I've been noticing the mantra lately that the hats from the Donald Trump campaign are a symbol of racism. Just wearing a hat makes one a racist according to the narrative.
I'm no fan of Donald Trump or his hats but John McGinnis has an interesting perspective on this issue below.
Also I'm not a fan of Che Guevera either but does the wearing of a T-Shirt with his image automatically make one a mass murderer and racist?
When we examine the history of "progressive" politics like voting against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, voting against school integration and eugenics it baffles me how easily they scream racism. They ran the master class.
Read on.
Why Some Progressives Make Unjustified Accusations of Racism
by John O. McGinnis
"Accusations of racism are rife in American political life these days. The Make America Great Again slogan is claimed to be racist. According to an op-ed in the New York Times, the wall that President Trump wants built at the border is a symbol of racism, if not an overtly racist act.
"These claims are so implausible as to be irresponsible. And that is not because of my enthusiasm for red MAGA caps or for walls. A better slogan would be Make American Even Greater. It is already great. That’s why so many people of so many different races, ethnicities and nations want to come here even illegally. But this slogan was meant to appeal to voters, principally in the Rust Belt, who felt left out of the prosperity of the last decades—and who did not vote Republican in the last few elections, but might switch. Targeting these voters showed a shrewd focus on the marginal voter who could carry Trump to victory, not any evidence of racism.
"What is the reason for this doubling down of rhetoric? One explanation is simple. Given slavery, the original sin of America, a charge of racism remains a political trump card. In this regard its function is not essentially different from calling one’s opponents Nazis, such a frequent trope in comments on the early internet that it created its own “law” that observed how such accusations regularly stopped all rational discussion. My impression is that the calling out of this practice has decreased its prevalence. Would that we create similar norms to decrease ill-founded accusations similarly poisonous to rational discourse!
"But another explanation for the ever-expanding accusations of racism is that the Left (and it almost always is the Left that makes such accusations) is trying to change the sense of “racism” to connote something like “a policy position that opposes progressivism.” We live in turbulent times and social upheaval has distorted settled meanings of words before..."
Read the entire article here...
PS. My preferred image of the infamous Che Guevera
