One now got the impression that racism and sexism must be hiding everywhere. Rooting them out enlisted the zeal of citizens in a way that resembled the hard-line anti-communism of the 1950s, but on a far larger scale. Now as then, the rarity of actual unmaskings was taken as evidence of the adversary’s guile. Unlike communism, which involved an actual organization with a membership list, racism had a flexible definition. Anyone might be accused of it.
