Over the course of my career, one of the things that has really driven me crazy is the inability to describe something as racist when it obviously is, and using all of these euphemisms like “deeply conservative views” and things like that. I personally don’t understand why we have allowed that to go on for so long because that misidentifies what conservatism is. I don’t understand why “conservative” is code for “racist” anymore than I understand why “urban” is code for “Black.” Why can’t we just say what things are?
Just because I appreciate stating exactly what things are doesn’t mean I’m on some kind of warpath to label people. I don’t think labeling people as racist is any more productive than labeling somebody as an alcoholic. They’re not going to applaud you and say, “Thank you for telling me that.” But what you can do is accurately describe someone’s behavior.