Brief thread; This is a terrific article by @mviser who is to be commended for using the correct word 'racism' twice. But it also suffers from a reliance on euphemisms that are simply not as accurate. 1/ wapo.st/2QkZWtx?tid=ss…
Again, the reporting and the substance of this article are both excellent but Viser uses the terms "racially tinged" (which should be banned for its vagueness), "race based" and it modifies the word "racial" in more ways than I thought possible. 2/
In this not-long article, "racial" is modified by the following words: "insults," "undercurrents," "animosity," "fringes," "attacks," "connotations," "fringes" and "fears." These strike me as creative euphemisms that serve to distort reality. 3/
Think about some of the oft-used phrases that substitute for "racism." What. exactly, does it mean for a "message" or "language" to be "racially tinged"? Or for a "colloquialism" to have "racial connoations"? 4/
I get that reporters don't want to be accused of being unfair or not objective. But using phrases that have no clear meaning, like "racially tinged," only serves to obfuscate the reality that is being reported. 5/
My modest proposal is that journalists try to strike phrases like "racially tinged" from their articles is "racism" is more accurate, and that they recognize that terms like "racial undercurrents" are simply less clear than they need to be. 6/
Superb journalists including @nhannahjones and @jelani9 have been pointing this out for a long time. It is well past time for newspapers and other media outlets to think hard about whether the use of vague often nonsensical euphemisms is really serving the public interest. 7/
Let's have moratorium on phrases like "racially charged" and headlines, like the one in the @nytimes that I critiqued last week: "Trump and G.O.P. Candidates Escalate Race and Fear." What does that mean? It seems the headline writer used it for fear of using the word "racism." 8/
This is part of a related pattern that I commented on earlier today, which has less to do with calling a thing what it is than in attributing it to our "political system" rather than singling out the Party that is employing racism as a political tactic 9/
@washingtonpost : "racially divisive" is no better than "racially tinged"
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