questions and bigger problems
When I was a kid, I had an annoying habit of asking my dad questions even when I already knew the answers to my questions. Eventually, my dad told me not to ask him questions if I already knew the answers. I never forgot that lesson. And as an adult, it’s clear my dad’s instructions aren’t a journalistic standard.
Recently in a live interview, Robert Costa from the Washington Post asked the presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg if Trump is a racist. Buttigieg lightly affirmed, once again, what most Americans know is true — Trump is a racist. Buttigieg gave examples; he said, “we have to respond to the racism that is emanating from this White House,” and he also said the question, “is almost academic.”
Actually, the question was an insult. The question itself is insulting to the hearts and minds trying to survive this racist regime. And yet that question continues.
Even the affirmative answers to the question can be weak because it’s not good enough to call Trump a racist. It’s not good enough to call Trump a white supremacist or a white nationalist. Donald Trump isn’t white America’s everyday racist. The bone-spur president is no foot soldier. Racists have ranks.
