Finally. Finally. Finally, mainstream media stepped down from it’s Ivory Tower of neutrality and called a racist, a racist.
The final straw was the racist tweet posted by Donald Trump last Sunday when he attacked four congresswomen of color. He told them to “go back” to “the totally broken and crime infested places they came from.”
The go-back-to-your-country attack is well-known among people of color. You never hear that phrase used against white people, following the general assumption that only white Americans are “real” Americans. I heard it on the playgrounds as a kid in California’s schools. I heard “Go back to Africa” shouted at civil rights demonstrators. I heard it again hurled against anti-war protestors of color usually accompanied by “ching-chong, etc.”
It should be pointed out that three of the four targets of Trump’s racist vitriol — Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, and Rashida Tlaib of Mich. — were born in the US. Only Ilhan Omar of Minnesota was born in a foreign country and she was naturalized in her teens.
Yesterday at a campaign rally in North Carolina, Trump zeroed in on Omar and the crowd obliged, screaming “send her back, send her back.” These things don’t happen by accident at campaign events. Campaign operatives are likely in the crowd leading those chants for the benefit of the media. The sad thing is that if Trump is racist, by extensions, so are the thousands of mostly White supporters. The sprinkle of Asians in the crowd, even make this more hurtful.
After 10 years working at an ethnic newspaper, I transitioned to a mainstream newspaper where I encountered the Associated Press Style Guide and cautious editors who were ever so careful not to use the term “racist,” because as neutral spectators, we can’t read the minds of people or make assumptions about their intentions. It was not until I became an editorial writer that I could more freely express my real sentiments. Even then, I had to parse my words for fear of “offending” the newspaper’s mostly white, mostly conservative readership.
It was one of the frustrating parts of working in MSM, that we couldn’t call something that was so obvious to me, what it was – racist.
In order to appear unbiased, editors and reporters used euphemisms for what they really meant.
In the Columbia Journalism Review, a paragon of US journalistic arbitration, the discussion about the word racist was the topic of an editorial. Generally, news sites twisted itself into pretzel to avoid using the emotionally loaded word, began the editorial.
“YESTERDAY, THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES“fanned the flames of a racial fire.” According to a panoply of major news outlets, Trump “starkly injected”“racially infused” and “racially charged” words into a morning tweetstorm; the language he used was “widely established as a racist trope” and “usually considered an ugly racist taunt.” The remarks were “called racist and xenophobic”; “denounced as racist”; an “example of ‘racism’” (note the quote marks).”
While opinion columnists didn’t hesitate to use the word, in general, newsrooms shied away from saying what they really meant to be saying.
“The Associated Press Stylebook—a trusted arbiter for newsrooms nationwide that is hardly known for its leftist radicalism—ruled in March that we should “not use racially charged or similar terms as euphemisms for racist or racism when the latter terms are truly applicable.”
The hesitancy to use the word is most likely a residual, old-school squeamishness in newsrooms around charged words that—before Trump broke all the rules, at least—smacked of opinion or activism.
My, how the world has changed in just a few months. Finally, the CJR editorial concludes:
“Calling a president’s words ‘racist’ or ‘a lie’ can legitimately be thorny. Should we throw the words around? Probably not. But we should use them when they accurately reflect the truth. Very simply, that’s our job. ‘Go back to where you came from’ is textbook racism. When we contort ourselves to dance around that fact, the truth is injured.”
I only wish MSM had jumped on the wagon and called Trump a racist from the very beginning when he began questioning the legitimacy of President Barack Obama’s birth certificate back in 2008.
Or, when he instituted the Muslim Ban, or when Trump’s border policies created a crisis on our southern border and thousands of asylum seekers jailed in concentration camps, or any number of instances when people of color
It’s about time mainstream media remember their mission — to tell the truth. And if someone or the actions of someone or group is racist — tell the truth.
Meanwhile …
The House of Representatives had its own debate over calling Trump’s tweets racist.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi introduced House Resolution 489: Condemning President Trump’s racist comments directed at Members of Congress.
The resolution says the House of Representatives:
- “Believes that immigrants and their descendants have made America stronger, and that those who take the oath of citizenship are every bit as American as those whose families have lived in the United States for many generations”
- “Is committed to keeping America open to those lawfully seeking refuge and asylum from violence and oppression, and those who are willing to work hard to live the American Dream, no matter their race, ethnicity, faith, or country of origin”
- “Strongly condemns President Donald Trump’s racist comments that have legitimized and increased fear and hatred of new Americans and people of color”
Except for four Republicans and an Independent, the vote passing the resolution was largely democratic-240 to 187.
The solidarity — some would say cowardice — of the Republicans has kept most of the GOP lawmakers from condemning the Trump tweets. Asked directly by journalists, Sen. Mitch O’Conner, GOP Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Sen Lindsey Graham — one after another — avoided even saying the word “racist” in the same sentence as Trump or tweet.
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