What’s the Best Way to Talk About Racism?

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Over at Vox, we’re having a battle of the charts. Matt Yglesias says this is the one chart you need to understand Donald Trump’s popularity in the Republican Party:

But no! Dara Lind says this is the one chart you need:

Needless to say, there’s no real disagreement here. Both writers are suggesting that Trump is winning because he appeals to a Republican Party base that thinks white people are getting screwed and doesn’t much like all the non-white people they think are doing the screwing. So they’re all pretty happy about Trump’s wall and his proposed Muslim ban and his endless griping about “political correctness.” At its core, Trump’s appeal is fundamentally racist.

I think it’s safe to say that nearly all liberals believe this. There’s voluminous evidence beyond just these two charts, after all. But here’s my question: what should we do about it? This has been bugging me for a while.

If we attack it head on—”Republicans are racists!”—it accomplishes nothing. Or worse than nothing: it pisses off our targets so badly that they’ll never hear another word we say. Besides, it’s all but impossible to prove that racism is at the core of any particular belief, and doubly impossible to do so in the case of any particular person. It’s also really easy to go overboard on charges of racism once you get started.

Alternatively, knowing that this is a political loser, we can skirt the direct charges of racism and focus instead on tangentially related topics. The upside is that we have at least a chance of winning over some voters who aren’t too far gone. The downside, obviously, is that we’re avoiding the elephant in the room. How do you fight racism if you’re not willing to talk directly about it?

I don’t have a good answer. Accusing people of racism is the fastest way to shut down a conversation and ensure implacable opposition. Avoiding racism is the fastest way to make sure nothing serious ever gets done about it. So what’s the right approach?

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

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