Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
It may be shocking to know that I rarely refer to people as “racist.”
Don’t get me wrong — racism exists. But – aside from an occasional descriptor for my favorite fictional juvenile Klansman – I understand that the word “racism” is like the phrase “white people.” It causes many Caucasians to spontaneously combust into fits of hissy and shuts down any hope of meaningful dialogue. Therefore, I tend to refer to actions as racist. Systems are racist. Plus, it is impossible to definitively determine whether or not someone “holds the belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.” So, contrary to what those who call me “the real racist” may think, I don’t like to use the term to define people. But before we have the conversation I am here to discuss, I must first set aside my own personal rule so that we may agree on an unignorable fact.
Some people are racists.
Even when they aren’t performing it, racism is how they interface with the world. I’m not talking about actions or words or beliefs. When LeBron James visits a farm, he is still a basketball player. When an orange paint-wearing Bozo brought his circus act to the White House, America’s 45th president didn’t stop being a clown. And, just as there are farmers, basketball players and clowns, there are certain individuals whose entire persona can be accurately summed up as “a racist.”
Take the recent furor over Harvard President Claudine Gay, for instance.
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For a second, let’s set aside the conservative pearl-clutching over Gay’s performance at the House Committee on Education and the Workforce’s hearing on antisemitism on college…
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