Last week, conservative commentator Ann Coulter displayed her racism when she explained to Vivek Ramaswamy the reason that she would not have voted for him in the 2024 GOP primary. During his podcast, she said, “I agreed with many, many things you said during — in fact, probably more than most other candidates when you were running for president, but I still would not have voted for you because you’re an Indian.”
As a mother to three sons of Indian descent, I think my response to her would have been less classy than his. After the podcast, he posted on social media, “I disagree with her but respect she had the guts to speak her mind.”
Despite my anger toward Coulter and others who project racist views, I deeply respect Ramaswamy’s commitment to free speech. During one of his rallies in July 2023, for example, he let a woman who interrupted his rally to advocate abortion finish her point. He posted the video on social media and wrote in the caption, “I am a free speech absolutist. Especially for those who disagree with me.”
Like many sanctimonious racists, Coulter is not known for withholding comments and masking her racist thoughts. Following the Republican primary debate in August 2023, she posted, “Nikki and Vivek are involved in some Hindu business, it seems. Not our fight.”
With the phrase “Not our fight,” Coulter suggested these two patriotic Americans are somehow outsiders to the country. But Americans know that people such as Coulter do not dictate what it means to be American.
Coulter is not alone in the racist fringes on the Right and Left. Race peddlers, such as Ibram X. Kendi and Nikole Hannah-Jones, profit off the notion that the answer to past discrimination is present discrimination. They constantly push critical race theory — the harmful belief that people are either oppressors or the oppressed based on their race.
These race-baiters should not be dictating education policy for our children any more than Coulter should. But sadly, they are.
In fact, Fairfax County Public Schools paid Kendi $20,000 for a one-hour Zoom meeting with the district’s leaders to pontificate his racist ideas. Meanwhile, Fairfax County’s local government paid Hannah-Jones $35,000 to share her racism during a one-hour public event held at the McLean Community Center. These are examples of local governments institutionalizing racism.
Coulter, Kendi, and Hannah-Jones are joined in their racism by pro-Hamas agitators on college campuses, some of whom are calling for the extermination of Jews. Last week, one of them called Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) a “race traitor” and “Uncle Tom.”
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This is not an exhaustive list of obviously racist people. I would add others, such as the Fairfax County School Board members who were upset with Asian American children for performing too well academically.
But these racists do not represent the vast majority of people. They are an invasive cancer exacerbating an already politically polarized nation. And it’s well past time for those of us who value true equality and justice — principles on which this country was built — to banish them back to the fringes and out of the mainstream.
Stephanie Lundquist-Arora is a contributor for the Washington Examiner, a mother in Fairfax County, Virginia, an author, and the Fairfax chapter leader of the Independent Women’s Network.
