How “Racist” Became Meaningless—on Strong, Moderate, and Weak Anti-Racism

Popularity of the word “racist” from Google Ngram Viewer“Racist” was coined surprisingly late—the Oxford English Dictionary gives the earliest example in 1919. During the first half of the twentieth century, racists were proud to be racist, but for three decades after the end of Jim Crow, everyone knew racists were despised by most Americans, so both David Duke, a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan