Donald Trump is a racist, says Charles Blow in the Times.
He begins with a definition pointing to one specific and common meaning of the term.
Racism is simply the belief that race is an inherent and determining factor in a person’s or a people’s character and capabilities, rendering some inferior and others superior.
I think we can read "or" for that "and".
As to capabilities, anyone who accepts both that IQ is highly heritable and heavily dependent on genetic endowment and that the average IQs of blacks and whites are about 15 points apart is a racist in that sense.
Likewise, anyone who accepts that blacks are taller and heavier than Japanese, on average, and that this difference, assuming equally favorable environmental factors, is a matter of genetic endowment, and that being taller and heavier are advantages in many sports, is a racist in that sense.
As to character, I suppose we can take that as a reference to behavioral dispositions.
So anyone who thinks both that there are heritable differences in the behavioral dispositions of the races, making some superior to others in relevant respects, would be a racist on this definition.
In the past, for instance, it was commonly alleged that blacks were lazier, more promiscuous, and more thuggish than whites or others, and that these traits are heritable and these differences due to differing genetic endowment.
Blow does not, in defining "racism", allude to such things as hostility, contempt, or dislike.
Nor does he allude to any notion that such racial differences do or would call for or justify any form of racial discrimination or any particular political arrangements.
But he does say, quite accurately, this.
These beliefs are racial prejudices.
He does not say they are the only racial prejudices, nor does he say (and it would be untrue to say) that prejudices are always or necessarily unfavorable, injurious, regrettable, to be condemned, or even false.
And he says this.
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.
I would have thought the racial caste system was the institutional shape of white supremacy in America rather than something white supremacy had been used to develop, but never mind.
He goes on,
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.
But his particular definition of racism and his remarks about prejudice and white supremacy are equally irrelevant to this "understanding" concerning Trump's words and deeds.
And with no more than that he makes the following claims, to which also the given definition and history lesson do not seem at all relevant.
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.
Those are just facts, supported by the proof of the words that keep coming directly from him.
But I am not aware of anything he has said that supports the claim Trump is a racist in the sense that Blow has specified.
Nor that he is a white supremacist.
Nor even that he is a bigot.
Which is not to deny he is a racist in the sense defined, or that there is considerable evidence that he is.
And the evidence is even better that he has often and deliberately invited the support of whites who include but are not limited to racists, Nativists, white nationalists, and white supremacists.
Which in turn of course is part of the evidence that he personally is racist in the sense defined and that he himself wants some of the things he wants, as president, because of that racism.
Here is a bit more in the general propaganda assault on The Duce for racism, in celebration of MLK Day, in liberal media, proving everywhere it is entirely possible to use false, immaterial, or merely pretended claims to convict a man of something of which he is actually guilty.
Donald Trump’s Racism: The Definitive List
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