Roy Exum: 20 Racist Things

Several days before Christmas, the Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson tweeted a hysterical list of 100 cries of racism that he and his staff have collected during 2017. Each of the ridiculous allegations has a news article to authenticate some crazy claim and shows very glaringly that something has gone horribly awry in our country. One guy quipped, “The Oxford Unabridged English Dictionary now doubles as the MCNBC guide to racist code words.”

John Hawkins went it one better when he observed, “When a black liberal is criticized, he cries racism. When liberalism fails, liberals cry racism. When the Democrat Party gets in trouble, liberals cry racism. It has become the ever present background noise of politics, like birds chirping in the forest.”

So help me it’s true. In the summer of last year an alcohol-impaired girl went into a Taco Bell and asked for an order of French fries. Told that French fries aren’t on the Taco Bell menu, the poor child started crying before she bellowed, “You’re racist!” (She told the police officer the same thing, despite the fact both she and the officer were white.)

Tucker’s list of 100 things racist is particularly funny to those of us in the public eye who are used to being labeled with such unfounded allegations. So, to join in the fun, allow me to share the Top Twenty reasons why “the race card” has now become a “punch line for a joke” in America.

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(Note: to see all 100, you can go to his Tweet list on the Fox News’ website)

1. TREES – “Decades ago, a large grove of tamarisk trees was planted on the border between Tahquitz Creek Golf Course and a historically black neighborhood, along with a chain link fence. But at an informal city meeting this week, officials promised residents that the trees and the fence would be removed.” – Golf Magazine

2. ICE-CREAM TRUCK SONG – For decade the little trucks that whirl through suburbs selling Pop-cycles and ice cream sandwiches have played on the loudspeaker a very familiar circus-like song that kids all over the country recognize. Just the sound sends kids scattering in a frantic search for 50 cents. Now comes word that the song, released by Columbia records in March 1916 had rampantly-racist lyrics and was even entitled, “N***** Love A Watermelon Ha! Ha! Ha!" (NPR Radio)

3. CREDIT SCORES – “Look no further than the credit scoring system in the US, which has profound impact on our daily lives and is a source and perpetuator of systemic racial injustice.” – The Guardian.

4. CAR INSURANCE – “Driving a car, a critical element of the American Dream, is yet another area where being black incurs a surcharge. Studies find blacks are charged higher interest on car loans, quoted higher prices by car dealers and, according to a new ProPublica and Consumer Reports investigation, given far heftier car insurance bills.” – Salon

5. CRIME STATISTICS – “There is a common conservative narrative that indicates the disproportionate incarceration of black people is not the result of systemic racism, but rather of shortcomings within the black community. It is also common to hear the supposedly neutral statement that “black people commit more crimes than white people.” This “fact” is used to justify a belief that black people have a natural criminal propensity, or that a “culture of violence” is to blame for problems faced by black people in America.” – The Huffington Post

6. HALLOWEEN COSTUMES – “Offending and being offended have become Halloween traditions as obvious and predictable as jack-o-lanterns rotting on the front porch. It seems, however, that the yearly agitations over blackface, sombreros and topical shock get-ups carry more weight now … In this climate, Halloween costumes have become a litmus test of sorts.” -- CNN

7. CALLING ELIZABETH WARREN ‘POCAHONTAS’ – “When Don ‘Puffy’ Comb-Over (President Trump) took the opportunity during a White House ceremony honoring the Native American code talkers to call Elizabeth Warren “Pocahontas,” the collective response from most nonracist Americans was, “Oh no, he didn’t!” But there were many people—including conservatives, people profiled in the New York Times and original-recipe white people—who didn’t find anything offensive about the slur. ‘How can a name be racist?’ the racists asked.” -- Root.com

8. THE BETTER DISNEY MOVIES – “You watched Disney cartoons as a child, but you probably never picked up on the racist subtext within. Why would you? You were a child! But now, in hindsight, we can see that unfortunately, some of our Disney favorites are actually glaringly racist. For instance, did you know the original release of Fantasia had dark-skinned centaurs working as servants for light-skinned centaurs? That The Little Mermaid’s Sebastian is considered offensive to Jamaican culture? Or that the happy ending of Pocahontas white washes the brutal killings of Native Americans?” -- VH-1

9. DR SEUSS – “The Dr Seuss Museum in Massachusetts has become embroiled in an escalating fight over an 80-year-old Seuss illustration of an Asian man, which culminated at the weekend with the local mayor condemning complaints about the picture as “political correctness at its worst”. On Friday, author and illustrator Mo Willems announced that he and two other authors – Lisa Yee and Mike Curato – would no longer be appearing at a scheduled event at the museum in Seuss’s hometown of Springfield, due to a mural that included a “jarring racial stereotype of a Chinese man who is depicted with chopsticks, a pointed hat and slanted slit eyes”.” – The Guardian.

10. WHITE FLIGHT – “Ta-Nehisi Coates refers to the white exodus (from cities between 1940-1970) as a “triumph of racist social engineering,” and he is not wrong. Many white households moved to suburban towns precisely because black households were effectively excluded from them by real estate agents and mortgage brokers.” – New York Times.

11. REVERSE WHITE FLIGHT – “… she and her husband had moved into the neighborhood recently. ‘We like it so far,’ she said brightly. Like it? I felt a rush of resentment at a remark that to her, I’m sure, was perfectly innocent. All I could think was: White folks abandoned Inglewood, and now they’re coming back with no memory or acknowledgment of all that, expecting neighborliness?” – LA Times

12. WHITE CHEFS WHO SELL BURRITOS – A letter in Portland, Oregon, reads, “ Because of Portland’s underlying racism, the people who rightly own these traditions and cultures that exist are already treated poorly. These appropriating businesses are erasing and exploiting their already marginalized identities for the purpose of profit and praise.” – The Washington Post

13. MILK – “The U.S.-based white supremacist movement that calls itself the “alt-right” has recently embraced milk as a symbol. In February, shirtless neo-Nazi protesters danced outside Shia LaBeouf’s anti-Trump art installation, He Will Not Divide Us, chugging gallons of milk that dripped messily down their chins. Later, they claimed this act symbolized their opposition to ‘the vegan agenda.’ A poem appeared on an extreme right-wing news site, insisting: ‘roses are red, barack (sic) is half black, if you can’t drink milk, you have to go back.’ – Conversation.com

14. TANNING – “Swedish company Emmaatan came under fire on Friday for selling a dark-colored self-tanner called “Dark Chocolate,” after pictures were posted to its social media pages that featured white models with skin that appeared to mimic black skin. With other products that have names like “Caramel” and “Dark Ash Onyx,” some black people argued that Emmaatan was yet another example of white people appropriating black features.” – Black Voices

15. OWNERS OF NFL TEAMS – “Jaguars owner Shahid Khan suggested Thursday at a Crain’s Chicago Business conference that his fellow NFL owners may be ignoring a difficult truth. And it’s one that could hamstring the league’s capacity to come to grips with its simmering national-anthem controversy. “You’ve got a bunch of 85-year-old guys who don’t think they’re racist, but they are racist,” Khan said, according to the Chicago newspaper.” – The New York Post.

16. BEING AGAINST THE NFL PROTESTS – “Y’all’s president is tweeting about the National Football League again. Shortly after that guy who lives in the White House woke up, submerged himself in a vat of Cheetos dust and ate his leftover KFC thigh and wing (Original Recipe, of course—not those newfangled crispy or spicy concoctions made after America stopped being great), Donald Trump tweeted this: “Two dozen NFL players continue to kneel during the National Anthem, showing total disrespect to our Flag & Country. No leadership in NFL!” Make no mistake about it: Trump has won this fight. Even though he has no legislative, political or policy victories during his presidency, Trump has proved himself a master of the one thing he does better than anyone else: Racism.” -- The Root.com

17. MATHEMATICS – “A math-education professor at the University of Illinois wrote about some of the more racist aspects of math in a new anthology for teachers, arguing that “mathematics itself operates as Whiteness.” “Who gets credit for doing and developing mathematics, who is capable in mathematics, and who is seen as part of the mathematical community is generally viewed as White,” Rochelle Gutierrez wrote, according to an article in Campus Reform.” – The National Review.

18. SCIENCE – “Social Justice Warriors are taking their crusade to new heights and going to war with reality as we know it. This week, a medley of student activists at South Africa’s University of Cape Town (UCT) gathered at a “safe space” to lecture faculty about the Eurocentrism of science, demanding that the discipline be “decolonized.” Arguing that African “black magic” or “witchcraft" is an equally viable, if not a more accurate way of viewing the world, these SJWs fanatically made their conspiratorial case against the conditioning of “Western” science. “Science as a whole is a product of Western modernity and the whole thing should be scratched off. Especially in Africa,” said one leftist student-activist” -- TheDailyWire.

19. ALL WHITE PEOPLE – “As you may have heard, L’Oréal hired a black transgender model to be the face of its diversity campaign. Then the cosmetics giant fired her—for delving into the messy politics of racism. Munroe Bergdorf, the brand’s first transgender model, wrote a Facebook post in response to the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, blasting “the racial violence of white people.” She said she had lost patience white people who “don’t even realize or refuse to acknowledge that your existence, privilege and success as a race is built on the backs, blood and death of people of color. Your entire existence is drenched in racism.” – QZ.com

20. PROPER ENGLISH LANUAGE – “The University of Washington, Tacoma’s Writing Center now instructs students that expecting proper grammar from others perpetuates racism and “unjust language structures.” A cadre of staffers at University of Washington, Tacoma recently crafted an instructional poster for “Huskies” on “anti-racist and social justice work.” – The Washington Times

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Among other things that Tucker included in his string of 100 – with documented sources – included climate change, Othello, the Bible. Democrats, Republicans, the porn industry, the August eclipse, Hollywood, patriotism, cosmetics, military camouflage, and Walmart but my favorite was what he saved for last:

100. EVERYTHING – “Everything is racist. Hire a civil-rights lawyer” –everythingisracism.com (“When everything is racism, nothing is racism.” –Anonymous)

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“Understand that the constant shouts of “Racism!” do serve a purpose. They give the media new stories to sensationalize, race hustlers new rabble to rouse, and shyster attorneys new settlements to extort. It’s a scam perpetrated by those who know better, perpetuated by those don’t, and perplexing to everyone else.” -- Anonymous