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When did we arrive at the point where applying the words racist and racism were more radioactive than actually doing and saying racist things and demonstrating oneself to be a racist?

That is the first paragraph in this powerful column in today’s New York Times, which has as its subtitle these words:

Refusing to address and acknowledge the prejudices in our country is a big part of the problem.

Quite obviously, the column  is written in response to the past week, where after the tweets of the President the previous weekend and the criticism that followed  which lead to the even more noxious display at his political rally) we saw a back and forth on television and in newspapers of whether what the President had done was racist.

Blow has no doubt.

He goes through the events and the responses, and asks why it has taken White journalists so long to call racism out, and applies that to those of us who are White citizens and not journalists:

It seems to me that white journalists in particular — and white citizens, in general — have done a tremendous injury to truth and honesty by providing the dangerous illusion that racism was hard to define and racists were hard to designate.

He also applies that critique to the newspaper for whom he writes.