Trump supporters allowed and accepted his racist rhetoric and were rightfully demonized for it yet here we are facing covert liberal racism. Again.
Donald Trump, Piers Morgan, and Tucker Carlson are overt and unapologetic racists. Bill Maher and Sharon Osbourne represent the covert racists who participate in performative activism for their friends on Instagram but go home and prevent affordable housing in their neighborhoods.
They like to pretend they’re on the right side of history as they treat racial and social justice advocates and their movements as petty and childish while diminishing the oppression of marginalized groups
They decry cancel culture as their racial animus shines through and they get called out for it. Bill Maher purposely left out all the racist things that came out of Morgan’s mouth. Addressing Morgan’s racism would have made Osbourne’s defense of him indefensible. It was a disgusting display of how hateful beliefs have become so acceptable in modern American society.
From Maher participating in the appropriation of the word “woke” to his use of racist language just for attention, his actions are as harmful as Tucker Carlson’s overt dog-whistles. The covert racism on display showed us how the white liberal American justifies their beliefs in racial equality just as long as it isn’t in their neighborhoods. The covert racism we witnessed on Maher’s show is more harmful than the overt because of proximity.
Maher and Osbourne illustrate why anti-racists say all white people are racist.
Because in the covert world of racism, they pretty much are.
*originally published in Cultured on Medium.
