Tucker Carlson, and those of his ilk, typically get very angry when they are accused of racism. Do they have a case? As usual with disputes like these, it depends on your definition of racism.
Carlson, along with most contemporary reactionaries, does not defend slavery or de jure segregation. He does not argue–at least not openly–that people of color are genetically inferior to white people. What most people refer to as “racism” is based on the following positions:
- All Americans, including people of color, are entitled to equal treatment from their government.
- Black people have been free from slavery since 1865, and free from various kinds of legally imposed discrimination since the 1960s.
- Whatever claim they had to special treatment from the government has expired with the passage of time. They should be treated just like everyone else. MLK said so.
- Instead, they just whine about racism, demand handouts and affirmative action, and vote for politicians who pick the pockets of hardworking Americans for their benefit. They are the real racists in this picture.
- Their inferior economic status is due to their own, shall we say, cultural inferiority, which has been exacerbated by coddling by politicians of the left. What they really need is tough love, which will instill a love of enterprise in them that doesn’t exist today.
- As to immigrants of color, there are just too many of them, and their culture is antithetical to ours. They cannot be assimilated. They will annihilate our culture and poison our politics if given a chance.
Of course, most of these statements are clearly inconsistent with the facts. American culture has always been in a state of constant flux, and has been disproportionately influenced by people of color. Furthermore, it is obvious to any reasonably objective observer that the impacts of slavery and discrimination over centuries of American history still exist in the form of wealth disparities and unequal access to education and housing. Immigrants still assimilate over time, as they always have. Finally, affirmative action programs only impact a relative handful of people, and do not fully compensate for the lingering effects of discrimination.
The bottom line here is that making a patently false argument, in essence, that people of color are culturally, rather than biologically, inferior is still racist.