Beregond's Bar

The first time someone called me a racist I cried.

Racism is an awful thing, as anyone save a relatively few troglodytes will agree.  There are not other words bad enough to describe what kind of low life scum people who practice racism are.  Thus the word “racist” stands alone, an abhorrent  charge.  If it is true the person who is guilty of racism should be cut off from all civilized contact.  If someone wants to reach out and try to teach them to be better that is a Good Thing, but in the mean time the racist should be despised, quarantined, and castigated.

Me, a racist? Could I be such an awful creature?  I knew I wasn’t, yet somehow here was someone saying that my actions made her believe that I was one.  I cried.  I went home and was sick.  I wallowed in self doubt for days, examining myself and my actions to try to see if there was any basis for this hateful charge.

What had I done? As a supervisor I had held a black employee to the same standards of performance that I held everyone else in the group to, including myself.  She was, I was informed, doing the best she could.  To expect more of her was racist.

When I write it out like that, it looks a bit silly, especially given that almost twenty years have passed since the incident.  Then I remember the sick feeling, the concerned face of my boss as I told him of the charge.  I recall the long interview with a very serious human resources guy who just wanted the truth.  If he didn’t believe me it would destroy my career forever, but that was almost a side issue – Someone thought I was a racist!   I recall breaking down and crying during the HR interview, wondering WHAT WAS WRONG WITH ME that another human being could think that about me.

Despite being completely cleared, the incident shook me to my core. I got out of management as soon as possible. The charge of racism was too monstrous to contemplate having it directed at me again.

That’s what being labelled a racist was.

I say “was” because in the years since then the term “racist” has been used over and over in so many situations that “racist” has almost become a synonym for “anything the political left doesn’t like.”  This abuse of the charge of racism has become so common that there’s an expression for it- “Playing the race card.”  This is a national tragedy.  There is no term that conveys the history of wrongs and the awfulness of the act in the same way as the word “racism.”  If you destroy the sense that a racist is morally corrupt and not fit for civilized society then there is no word to take its’ place.

But that’s exactly what some on the political left are doing for partisan political gain.

The NAACP should think long and hard about what they are doing. Pointing out real racism and ostracizing the practitioners advances the cause of humanity. Using false charges of racism against people who are not racists but simply disagree about the size and scope of government not only erodes the credibility of the NAACP, it also erodes their most potent tool for dealing with the issues that still remain from our history of racial injustice.

Much of the civil rights struggle was invested in convincing mainstream America that a racist was a moral reprobate who offended against both God and man.  If the term “racist” no longer means a pariah but instead is something you call a neighbor who puts up a different yard sign than you in November then we all lose.  By diluting the meaning of the word “racism” the NAACP is selling their birthright for a mess of pottage.

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