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Simple "you might be a racist" test: ("might" being a generous interpretation)
1. If you believe the U.S. is fundamentally a white nation, and that people of color born or naturalized here are in ANY way less American than you, you might be a racist...
1. If you believe the U.S. is fundamentally a white nation, and that people of color born or naturalized here are in ANY way less American than you, you might be a racist...
2. If you believe people of color should be especially uncritical of the U.S. because it's "better than where they would otherwise be" (but don't say this about Europeans, even the ones from poorer nations/communities), you might be a racist...
3. If you believe people of color who criticize the U.S. should "go back where their ancestors came from" before criticizing America, but don't say the same to white critics, you might be a racist...
4. If you believe Melania Trump is more American than Ilhan Omar, you might be a racist...If you believe Donald Trump is more American than Barack Obama, you might be a racist...
5. If you believe the U.S. must retain a white majority (numerically and in terms of power) in order to be a great nation, you might be a racist...
6. If you believe the U.S. should limit immigration by people of color (documented or undocumented) but allow white immigrants to enter in relatively unlimited numbers, you might be a racist...
7. If you believe it is ok to hold children of color in cages in a way you would NEVER do with white children, you might be a racist...
8. If you believe police should be able to randomly stop and frisk black people simply because the aggregate crime rate is higher in black communities, you might be a racist...
9. If you believe the U.S. was truly "great" in the 1950s, or at any point before the victories of the civil rights movement, such that we should go back that kind of greatness (and don't understand why it wasn't great for millions of people) you might be a racist...
10. If you believe undocumented Mexican migrants should be rounded up in ICE raids, but don't call for the same for the undocumented Canadians, Irish, and other Europeans who overstayed visas, you might be a racist...(and if u think they all should be you're an asshole)
11. If you don't mind the government programs that created the white middle class and supports it (GI Bill, FHA loans, New Deal programs, Medicare, etc) but get upset when government programs benefit people of color, you might be a racist...
12. If you get more upset about Mexicans "taking American jobs" than white executives downsizing and sending jobs away to make more profits for themselves and shareholders, you might be a racist...
13. If you get more upset about affirmative action supposedly taking your kids' slot in college than the legacy admissions or well-connected white folks that more likely "bumped" your child, you might be a racist...
14. And this is not an exhaustive list...it's just 13 simple examples...and you don't have to believe all of these things to be possibly a racist. Literally any one of them qualifies you for consideration...
15. The bad news is, I suspect most all of Trump's base believes most if not all of these things, as do millions of others who are not in his base. The good news is, I also believe there are also tens of millions who reject these ideas, including many whites. The question is...
16. ...Are we who reject this bullshit willing to be as animated in our outrage over it as the believers are in their support for it? The future of the country likely relies on the answer to that question...
