Blacks can be racist, too

OPINION:

Charles M. Blow, a black New York Times columnist, just wrote a piece for his newspaper that’s bluntly titled, “Trump Is a Racist. Period.”

He arrives at that conclusion by simply saying it — as if saying something conclusively makes it so.

And it’s not just President Donald Trump who is “Racist. Period.” It’s his supporters.

“The history of America is one in which white people used racism and white supremacy to develop a racial caste system that advantaged them and disadvantaged others,” he wrote. “Understanding this, it is not a stretch to understand that Donald Trump’s words and deeds over the course of his life have demonstrated a pattern of expressing racial prejudices that demean people who are black and brown and that play to the racial hostilities of other white people. It is not a stretch to say that Trump is racist. It’s not a stretch to say that he is a white supremacist. It’s not a stretch to say that Trump is a bigot.”

One could point to Trump’s support among blacks to argue otherwise. The Washington Post, for instance, wrote in September a piece, “Mostly black neighborhoods voted more Republican in 2016 than in 2012.” Breitbart wrote just this month, “Trump’s Support Among Blacks Has Doubled Since 2016, Amid Racism Claims.”

Have all these blacks been bamboozled? Is Blow simply one of the select, elect few who know better than the rest?

But people like Blow aren’t interested in those inconvenient truths. They also aren’t interested in the fact that blacks in Africa frequently enslaved other blacks — and sold blacks from tribes they conquered to white slave-traders. Horrendous. Not to mention racist.

Neither are they interested in all the vicious rhetoric emanating from the likes the Nation of Islam and the New Black Panther Party.

“White people are potential humans — they haven’t evolved yet,” Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrkhan once said, Yellowhammer News noted.

How about this, from King Samir Shabazz, the national field marshal for the NBPP: “I love white-on-white crime, because that is the best crime and we’re going to say ’black power’ to that,” he once said, the Blaze noted.

Or this, also from Shabazz: “I love black people and I hate the g—damn white man, woman and child, grandma, aunt, uncle, Pappa Billy Bod, and whoever else. Redneck Tom and Blueneck Robert and whoever else you want to name. I hate the white man, I hate the very look of white people. I hate the sound of white people … I hate the smell of white people,” the Blaze reported.

Racist, much?

How about the whole Black Lives Matter reason-for-being and, as Sapna Rampersaud wrote for National Review, the “movement, whose mission is to affirm ’Black folks’ contributions to this society, our humanity, and our resiliency in the face of deadly oppression,’ has a flawed ideology of reparatory racial exclusion.”

Good point. Exclusion and segregation based on skin color and heritage in any form is ugly — and racist.

The list could go on. No doubt, Blow’s own list could go on as well — Blow’s list of all the reasons Trump is racist, why Trump’s supporters are racist, how America itself is racist. But the thing is, in the end, where does that get us as nation?

Blow is entitled to his opinion about Trump, in the same manner any American is entitled to his or her own opinion about the state of race, or the status of a politician in regards to level of perceived racism.

But this?

“Trump is a racist,” Blow wrote. “We can put that baby to bed.”

Divisive. Unproductive. And finger-pointing that fails to acknowledge uncomfortable truths about histories of all races. Fact is, blacks can be racist, too. If the aim is to heal racial divides, then that has to be admitted into the national discussion, as well.

Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.