You are NOT a Racist for Doing These Things

The most overused, misused, and even abused word in the English language these days is the term “racist.” Ironically, the upsurge in the use of this most distasteful of pejoratives coincided with the election of Barack Obama as America’s first black president. Since his election, anyone—black, white, Hispanic, or Asian—who disagrees with his policies or questions his leadership is quickly labeled a “racist.” In his new book, God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy, Governor Mike Huckabee writes about this phenomenon: “…consider the word ‘racist.’ If one ignores President Obama’s race and criticizes his policies or tell jokes about him, treating him exactly the way every other President has been treated, one is called a racist. Wouldn’t it be racism if we treated him differently because of his race?”

Why are liberals so quick to drop the “R” bomb on people who disagree with them? To answer to this question it is necessary to understand the powerfully negative connotations of the term “racist.” Because of the checkered racial history of our country, there are few things worse to be called than a “racist.” The term conjures up images of bigots in hoods and robes burning crosses in the yards of black families, bombs killing innocent little black girls in a church in Birmingham, lynchings, snarling police dogs, water cannons turned on peaceful demonstrators, segregation, Jim Crow laws, and George Wallace standing in the door of the University of Alabama to block black students from registering.

With the term carrying these connotations, what person in his right mind would want to be thought of as a racist? Liberals understand that nobody wants to be called a racist. Consequently, they use the term like a club to suppress opposing points of view. When liberals cannot debate a point of contention on the basis of facts, logic, or reason, they simply opt for the nuclear option and drop the “R” bomb on opponents. As long as it works, they will continue to call those who refuse to toe the line of liberal orthodoxy “racists.” But liberals are making a strategic mistake in overusing their favorite label for conservatives, Christians, and other thinking people. Frankly, because of its frequent misapplication, the term “racist” is losing its sting.

Disagreeing with Barack Obama’s policies or pointing out his inadequacies as president hardly qualifies one as a “racist.” Americans would do the same thing if he happened to be white, Asian, or Hispanic—just ask Bill Clinton. Better yet, ask every president from Washington to George W. Bush—all of whom were white and all of whom were criticized mercilessly by political opponents and even by their supporters at times. It goes with the job. Conservatives, Christians, and others who find themselves at odds with the socio-cultural narrative espoused by liberals can take the “racist” club out of the hands of those who use it to suppress dissenting opinions by simply turning the tables on them using common-sense facts such as the following:

You are NOT a racist if you question the logic of Affirmative Action.

You are NOT a racist if you point out that comparing events in Ferguson, Missouri to events in Selma, Alabama 50 years ago is not only inaccurate but dishonors the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and those who marched, bled, and died there.

You are NOT a racist if you think young black students should learn to speak proper English like students of other races instead of mocking proper English as “speaking white.”

You are NOT a racist is you challenge the tendency of liberals to blame the high rate of crime, drug-use, dropouts, and fatherless families on poverty.

You are NOT a racist if you point out that a police officer is six times more likely to be killed by a black man than a black man is to be killed by a police officer.

You are NOT a racist if you point out that the biggest threat to the life of a young black man in America is another young black man.

You are NOT a racist if you point out the obvious about the government’s misnamed war on poverty: that not only has it failed to eliminate poverty in the black community (or anywhere else), it has actually perpetuated it.

You are NOT a racist if you point out that for the most part successful black Americans improved the quality of their lives in the same way that successful rags-to-riches people of any race in America have: through personal initiative, by taking education seriously, by accepting personal responsibility for their lives, by working hard and working smart, by refusing to make excuses or view themselves as victims, and by turning their backs on government dependence.

You are NOT a racist if you question the left’s practice of labeling successful black Americans as “sell-outs.”

You are NOT a racist if you point out that to a liberal that diversity is just code for “uniformity”. The whole point of embracing diversity is to increase the number of opinions offered, debated, and discussed, not to browbeat people into accepting the agenda-driven narrative espoused by liberals. If Americans cannot offer dissenting opinions or ask questions about socio-cultural topics, where is the diversity, much less the freedom of speech we are supposed to enjoy in this country?

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