The idea that only white people can be racist, or that having darker skin automatically makes someone incapable of racist views, is both logically flawed and counterproductive. It reduces complex human beings to their racial categories and ignores the reality of how prejudice actually works.

It is indeed racist – and factually incorrect – to suggest that someone can’t be racist because of their skin color or ethnic background. Such horrible racial essentialism treats people as defined entirely by their identity rather than their individual beliefs and actions.

Racism of course is perpetrated by people of any background, even hypocritally against their own best interests. History and current events provide many examples of this, such as the current head of the FBI who is being rightly criticized for mounting evidence of white supremacist demolition to American democracy:

…Texas lawmaker, in a hearing with FBI Director Kash Patel, cast doubt on his numbers showing significant drops in crime…

“I don’t know who feels safe in this country except for the white supremacists….”

The criticism of white supremacy stuck an odd note when aimed at Mr. Patel, who is Indian American and was raised in the Hindu faith.

Indeed, those facts drew rare praise from Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, who pointed out that former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, a white nationalist, “would undoubtedly be turning over in his grave” by Mr. Patel’s ascendance to the job.

Praise? I don’t see any praise.

Do you see praise?

I see only a historical observation about how America has had a recent window of anti-racism (someone not white could be appointed) rather than actually praising Patel himself. The reporter’s characterization of this as “praise” seems like a completely unsupported stretch.

The article perfectly illustrates why evaluating people based on their actual statements, policies, and actions is crucial, rather than making assumptions based on their race or religion. A personal background might inform experiences, but it doesn’t predetermine character or beliefs. The head of the FBI may have been specifically nominated because of his known white supremacist allegiances, regardless of his race or religion.

The NAACP is deeply disturbed by the confirmation of Kash Patel as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). On the eve of the 60th recognition of the assassination of civil rights leader Malcolm X, our country is actively taking steps to bring us back to a time of the criminalization and brutalization of Black Americans. Mr. Patel’s writing and public statements regarding his “enemies list” and intention of using the government as a tool of retaliation reflect fundamental hostility to the role of government in upholding the law. His confirmation is an unacceptable regression of democratic ideals. We refuse to stand idly by and watch a few extremists revert the progress of entire generations. The NAACP will continue to fight for true justice and the imperatives of our Constitution.

He was literally called out during confirmation for his clear opposition to the rule of law, and for advocating the abuse of power. That’s precisely why now he is being criticized for predictably serving a white supremacist doctrine.

The FBI, like any law enforcement agency, should operate on evidence and individual assessment. Instead, what we see emerging is the same binary logic that has plagued American institutions under Presidents Jackson, Polk, Wilson, Nixon, and Reagan. The same thinking that drove MAGA’s logical predecessor, “America First” nativism of the KKK.

Either the white supremacists of MAGA accept you as one of their adherents or they threaten “invisible empire” logic of unitary executive extrajudicial detention and violence.

There is a word for the premeditated killing for people outside of context of armed conflict. That word is murder.

We saw this doctrine loudly proclaimed by MAGA just this week. The US military was ordered to murder civilians in international waters, foreshadowing federal troops domestically being turned backwards in time to something like 1921 Tulsa, Oklahoma or 1919 Elaine, Arkansas: shoot first, ask questions later.

In related news this week, a young Black man was found dead hanging from a tree in Mississippi, only an hour’s drive from the 1919 “America First” massacre in Arkansas.

Mississippi police on Wednesday awaited autopsy results for a Black student found hanging from a tree at Delta State University…