Four reporters say their news organizations won't let them use the term "racist"

Because ratings matter.

I’d be interested in knowing if local Richmond stations are using the words. Remember Richmond is a city that has an entire avenue dedicated to confederate civil war soldiers.

Annnnd the Confederate White House still stands.

The retreating losers burned everything else there out of spite. Sound familiar?

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George Stephanopolis called the yearbook entry racist this morning on Good Morning America

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To quote an old saying that can have bigoted connotations, it’s well past time to “call a spade ‘a spade’.”

Bigot is as bigot does.

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A reporter using the word “racist” is being editorial, which would not be in their job scope. Right?

Or is being “racist” a measurable quality?

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It’s not editorial to describe David Duke as racist, with racist politics, and affiliations with racist organizations.

It’s a series of necessary descriptions to give context to news events.

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. . . but . . . but . . .

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If being racist is something that can be defined (yes) and a person has qualities that meet that definition, then it is not editorial to call that person racist.

Now you could say that there isn’t a widely agreed upon definition of racist, or you could debate whether a person’s qualities/actions meet that definition. But in every case I have come across that is the equivalent of debating what the definition of a tree is, and whether or not a Sequoia meets that definition.

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Is Racist a legal term? Could they get into libel trouble if they can’t meet some standard of proof before calling someone racist?

Granted, if that is the case then the story should be about how racists can hide behind a racist legal system.

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Racism objectively exists.

To deny it is either cowardly, ignorant, or evil.

People who speak and act in a racist way are racists. It’s very simple.

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Racism: “you know it when you see it.”

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Would calling donald trump “dishonest” or sarah huckabee sanders “a chronic victim blamer” be editorializing?

They’re both objectively true statements.

Or would that be too harmful to people’s feelings?

It’s the truth. It’s facts. And in cintext it’s important to point out that donald trump can’t say a true thing to save his life, when discussing some claim he makes.

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No. Being nice isn’t a “measurable quality”. Neither is being scary, professional, or almost any adjective used to describe human behavior. Avoiding the word racist has nothing to do with editorializing, and everything to do with caring less about discrimination than about making people uncomfortable by pointing out the discrimination

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award-understatement

Nope.

No again.

The trouble comes in offending their audience

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No. Sometimes it’s a fact that someone is racist.

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Sounds like the same logic that defines a white man who shoots up a theater or place of worship as “troubled” instead of “terrorist.”

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Say what now? David Duke and his friends in pointy sheets is just fightin for the rights of the white man, I mean of white people. You know, same as them n—, I mean colored, I mean Afro-American folks do. Why are you trying to keep the white man I mean white people down?? It’s YOU who’s the real racist!

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Pitch perfect…

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I was raised in a middle-class white family, parents divorced, with one parent Progressive and one parent conservative. My father occasionally makes jokes that could be considered racist.

I knew that racism existed historically because without question no one can deny lynchings and slavery and everything else happened. I knew that there were probably still many racist people, but I thought it was something that was for the most part gone.

Until Trump was elected.

I never thought racism was correct and I was raised by both parents to know that it is wrong. But it is only under the presidency of Donald Trump that I see racism is far more prevalent and everywhere then I thought actually was.

I am Progressive Democrat, and a white guy, but I’ve lived in minority neighborhoods and seen the results of police literally shooting minorities to death blocks from my house.

I believe that America really does have racism everywhere. I came to believe this as a certainty over the last two years. This is a real problem and it makes me sad to be an American. Racist and racism are real words and have real realities that exist and real people behind them that need to be called out for what they are.

The one thing I am thankful for about Donald Trump is that he has exposed the roots of all evils in my country and I know where they lie now. You can’t fight what you don’t know is there. Thank you Donald for showing me what to fight against.

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How dare you call me an idiot? Eventhough my actions may be construed by you people as idiotic, I am not an idiot at heart.

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