Against racism? Call it out in daily life

IT’S taken a resolution by the US House of Representatives to call out the President’s racist tweets as racist, and in the interim we’ve heard a coward’s cornucopia of euphemism, from “racially charged” to “very racial”. Anything, basically, to avoid the use of what some deem to be dangerously undiplomatic language. But this isn’t about insulting the unknowable content of a man’s soul; it’s about acknowledging the totally verifiable content of his tweets.

Why does the R-word produce such panic? There’s a confusion between labelling a person “racist” — not particularly useful — and calling out actions or language as racist — essential. We’re all capable of racism in thought or deed; that’s just life in a white supremacist culture. Or, if you prefer, “a racially-infused snafu state”. Everybody, even Trump, gets that racism is Very Bad, but few recognise its tropes in action. Absurdly, this sometimes results in white people expressing more outrage at the abstract insult “racist” than at the reality of racism, experienced daily by people of colour.

As individuals and as institutions, we show our anti-racism only through the work of understanding and challenging racism, wherever it arises. You’ve got to do the work, regardless of how much you love reggae, the number of Asian American women in your cabinet, or the X-rays you can produce proving your body’s total lack of

“racist bones”.