Are “Racist” and “Sexist” Still Insults?

This began to change when I started to be called racist or sexist for expressing views I thought completely reasonable, and when I started seeing decent people, some of whom I greatly respected, being called racist or sexist for expressing views that were completely reasonable, but which didn’t fit with leftist orthodoxy. Political scientist Charles Murray was branded a racist because his research showed that IQ is largely heritable, and that some racial groups have lower average IQs than others. At Yale, Nicholas and Erika Christakis, both celebrated professors and college masters, were branded as racists and hounded out of their positions for saying that students should dress as they please for Halloween. At NBC, the journalist Megyn Kelly was branded a racist and cancelled for questioning, on air, what was actually wrong with wearing blackface. At Google, software engineer James Damore was branded a sexist and fired for thoughtfully questioning the wisdom of the company’s attempts to achieve a 50/50 male-female ratio among its employees. I’ve seen leftists label people as racist for asking a colored person where he’s from, for even using the term “colored person,” for saying that America is a meritocracy, for even using the word “meritocracy” unironically, for supporting academic and professional standards, for not supporting open borders or Black Lives Matter or antiracism, a.k.a. reverse racism, or for even using the term “reverse racism.” I’ve seen them label people as sexist for supporting beauty pageants, for using gendered language, for asserting that there are innate gender differences, or for not supporting reverse sexism. (The ironic result in many of these cases is that failing to be racist or sexist often gets you branded racist or sexist.)

What happens when terms like racist and sexist are so abused and diluted, when “racist” can refer to a Nazi…and also to someone who assumes an Asian is good at math, when “sexist” can refer to a member of the Taliban…and also to someone who uses the term “mankind?” When something can mean virtually anything, it ends up meaning nothing, and the consequence of this is that these terms have become largely meaningless. I no longer find them insulting when deployed (as they usually are) by someone on the left, because all they really mean in that context is “Someone I disagree with.” Leftists crying “racism” and “sexism” have become like the boy who cried “Wolf” – many people with sense no longer take them seriously.