"Ackshually, that's racist."
Everything is racist now.
Words matter. They have to mean things. And for the sake of coherence, a society must maintain some sense of agreement on definitions. But as part of the Progressive effort to radically upend and purify American norms and culture, the postmodern Left has taken to redefining previously consistent terms.
There is perhaps no better example of this than the word “racism.” It is now so broadly applied, and so elastic, that its significance has been utterly diluted. As part of their campaign to instill a new understanding of such a consequential term, the linguistic morons of the Left have leapt from the semantic into the substantive and are pushing us to reevaluate our thoughts and actions as individuals and as a nation in ways that are, at best, counterproductive.1
To give a sense of just how ridiculous this has gotten, I’ve compiled 50 examples of things that have been declared “racist” over the past few years. You’ll notice in some of these the notion that mere cultural differences are evidence of racism, as well as the implication that because something was once used for racist ends or at the center of a racist incident, it is somehow permanently contaminated. The brilliant John McWhorter cites two real-world examples of such strained usage of the term “racism”: the rarity of the black oboist, as if this demonstrates anything more than the fact that most black Americans just don’t have much interest in playing the oboe; and declaring the filibuster racist, with Strom Thurmond’s 24-hour speech against a 1957 Civil Rights bill often cited as an example of the practice being employed to further racism (never mind that Obama readily supported use of the filibuster).
The Left’s insistence on butchering the actual meaning of racism and expanding what qualifies as racist will continue to move society’s focus away from actual examples, hindering our ability to address it by depriving us of a common language for discussing the topic. Those of us with half a brain must reclaim the classic meaning of this critical term. If not, the postmodern definition will become the definition, if it hasn’t already.
1.) Skiing is Racist
2.) Birds are Racist
3.) Instagram Filters are Racist
4.) The NFL is Racist
5.) Dr. Seuss is Racist
6.) The Word “Picnic” is Racist
7.) Traffic is Racist
8.) Fighting Obesity is Racist
9.) Professionalism is Racist
10.) Covid is Racist
11.) Coffee Shops are Racist
12.) Architecture is Racist
13.) Cycling is Racist
14.) Toilets are Racist
15.) Gardening is Racist
16.) The Ice Cream Truck Song is Racist
17.) The Spelling Bee is Racist
18.) Climate Change is Racist
19.) Google Search is Racist
20.) Cleanliness is Racist
21.) Trees are Racist
22.) Fast Food is Racist
23.) Classical Music is Racist
24.) Halloween is Racist
25.) UPS is Racist
26.) Board Games are Racist
27.) Jogging is Racist
28.) Math is Racist
29.) Dieting is Racist
30.) White Guys in Trucks are Racist
31.) Interior Design is Racist
32.) Dogs are Racist
33.) Soft Drinks are Racist
34.) Highways are Racist
35.) Rationality and Hard Work are Racist
36.) Landscaping is Racist
37.) Computers are Racist
38.) Chocolate Ducklings are Racist
39.) Proper Grammar is Racist
40.) Cars are Racist
41.) Fitness is Racist
42.) Crayons are Racist
43.) Camping is Racist
44.) Grocery Stores are Racist
45.) Video Games are Racist
46.) Theme Parks are Racist
47.) Astrophysics is Racist
48.) Chess is Racist
49.) Strawberries are Racist
50.) Forks and Knives are Racist
Reni Eddo Lodge, author of Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race, has called for “a collective redefinition of what it means to be racist and what we must do to end it.” That’s right: She wrote an entire book about how she refuses to talk to white people about race anymore, but insists that we collectively change what racist means and how to end racism—because obviously this is possible without dialogue.
The Bigotry Accusation is to our time what Elvis and the Hula Hoop were to the 1950s or what disco and polyester were to the 1970s—the definitive trend/idea/cultural phenomenon that can serve as a condensed symbol of a zeitgeist. But notice the differences: all the prior examples were joyous, mostly creative, and brought people together in various ways; our endless moment of virtual moralism is in all ways opposite: punitive, ugly, designed to paint us all as either Oppressed or Oppressor and to hopefully let the hatred flow from that.
For the modern leftish liberal the Bigotry Accusation is like a Swiss Army knife for sociopolitical discourse: first it works as a way to clear out enemies and control new territory (the Bigotry Accusation was the superweapon the Left used to conquer academia); then of course it works as a cheap form of virtue for upscale whites to preen about how much they love poor oppressed black people, certainly much more than those evil Other Bad Whites; it also works as a new form of social control, because if we live in a permanent state of Amerikkkan emergency, we of course need powerful bureaucrats and overseers to police our words and thoughts to prevent a race war; and lastly it works as a way for the global corporate state and its media arm to gain money and power by selling religious indulgences to guilty white liberals.
The saddest part is that absolutely none of this has done anything to help actually poor and suffering black people because they are only a symbol, their pain appropriated and turned into a trendy amulet for white liberals to flaunt. The Everything is Racist moral mania was never about helping blacks, it was about hurting whites. This is all that matters to the progressive oligarchy and its clickbait Red Guard.
When everything is racist, nothing is.