For all the Trump supporters confused about “double standards” and what constitutes racism, here are some handy tips that might help: 1) don’t use the n-word; 2) don’t dress in blackface; and 3) don’t compare black people to monkeys. It seems simple and isn’t even something that should need to be explained in 2018, but it appears that Trump supporting racists have not been educated on this subject.
Susan Goldstein, Rubio campaign chair, compares Obama to a monkey to defend Roseanne
"That is what my eyes see. And I am not racist." https://t.co/2TWSjR4DDJ— Mass Disturbance (@MassD) June 1, 2018
In Facebook comments, a former Florida state representative who later served as the campaign chair for Marco Rubio in Broward County when he ran for president, missed the memo on this. In support of Roseanne Barr’s disgusting insults against former Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett,
When the “culturally identifying characteristics” of people of color are compared to apes and monkeys, it’s nothing less than the same dehumanizing rhetoric that’s been used against black people for centuries. White people, on the other hand, have never been marginalized in this way, so there is no “double standard.”
In this is where the problem and racism come in compare people of color to apes/monkeys is not new yet no less hurtful https://t.co/Q6KiutXrYS
— Thisepisodeisabout (@Thisepisodeis) May 31, 2018
As Psychology Today explains:
‘To understand the context of Barr’s tweet, it is important to know that likening Black people to apes has a long, murky past. The idea that Black people were less evolved than White people, and therefore genetically closer to apes than Whites, was historically used to hide the justification of slavery and unequal rights in a cloak of science. Such “scientific racism” spread the false idea that Blacks are inherently inferior to Whites. As a result, the portrayal of Black people as apelike became an iconic representation in the 19th and early 20th century.’
Despite repeated explanations about this, Barr’s defenders remain convinced that comparisons of white people to monkeys is equal to comparisons of black people of the same. Trump supporters have argued that it is perfectly fine to use the n-word because black rappers use it in their music. They have fought repeatedly for the right to use these racial epitaphs.
"A total double standard." Roseanne Barr made a racist remark about a former White House official, but Trump's only comment on that was that he should have also received an apology from the network for the things they have said about him. https://t.co/ZeHSqrfKWY
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) June 1, 2018
The question here is why they want so badly to use these words.
Featured image screengrab via Twitter by @massD
