A Point of View: Who Gets to Decide What’s Racist?

I recently watched a clip from The View where reality star and social media influencer Savannah Chrisley was filling in as a guest host. The discussion centered on whether or not President Donald Trump is a racist. The hosts were discussing a variety of current events, including the now-infamous AI-generated video depicting former President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama as apes, which Trump reposted on his social media platform, Truth Social.

The initial backlash to the post was met with a flippant response from the White House, dismissing it as “fake outrage.” To this day, Trump has not apologized for reposting the video. So, why is the video problematic? Why is it considered racist? Well, there is a long and well-documented history of Black people being compared to apes and monkeys, imagery used to frame us as subhuman and biologically inferior. That dehumanization was not accidental; it was used to justify slavery, segregation, and violence against Black communities.

Chrisley adamantly disagreed with the other hosts’ assertion that the post was racist, even sharing that Donald Trump had helped her Black friend once and therefore, in her view, could not be racist.

What struck me most about the conversation was not simply the disagreement – that is common in these situations. It was the ease and certainty with which racism could be dismissed, especially on a panel with two Black women. The moment led me to question, once again: Who holds the authority to define what is racist? Who gets to define when one experiences racism?

When racism is debated, the focus quickly turns to intent. Did they mean it? Was it deliberate? The conversation often centers the perpetrator, rather than the person harmed. When those least affected by racial harm hold primary authority in deciding whether racism has occurred, the focus shifts from accountability to defending the accused.

Too often, when Black people name racism, our words are treated as debatable rather than credible. Our lived experience is weighed against someone else’s comfort, becoming something others feel entitled to interpret for us. In that dynamic, the people most impacted are asked to justify their reality before harm can even be addressed.

For Black communities, this pattern is exhausting. It’s exhausting to have the harm of racism repeatedly debated, minimized, or dismissed. The cumulative toll is what we describe as Black fatigue in our book Black Fatigue: How Racism Erodes the Mind, Body, and Spirit.

That fatigue is not simply about individual incidents. It is about the constant negotiation of reality. It is about having to argue that harm exists before it’s even addressed. And it is about living in a culture where the authority to define racism is often separated from those who experience it.

So who gets to define what is racist? In a society structured by racism and anti-Blackness, Black voices must carry primary authority in naming that harm. When Black people name racism, we are not offering a casual opinion. We are drawing from a historically and structurally informed understanding. One shaped by lived reality within a system of unequal power.