National Public Radio was still in Obama Mode after the election on Wednesday morning, bringing on black author Attica Locke (who also writes for the Fox drama Empire) who rudely implied each and every Trump support is a racist. NPR Morning Edition anchor David Greene politely suggested not every one, but Locke refused to admit there was a single non-racist: “I’m out with that.”
NPR was a bit sick in headlining this "Novelist Adds Fresh Perspective To Election Result Spin," as if accusing whites of racism is in any way fresh:
DAVID GREENE: The Clinton campaign was very worried about African-American turnout. It seems like there was - the campaign really underperformed, especially compared to the turnout that Barack Obama saw. Do you think African-Americans failed to turn out for Hillary Clinton?
ATTICA LOCKE: God, no. And I will daily stop that narrative. More white women showed up for Donald Trump than showed up for Hillary. So I wouldn't say that any way black folks underperformed. I would say white race races over-performed.
GREENE: And we should be careful here because there are many Trump supporters who I've spoken to over the years who would not consider themselves racists.
LOCKE: You know what though, David? I'm out with that. There's a part of me that honestly feels like that level of politeness, where we're not calling things what they are, is how we will never get forward. The fact of the matter is that you have to at best be able to tolerate racism in your president.
GREENE: OK. I'm afraid we're out of time.
Locke then went on Twitter to promote her taxpayer-funded radio rant: “Me on the election on NPR. The 'R' word is the new 'N' word, I guess. Why are folks afraid to say racist?”
Before that bitter ending, Locke suggested the vote for Trump proved white America was never comfortable with a black president:
LOCKE: The incredible optimism I felt on the other side of Obama is dashed, that this really is a sense that this is a backlash to that. That there is a large segment of the population for whom having a black president was such an assault on their identity. That their reaction to it has no reason. It makes no logical sense.
GREENE: You really see this as a lot of Americans saying we weren't ready for a black president, did not want a black president? What exactly are you saying?
LOCKE: I think of it through the level of the psyche, I think in the sense that we are still in a patriarchy. Goodness gracious, didn't we see that yesterday? In the sense that the president is, like, the -- a father of the nation or a man that we're meant to look up to. I think there's a large segment of white folks who could not take that, the idea that this person was above them in some way. I think it was very dislocating in terms of their sense of identity.
GREENE: I'm struck because I spoke to many white voters back in 2008, some of whom even talked about being former racists and overcoming that...
LOCKE: (Laughter).
GREENE: ...Who were drawn to Barack Obama and reached a comfort level with him. And what changed over eight years?
LOCKE: Well, first of all, the man's presidency has been poisoned, you know, frankly, by voices from Fox News, by a Congress that would not engage with him, by Donald Trump himself claiming the president was not a citizen, you know. So clearly that starts to rub away at a foundational understanding of who Barack Obama really is and what he has really done for eight years. I don't think that certain people can quite even see it, if that makes any sense.
No. It doesn’t make any sense. Why couldn't anyone actually oppose Obama -- on ideological grounds -- without being a racist?
