For some conservatives, rejecting "political correctness" means embracing language that people of color find deeply disrespectful.
Don Blankenship, a retired coal company executive, is the latest reminder of that. He initially attracted headlines after he referred to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao's father— the Shanghai-born chairman of a global shipping company — as a “wealthy China-person" before claiming that the secretary and her husband, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), could not be trusted to put the interests of Americans first because of their “connections in China.”
On Thursday, Blankenship released an ad with a new attack on McConnell, accusing him of creating “millions of jobs for China people." He went on to defend his use of the term some call racist at an event Thursday night. According to a report from Roll Call, he said: “We’re confused on our staff as to how it can be racist when there’s no mention of a race. There’s no race. Races are Negro, white Caucasian, Hispanic, Asian. There’s no mention of a race. I’ve never used a race word.”
People more familiar with the history of race and people of Chinese descent disagree.
In a Friday statement, Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.), the first Chinese American woman elected to Congress and chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, criticized Blankenship's comments.
“There’s no mystery to what Mr. Blankenship is doing," Chu said. "It is intentional race baiting . . . By using racially insensitive rhetoric to target Secretary Chao and her family in order to take cheap shots at Senator McConnell, Mr. Blankenship is perpetuating the hateful stereotype that being Chinese means you cannot also be a patriotic American."
Linguist Ben Zimmer wrote in the Atlantic that the history of the terms "Chinaperson" and "Chinaman" were first used as an epithet to describe the Chinese immigrants that moved to California for work during the Gold Rush before fully evolving to a racial slur.
"In one word he managed to encapsulate a tension between competing forces in Americans’ ongoing use of language to label groups. In 'Chinaperson,' one can hear echoes of societal injustices of the past, as well as current attempts to make amends through linguistic hygiene," Zimmer wrote.
Some conservatives, including the president's son Donald Trump Jr., have asked Republicans to walk away from Blankenship.
But Blankenship, a Trump supporter, doesn't seem to be backing down. And maybe he doesn't have to.
Blankenship had been leading the race early on, but as recently as last week he started slipping in the polls. A recent Fox News poll showed him in third place among likely GOP primary voters, behind Rep. Evan Jenkins and West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey.
Countless Americans -- including many in West Virginia -- embraced Trump in 2016 partly because of his rejection of politically correct language, including on issues related to race. The president repeatedly made statements about people of color that were viewed as racially insensitive that he refused to apologize for. Those statements did not significantly hurt his approval ratings with his base.
Blankenship is the latest GOP candidate to use racist language or make racially insensitive statements during his campaign.
Arthur Jones is the Republican candidate (he ran unopposed) for a U.S. House seat in Illinois. Under a tab titled “Flags of Conflict" on his website, he lists the Confederate flag first and describes it as “a symbol of White pride and White resistance” and “the flag of a White counter revolution.” The party has disavowed Jones.
And Roy Moore, a former chief justice on the Alabama state Supreme Court, speaking against racial, political and other divisions during his U.S. Senate campaign, caught heat for saying, "Now we have blacks and whites fighting, reds and yellows fighting, Democrats and Republicans fighting." Moore later said he was referring to a song lyric about "reds and yellows."
While some voters may be drawn to this "tough talk," it could also have repercussions with voters. That's something Donald Trump Jr. hopes West Virginia voters remember.
Jones is not expected to be competitive in the heavily Democratic district and Moore lost his race. Beyond these races, the GOP as a whole continues to lose support from people of color. It won't help that members of the party continue to grab headlines for using racially offensive language and doubling down when given a chance to correct it -- a tactic they may have picked up from the Republican in the Oval Office.