If this makes me a racist, so be it, by Tom Riggins

I dare to disagree, publicly and often, with most everything today’s liberal left believes in. In their world, that automatically makes me a racist. It does not matter whether I am factually correct or not. It does not matter how logical my position might be. It only matters that I dare disagree with what the liberal feels or thinks.

I am sure you have noticed this phenomenon. A politician or public figure dares to stray from the liberal agenda. There is an immediate label as racist, Nazi, or in some cases sexist or homophobe. It is almost like Orwell’s “1984” where up is down, left is right, and back is forward. Cases in point:

Donald Trump is not shy about calling out his detractors. The so-called “the squad,” that group of four radical socialist leftist congresswomen, called President Trump racist immediately after he suggested they “go home” and essentially fix the problems where they came from before lecturing him. Not one word or tweet Trump said had anything to do with race. It was “assumed” that he was attacking their race.

The second incident was when Trump tweeted about the deplorable conditions in Baltimore, part of Rep. Elijah Cummings’ district. What Trump did was point out that the area is rat infested and dirty. He never said one word about the racial makeup of the community. His point was that Cummings was making a big deal about conditions on the border while conditions in his district are worse and have been for years. Yet Trump is called a racist.

According to the dictionary, or Wikipedia, take your pick, racism is defined as the belief in the superiority of one race over another. It may also include prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against other people because they are of a different race or ethnicity, or the belief that members of different races or ethnicities should be treated differently.

That definition is clear. Yet somehow racism has evolved, or perhaps devolved, into something else. In today’s world racism is seen as anything that might offend anyone else for any reason. That was previously more properly defined as political correctness.

Racism is now the tool used to shut up criticism on any liberal issue, be it climate change, gun control, socialism, or anything else. That means you aren’t allowed to disagree with the opinion of a minority, regardless of how inane or outlandish it might be. Oh, and only white people can be racist in today’s world. Minorities can apparently insult, malign, and impugn others without consequence.

Sadly, this diminishes the issue when real racism is seen. Fortunately, racism is rarely an issue anymore in this country. Since the Republicans freed the slaves and then later passed and enforced legislation in the 1960s to help eliminate discrimination, the brand of racism seen, especially in the South, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries is rarely seen.

In my opinion, most of the racism comes from the left. They routinely call their opponents racist. By labeling them as such, the leftists are perhaps inadvertently meeting the definition of racism by intimating their race to be superior to that of their opponents, primarily white males. In some cases there is an attempt to label a white person as racist to extend words to a hate crime.

The racist label is getting so common and so damaging that police are hesitant to stop or arrest someone of a different race. If they do, their actions are often thoroughly scrutinized in an attempt to get to perpetrator’s charges dropped.

Even the national media is fully on board with the new development of racism. The Chicago Tribune said on March 20, 2018, “We all need to actively fight the reality of racism.” The column completely omitted data that show racism declined dramatically from the 1970s until now.

Have you ever noticed that if you can actually engage a leftist in a discussion about their positions, once they begin to lose ground to facts they immediately resort to labeling. This is where “racist” is most commonly invoked even if there is never a word said about race. Also included is Nazi, sexist, and homophobe. There have been cases where a conservative has been labeled racist even though their spouse is a minority.

I will continue to disagree with leftist ideals despite any label they may apply. I am too old to care. If they think that makes me racist, so be it.

Tom Riggins can be reached at news@lahontanvalleynews.com.