San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
About that hesitance to use the rword
The great debate in U.S. newsrooms this past week was whether a qualifier should be attached to President Trump’s racist comments about four congresswomen of color. Should they be described as “racially tinged” or “denounced as racist” or “racially charged” — or simply called what they were: racist?
For me, it was an easy call as I was putting together an editorial last Sunday. “They are racist,” I wrote.
Anyone who has lived in this society has heard the phrase “go back where you came from” applied to either immigrants who came here voluntarily or involuntarily, in the case of African Americans. Rare is the American of Asian, Latino or African descent who has not heard it inflicted against them.
The expression is so defined by its history as a hateful trope that there is no room for interpretation or rationalization. It is racist.
To see those words from the 45th president of the United States is beyond revolting. “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came,” Trump tweeted. “Then come back and show us how it is done. These places need your help badly, and you can’t leave fast enough.”
Trump’s racist attack on what he called “‘Progressive’ Democrat Con
gresswomen” who “originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe” was clearly aimed at Ilhan Omar, Alexandria OcasioCortez, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib. All but Omar were born in the United States: Omar was a child refugee from Somalia. Remember when House Speaker Paul Ryan in June 2016 called Trump’s claim that an Indianaborn federal judge could not be a fair arbiter of justice — in a case involving the Trump University scam — because of his Mexican heritage a “textbook definition of a racist comment?” This is worse.
The bigotry it evoked, and the sickness it validated, was on plain display at a Trump rally in Greenville, N.C., on Wednesday night. “Send her back! ... Send her back!,” the crowd chanted, filling the hall with bile, as Trump stepped aside for 13 full seconds to revel in the the moment.
On the next day, as Republicans with a conscience began to step forward to condemn the chilling scene, Trump disingenuously tried to claim that he was “not happy” with the chant and — ludicrously — insisted that he tried to stop it. He did not. A mere waving of his arms, as a quarterback tries to calm a frenzied home crowd, or a few words of “please don’t do this” could have quieted the mob. Instead, his body language said for all the world that he was savoring the echo of his own vile words.
So what is the state of debate in American newsrooms? When should racism be labeled for what it is? The Associated Press Stylebook — the venerable guide for precision and impartiality — ruled in March that journalists should “not use racially charged or similar terms for euphemisms for racist or racism when the latter terms are truly applicable.”
Still, voices of caution and objectivity abounded after Trump’s “go back” tweet. Brit Hume of Fox News suggested on Twitter that Trump’s comments were “nativist” and “politically stupid” but stopped short of the “standard of racist, a word so recklessly flung around these days that its actual meaning is being lost.” The Poynter Institute, the news industry’s mecca of ethics and selfreflection, hosted a dialogue on its website.
“Yes, that language is clearly racist,” said Kelly McBride, a Poynter ethics czar. “However, before calling it racist, each newsroom has to examine its implicit editorial promise to its audience and then ask: What is the journalistic purpose of the story?”
As some readers have rightly noted to me in emails this week, it’s a much clearer call for those of us in the opinion sections. Our job is to call balls and strikes, not defer to the umpires’ judgment. Trump’s “go back” tweets were racist. Full stop.
The Daily Show could not resist creating a “Racist Euphemism Headline Generator” last week to troll the handwringing in the news media.
In many ways, the quandary of whether and how to call out Trump’s racism is reminiscent of the mainstream news debate over whether to use the word “lies” for his false and misleading statements — now at 10,000 and counting according to the Washington Post fact checker. And, more pointedly, if he
lies incessantly, is it fair to label him a liar?
That issue is anything but settled, but many news organizations have become emboldened to identify Trump’s lies as lies.
The rword question is more fraught, in part because there are few more damning character traits to attach to an American in modern society. Even peo