https://www.cbsnews.com/news/t...torian-explains-why/
"When President Trump tweeted on Sunday that "'Progressive' Democratic Congresswomen" — an apparent reference to Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley, who are all women of color — should "go back" to their countries, the backlash was swift. It also sparked another conversation: What makes something racist?
Ibram Kendi, a professor and director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University, joined "CBS This Morning" to address that question from a historical perspective and discuss whether racist actions or words make someone a racist.
Kendi explained the important historical context behind telling a person of color to go back to where they came from.
"In the 19th century, there were many, many reformers, racial reformers who thought the way to solve the race problem, the Negro problem, was to essentially send back all free blacks [to Africa]. And that started with Thomas Jefferson, his Notes to the State of Virginia which was published in 1787, and went up to Abraham Lincoln," Kendi said.
He also pointed out that this language is aimed almost exclusively at people of color — because America is assumed to be a place for white people. "So where would they go back to? But people of color, it's assumed that this is not their country," Kendi said.
A common refrain among Trump supporters, whenever he sets off a furor with an early-morning tweetstorm, is that he's just inappropriate — not racist. There's a difference, they say. And Mr. Trump asserted in a tweet, "I don't have a Racist bone in my body!"
"First, I'd say there's no such thing as not racist. There's racist and anti-racist," Kendi said. "Racist ideas suggest that there's something wrong or right, superior or inferior about a particular group. It suggests there's something inherently normal about white Americans, that Americans are white and whites are Americans. And his idea suggests that somehow people of color are not American, and that's deeply racist.""