Polite Racism

Texas Lynch Mob, photo by J. L. Mertins , 1893 (image of lynched African-American removed to avoid offending polite racists). Source: Library of Congress

Not everyone called a racist is a really bad racist. If you don’t believe it, just ask them. Let’s coin a new term.

Recently, Miss Michigan, Kathy Zhu, was stripped of her title because of tweets that Miss World America officials judged to be “offensive, insensitive, and inappropriate.”

Zhu replied in a Twitter video that “Little attacks like those really, really diminishes [sic] the value and the [truth] of the word ‘racism’ ” (many transcripts use the word “trust” but the video says “truth”). Note that the explanation from the MWA did not use the word “racist” or “racism” nor did it appear in the interchange between Zhu and the MWA posted by Zhu on Twitter; but this Zhu tweet was posted on Zhu’s page in a sampling collected by Susanda Rosende Art: “No one is racist expect [sic] those who scream racism”).

It would seem that Zhu, a valiant crusader for linguistic accuracy and a brave opponent of true racism has been victimized. How can she be a racist? The fact that someone has called her a racist (apparently not the MWA) means that she is NOT a racist.

Zhu’s selfless defense of the fight against “true racism” mirrors Jared Kushner’s explanation in a recent Axios interview that his father-in-law is not a racist:

“You can’t not be a racist for 69 years and then run for president and be a racist. And what I’ll say is…