If I were a racist, I would not arrive in a white hood or with a burning cross. That would be too obvious, too easily rejected. I would come speaking the language of compassion, equity, and justice. I would call myself a progressive, a socialist, a Democrat—whatever label made my methods sound like help.
I would begin with the schools. I would oppose school choice, vouchers, and charter expansion with every tool available. I would keep the poorest Black and Hispanic children locked inside the worst-performing public schools, generation after generation, while the people who design those systems send their own children elsewhere. I would call any parent who wanted an exit “anti-public education.” The soft bigotry of low expectations would do the rest.
I would expand welfare programs so that benefits drop sharply when a mother marries or when a father is present in the home. I would make single motherhood the rational economic choice in the communities I claimed to champion. Over decades the results would be higher rates of fatherless homes, lower educational attainment, and higher crime—outcomes I would then attribute to “systemic racism” rather than to the incentives I created.
I would defend unrestricted abortion. I would note, quietly if at all, that Black women obtain abortions at several times the rate of White women, and that, since Roe v. Wade, the absolute number of Black lives ended this way exceeds every other cause of death combined in that population. I would treat any suggestion that this pattern is worth examining as an attack on “reproductive rights.”
I would support large-scale low-skill immigration. I would ensure a steady supply of workers willing to accept wages and conditions that raise the cost of labor for the native-born poor—disproportionately Black and Hispanic Americans already competing at the bottom of the wage scale. I would call any objection to this “xenophobia” while the wage effects accumulated.
I would replace equality of opportunity with equity of outcome. I would lower academic and professional standards in the name of representation, then treat the resulting gaps in performance as proof that standards themselves are racist. I would apply different rules by race in admissions, hiring, and contracting, and I would call the discrimination “corrective.” Asians and Whites who lost seats or jobs would be told their success was unearned privilege.
I would soften criminal enforcement in high-crime neighborhoods. I would reduce policing, raise the threshold for prosecution, and treat offenders primarily as victims of society. The people robbed, assaulted, and killed at the highest rates would be the same minority residents I claimed to protect. I would measure success by arrest disparities rather than by victimization rates.
I would teach that America is defined by racial hierarchy and that personal agency is largely an illusion for certain groups. I would encourage the view that gaps in income, crime, or academic results are explained first by racism rather than by family structure, culture, or behavior. Anyone who presented counter-evidence would be labeled the racist.
If I were a racist, I would do all of this while insisting that my opponents were the racists. I would make the accusation so routine that serious examination of results became socially costly. And I would measure my success not by whether the people I claimed to help were freer, safer, or more prosperous, but by whether they remained dependent on the system I administered.
That is how I would do it. Not with chains or signs that said “Whites only,” but with policies wrapped in the language of equity—policies whose measurable effects fell hardest on the groups I said I was saving.
About the Author:
John Basham is a political analyst, meteorologist and former city council member in Reno, Texas. A retired member of the U.S. Army and former Texas peace officer.
This article is an opinion piece by John Basham. The views expressed are those of the author.
