The WaPo headline proclaims that “Perdue makes racist remark about Abrams: She’s ‘demeaning her own race’.” The WaPo article, however, never provides the sentence in which the supposedly offensive phrase occurred, nor does the article state what exactly was racist about Perdue’s remarks. (I guess some things go without saying, at least for WaPo journalists.)
If a black Democratic candidate were to say about his white Republican opponent that “He’s demeaning his own race,” would that accusation be considered racist? Is a reference to a candidate’s race inherently racist? If so, what makes it racist? If not, then what is it that makes a comment about someone else's race racist?
When MSNBC’s Joy Reid called Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas “Uncle Clarence,” a clear reference to “Uncle Tom,” was her comment racist? Or does she get a pass because she’s a black woman talking about a black man, whereas Perdue is a white man talking about a black woman?
In our society nowadays, anyone can call anyone else a racist, and the burden of proof seems to be placed on the accused to demonstrate that he or she is not, in fact, a racist. How it can be proved, however, that one is not a racist is not at all obvious. In particular, any black person can call any white person a racist and any Democrat can call any Republican a racist, and for many Americans, the racism accusations themselves, made against white people and Republicans, constitute prima facie evidence of the accused’s racism, to be believed unless proven otherwise.
Are there racists in America? Of course. Are many of them white? Yes. Are some of them Republicans? Yes. Was Perdue’s assertion that Stacey Abrams is “demeaning her own race” a racist comment? Well, let’s look at his statement “in context,” as Stacey Abrams likes to say. Since the WaPo article didn’t bother to say when or where Perdue made reference to Stacey Abrams “demeaning her own race,” nor did it even provide the entire sentence in which she supposedly said it, nor did it provide a link to Perdue’s full statement, I had to look elsewhere to find his complete comment. I finally found it in an MSNBC video clip, and I transcribed Perdue’s full comment from the clip:
“Did y’all see what Stacey said this weekend? She said that Georgia’s the worst place in the country to live. Hey, she ain’t from here. Let her go back where she came from [if] she doesn’t like it here. The only thing she wants is to be President of the United States. She doesn’t care about the people of Georgia. That’s clear. When we saw in [20]18 what she did, what she said, how we’re gonna have a blue wave. We’re gonna do it with documented and undocumented workers. You know, I don’t think a lot of people in Georgia understood that when she told black farmers, ‘You don’t need to be on a farm,’ and she told black workers and hospitality and all this, ‘You don’t need to be…’ She is demeaning her own race when it comes to that.”
Is Perdue’s reference to “her own race” a racist comment? If so, what makes it racist? Can his statement plausibly be interpreted as something other than racist?
I know next to nothing about Perdue. I’m not his friend, his fan, or his supporter. But as I listened to what he actually said, it wasn’t obvious to me that it was a racist statement about Abrams “demeaning her own race.” On the other hand, when I heard the words “She ain’t from here,” I immediately thought of Randy Newman’s song, “Christmas in Capetown,” in which an openly racist white South African says, “If you don’t like it here, go on back to your own miserable country.”
