Remember Eric Metaxas? He\u2019s an avidly pro-Trump evangelical author and radio host. Some time back, I wrote that<\/a> the pro-Trump children\u2019s books he\u2019d written reminded me of\u2014well\u2014Nazi children\u2019s books.\u00a0<\/i>I explained why, and Metaxas subsequently got mad at me on twitter.<\/p>\n Today, I have some advice for Metaxas\u2014don\u2019t tweet things like this<\/a>:<\/p>\n BREAKING: Just now Joe Biden tried & failed to walk back his \u201cYou ain\u2019t black comment\u201d by saying \u201cSho nuff you is fo shizzle ain\u2019t black! Cuz Massa Trump be fixin to put all y\u2019alls behinds back in chains! You done got yo sefs no choice in dis hyah. And that\u2019s a FO sho fo sho!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Really, really<\/em> don\u2019t.\u00a0As quite a few twitter users pointed out, this is essentially the twitter version of blackface. It\u2019s gross and it\u2019s racist. It\u2019s just so<\/em> gross. Don\u2019t do this.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n As Hemant Mehta wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n This is why there\u2019s no conservative version of The Daily Show<\/em>. Conservatives aren\u2019t funny or clever. Their response to a racist comment is to be waaaaaay more racist. Unlike Biden, Metaxas hasn\u2019t apologized. That tweet is still up. He\u2019s just retweeting supportive comments now.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Metaxas did eventually delete his original tweet\u2014either that or it has been removed by twitter. There is no walking back or apology to be seen on his timeline, however, and his retweets<\/a> of supportive<\/a> tweets are still up, along with this<\/a> defensive tweet. Metaxas was being \u201chumorous\u201d and \u201csarcastic\u201d and making a \u201cjoke\u201d his supporters say.<\/p>\n That\u2019s what white people said blackface was, too: a \u201csarcastic\u201d exaggerated portrayal of black people\u2019s mannerisms, features, and patterns of speech in order to put on a \u201chumorous\u201d show. It wasn\u2019t funny<\/em>.<\/p>\n The most charitable interpretation of Metaxas\u2019 tweet is that<\/a>\u00a0rather than actually \u201cthinking Blacks talk like this\u201d his\u2019 \u201cjoke\u201d was that \u201cBiden thinks Black people talk like this.\u201d This is not a sufficient explantation, of course. As another twitter user noted<\/a>, while Metaxas\u2019 intent may have been \u201cto showcase biden placating black people,\u201d his tweet showed \u201cdisregard for black people by playing into minstrelsy in order to mock both us and biden.\u201d<\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t matter what \u201cjoke\u201d Metaxas was trying to make with his tweet, he managed to tweet something that was both racist and evoked memories of historic racist minstrelsy at the same time<\/em>. Not cool! It\u2019s absolutely the case that everyone makes mistakes. I wouldn\u2019t be at all so hard on Metaxas if he had listened, apologized, and purposed to do better. But he didn\u2019t. He didn\u2019t do that at all.<\/p>\n And here\u2019s the kicker: Metaxas\u2019 tweet came only days after he argued that liberals need to acknowledge that efforts to combat racism are based in the Bible<\/a>:<\/p>\n Those of us who are Christians have to understand that anybody who\u2019s against racism, anyone who is against slavery, anyone who\u2019s against any of this bad stuff, you know, you can use that to explain to them, yes, and guess why you\u2019re against that? Guess why this culture knows racism is wrong? We got it from the Bible.<\/p>\n And by the way, that\u2019s a fact.\u00a0You don\u2019t need to like it, you don\u2019t need to be a Christian, but that\u2019s a historical fact. There\u2019s no way around that, that the idea of abolishing slavery, the idea that slavery is wrong, all these ideas worked their way through history and they come from Scripture.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n If you\u2019re going to argue that you\u2019re super anti-racist\u2014in fact, that anti-racism stems from your religious tradition and your religious tradition alone\u2014you need to at least act like it.\u00a0<\/em>That means listening when people said you messed up, it means doing research and asking questions until you understand,\u00a0and it means making a change.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019m not sure whether Metaxas realizes this, but his response to pushback against his tweet has ensured that the exact the people he wants to target with his \u201cdid you know that opposition to racism comes from the Bible\u201d line probably won\u2019t listen to a word he says on the subject\u2014he has shot his credibility on this all to hell.<\/p>\n I get that it\u2019s uncomfortable to have a mistake you made called out, but doubling down\u00a0when you made a mistake\u00a0<\/em>isn\u2019t going to erase the mistake you made, or make people suddenly conclude that you didn\u2019t make one. I actually think there\u2019s more room in our culture than people sometimes think for honest mistakes and genuine learning. The real problem is when people make a mistake and then refuse to learn, or even to listen.<\/p>\n If Metaxas truly cares deeply about black people and about combating racism, he should want<\/em> to listen when people tell him that something he has said is racist or deeply harmful. He should want to listen, so that he can stop saying things that perpetuate racism or cause harm. Instead we get this<\/em>.<\/p>\n Oh, and by the way, while we\u2019re at it, what Metaxas misses in his comments on the history of abolitionism and anti-racism is that, in the antebellum South, support for slavery\u00a0also<\/em> came from the Bible. Both pro-slavery proponents and abolitionists based their arguments on the Bible and the will of God. This was also the case during the civil rights movement, where African Americans drew on the Black church to argue against segregation while white southerners argued that the Bible said God created the races to be separate, and that miscegenation was evil.<\/p>\n You know what? It\u2019s bad form to care more about whether your forebears did the right thing than about doing the right thing yourself. If you\u2019re going put a lot of emphasis on your forebears getting something right\u2014and use it as some sort of \u201cgotcha\u201d point\u2014you should probably put some energy into making sure you<\/em> get it right as well.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been pondering this ever since I ran upon the question on twitter: If white evangelicals believe so strongly in original sin and human depravity, why do they insist with such vehemence that nothing they do or say could\u00a0possibly<\/em>\u00a0be even the tiniest bit<\/em> racist? Is racism not a sin? And if it is<\/em> a sin, why do they think they are exempt?<\/p>\n And no, I haven\u2019t forgotten about Joe Biden\u2019s comments. On that subject, I\u2019d point you here<\/a>.<\/p>\n