Should we give up on double standards for racism? Yes
Sarah Jeong and Saira Rao — the one a newly hired editorial writer for The New York Times and the other a recent candidate in a Colorado congressional primary — may believe their ethnic background gives them a pass to make racist comments about whites. As a practical matter, they may be right. But it shouldn’t.
If their behavior becomes commonplace it will only drive people of good will apart and further poison racial relations. Double standards are never popular.
After her recent hiring, numerous tweets from a few years ago surfaced in which Jeong mocked and denounced whites as a race. She says she was engaged in “counter-trolling” against online harassment and so “mimicked the language of my harassers.” So she supposedly didn’t literally mean what she said. The Times concurred, and stood by her.
Her explanation is at least plausible given the outlandish content of some of her tweets, such as this gem: “Are white people genetically predisposed to burn faster in the sun, thus logically being only fit to live underground like groveling goblins?” Or, for that matter, “it must be so boring to be white.”
But what kind of adult reacts to individual bigots and nasty critics with wholesale racial broadsides, however sarcastic, over and over again? As someone who attended Harvard Law School and has written for a number of prestigious publications, Jeong — who is of Asian descent — hasn’t exactly spent her life trapped with clones of Bull Connor.
“Oh man it’s kind of sick how much joy I get out of being cruel to old white men,” she once tweeted. Funny, huh? Or maybe truly kind of sick.
By comparison, Rao’s output of racial broadsides is rather slim, but still striking. A week after garnering 32 percent of the vote in June’s 1st District Democratic primary against incumbent Rep. Diana DeGette, Rao tweeted a link to an op-ed piece titled “Should I Give Up on White People?” with her conclusion: “Short and long answer: YES.”
Perhaps she was still reeling in disappointment and just overreacted? No. When asked about the tweet by Colorado Politics’ Joey Bunch, the daughter of Indian immigrants doubled down. “I stand by it,” Rao declared. Bunch reported she also “cited ‘white fragility’ in those who might be offended by being lumped in with white supremacists.”
Yes, how unreasonable of anyone to resent being smeared.
In other interviews, Rao described the Democratic Party as “super racist” and her congressional district, which is mainly Denver, as an apparent cauldron of bigots who could not accept a woman of color as a candidate. “What do I have to be?” she exclaimed. “What makes someone qualified? You know what makes someone qualified? Being white.”
What city is she living in? Is she simply unaware that a white person has been mayor of Denver for fewer than eight of the past 35 years? But then Rao’s trigger point for shouting “racism” is remarkably low.
Take her reaction to an innocuous tweet from state Rep. Paul Rosenthal, D-Denver. “I disagree w/ @sairasameerarao,” Rosenthal wrote. “If we aren’t united across all races to work against racism & celebrate diversity, we can’t succeed. As bold progressives, if we splinter & snipe at each other, racists will not get the message they need to change.”
In response, Rao told Colorado Public Radio’s Ryan Warner, “To have a white man publicly shoot down a brown woman talking about racism is the dictionary definition of racism.”
What rubbish. Rosenthal’s tweet was pretty much the dictionary definition of respectful discourse. Rao really should try to tamp down her race-warrior reflex.
In any event, Rosenthal is undoubtedly right: In combating the xenophobia, nativism, and white nationalism that infects elements of the American right these days, wholesale denunciations of whites will only be counterproductive.
That’s the utilitarian argument against such comments. The moral argument is that they are offensive and wrong.