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Racism Articles On Racism

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A case of a solar eclipse metaphor gone terribly, terribly wrong has become a conservative talking point about the left and racism.

Last week, the Atlantic reprinted a Democracy: A Journal of Ideas article, which attempted to make a hard-to-parse point about race in America in the context of the solar eclipse. The thesis of the article was that the regions experiencing the total eclipse are mostly inhabited by white people — and also America has a history of racism.

It was quickly picked up by far-right pundits and conservative media as the left’s attempt to make everything about racism. Here’s Infowars’ Alex Jones tweeting about it:

The left wants you to think #SolarEclipse2017 is racist. RT if you disagree! https://t.co/wd2Hq8m8ld

— Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) August 21, 2017
And conservative columnists Matt Walsh and Charles Cooke:

The eclipse is racist you guys https://t.co/iz1wXq6caQ

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) August 18, 2017
Beyond parody. https://t.co/OvfJBLOUuH

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) August 19, 2017
The Daily Caller bashed the article with the headline “The Eclipse Is Racist Because It Fails to Affect Enough Black People, The Atlantic Suggests.”

The article comes on the heels of a terror attack at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which left one anti-racism demonstrator dead. President Donald Trump equivocated his condemnation of neo-Nazis after the incident, prompting backlash from both Republicans and Democrats. But

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