When everything is racist, nothing is.

Someone should tell that to the editors of the Arizona Republic and op-ed contributor Rashaad Thomas, who penned an absurd article for the news site this week titled, “ Phoenix restaurant says this is a photo of coal miners. But I see offensive blackface.”

This is a real thing, written by a real person. It is not satire. Here’s how the article, which was published by the Arizona Republic's online property, azcentral.com, opens:



"A few weeks ago, I attended a holiday party at a downtown Phoenix restaurant. I walked around to view the photographs on the wall.



Then a photograph caught my attention.



Friends said, “It’s coal miners at a pub after work.” It was a photograph of coal miners with blackened faces. I asked a Latinx and white woman for their opinion. They said it looked like coal miners at a pub after work. Then they stepped back, frowned and said it’s men in blackface.



I asked the waitress to speak with a manager. Instead, I spoke with a white restaurant owner. I explained to him why the photograph was offensive. Evidently, someone else had made a similar comment about the photograph before."



For the record, the roughly 100-year-old photo he’s talking about features a handful of exhausted-looking Welsh coal miners enjoying a beer after work in a pub in Cwmbach, Aberdare, according to Wales Online.

The miners are not donning "blackface." They are literally covered in their work – soot and dirt – after a day of backbreaking labor.

Thomas writes that he asked the manager once more before leaving if he had spoken to the other owners about the supposedly offensive photo. The manager said he had not. The op-ed continues its downward spiral.

“Who determines what's offensive?” Thomas asks. “For me, the coal miners disappeared and a film honored for its artistic merit, despite being the most racist propaganda films ever, D.W. Griffith’s ‘Birth of a Nation’ (1915) surfaces, in which white actors appeared in blackface. The white owner saw coal miners in the photograph. Therefore, it was not offensive.”

“Fact: The photograph shows coal miners’ faces covered in soot. The context of the photograph is not the issue,” he adds. “Art can be a trickster. People view artwork once and subsequently see something different.”

He goes on to argue that the real issue is the “lack of representation of marginalized people and their voices in Phoenix.”

You know, I was just thinking to myself that Welsh coal miners get far too much representation in Arizona.

“Frequently, I enter art galleries and I am not represented in the art, which leads to uneducated curation for exhibitions. While shopping I am ignored because it is assumed I unable to purchase anything, or I am followed by a security guard because it is assumed that I am a threat to the store,” Thomas continues. “Each assumption is based on a stereotype. Blackface caricatures stereotypes of black people. At the downtown Phoenix restaurant, my concern that the photograph of men in blackface was a threat to me and my face and voice were ignored.”

We're one article away from someone writing about the tyranny of chimney sweeps.

“A business’ photograph of men with blackened faces culturally says to me, 'Whites Only,'" Thomas writes. "It says people like me are not welcome.”

That's an odd thing for him to say, considering he saw the photo only because he was being served inside the restaurant as the patron of a holiday party. It’s also odd for him to allege he felt unwelcome even after both his waitress and one of the owners went out of their way to humor his bruised feelings. But what do you expect from a person who says he is determined to be upset regardless of what the facts say?

Thomas adds, “The operators of that downtown restaurant can choose to take the photograph down, leave it up or create a title card with an intention statement. No matter their decision, I think the photograph should be taken down — sacrificing one image for the greater good.”

It’s fine if Thomas wants to go down this road, seeing the devil of racism under every doily. He is as free to be as crazy as he wants to be. But that’s what Twitter and Tumblr are for, not the pages of an ostensibly serious newspaper.

There’s no excuse for the Arizona Republic running this stupid piece hurling baseless allegations of racism at a local business. Newspapers aren’t required to publish every submission they receive. In fact, it’s quite easy to turn down or ignore would-be contributors, especially if their contribution is this worthless. The choice to publish Thomas' op-ed was unfortunately a conscious one; the Arizona Republic wanted to share his attack on the Phoenix bar, whether out of a desire to signal virtue or to attract hate-clicks.

Shame on them.