re: #326 HappyWarrior

For white America being called a racist is the worst thing to many of us because we think to be racist must mean you’re something like a Nazi or KKK member. That even to most of the most far right wing Americans is something you don’t want to be associated with

“I said I supported making some changes that would increase police accountability, and the conservative on the show interrupted to say that what we really needed to talk about was black-on-black crime. Now, “black-on-black crime” is a conservative talking point. It may have been used politely in the past, but it’s become coded language that supports a racist view of black people. I pointed out that inner-city crime wasn’t a big problem in Seattle, which is one of the safest major cities in the country. The host wanted to move on, but I said I thought the conversation should continue. It wasn’t right to end on a “dog whistle” like that. The conservative just lost it. He started pounding the desk and yelling at me: How dare I say that. He wouldn’t allow me to say that. We were in a small studio, and he was standing over me. (I found out later that a former mayor of Seattle was on Twitter writing, “What’s going on? I’m listening to an angry white guy scream at a black woman on the radio.”) The host didn’t know what to do. I hadn’t even called the guy a racist or a white supremacist.”

thesunmagazine.org