A speaker argues that calling yourself "not racist" is meaningless if you actually oppose racism. He uses Mark Twain and Harry Truman as examples of people who said offensive things but evolved, suggesting we should judge people by their era's standards rather than today's.
We should drop the term not racist. It's an interesting question. Can you be not racist but not anti-racist? I don't see how. How could you? Why is not racist different from anti-racist? Let's analyze this. If you are not racist, that means you think racism is wrong, correct? There's no other reason. So how could you be pro-racist if you're not racist? By definition, aren't you against racism? Yes. Aha. So that's wrong. The fact that you are not actively fighting racism, which only means actively joining in his hysteria. That's all it means. Are you anti-racist if you heard somebody in discussion use the N-word and you would say, you know, please don't use that word, you know, it's just offensive? Is that anti-racist? By the way, has anybody ever used the word in your presence? Me neither. I don't deny that there are people who do. I'm just saying, in the circles that I have been a member of, it has never— the word has never been used to describe another, to describe a Black person. If somebody's reading Mark Twain, it's used. That's different. It's like saying, when I— as this is what I explained months ago, that Harry Truman used the word kike when he went to visit New York for the first time. He sent it back in a postcard called New York Kike Town. He ended up the greatest friend of the Jews. That's why you have to judge people in their time. That's too sophisticated for the left.
Life, Legacy, and a Dangerous Mission in the Soviet Union | Sunday Fireside Chat
