At this point, it's probably easier to make a list of things that aren't racist. Because the list of things that are is ever-growing and includes things like skiing, swimming, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, drinking milk, using GLP-1 medications, and the written word is racist. The Smithsonian lambasted "white culture" and "whiteness" by claiming being on time, being polite, and working hard are also racist and indicative of white supremacy.
Just the other day, my colleague Matt Vespa wrote about how unpainted fingernails are white supremacy, too.
Now a Columbia professor — a professor — has won an award for making the claim that white paint is racist.
This book is real. So is the award.
— Seattle Extremist (@SeattleIndepen1) September 26, 2026
In “A Dead White: An Argument Against White Paint” the author
argues that white paint isn’t neutral—it carries associations with purity, cleanliness, and power that tie into systems of exclusion and racism.
This from the university that… pic.twitter.com/MFL8bfcKjx
I got nothing. But here's more on the absurdity from The College Fix:
Professor Wendy Walters’ new book, “A Dead White: An Argument Against White Paint,” claims that white paint is not the “neutral” architectural design element that it initially appears to be.
Instead, she “interrogates all that we have taken for granted about the substance that colors, or fails to color, the structures and objects that surround us—and what the collective impulse toward white paint can tell us about culture, politics, and individual desire,” the publisher’s description states, in part.
The idea for the book originated with the Ivy League professor’s “genuine and visceral dislike of white paint – a feeling that is at times overwhelming,” she explained in a 2021 video for Creative Capital Foundation on YouTube.
But Walters pushed back on the idea that her emotional response is “possibly irrational.”
Walters not only got a 202 Creative Capital Award to complete this book project, but it was also given a 2026 National Book Award recognition.
For saying white paint is racist.
I am as fair-skinned as they come, so pale that I get a suntan if I stand too close to my microwave. Despite that, I am not the same color as white paint. Even someone living with albinism is not white. Ergo, white paint is not about race. Unless you're a grifter who has to earn a living by making everything about race.
On the island nation of Bermuda, the roofs are painted white and stepped so rainwater is collected and deposited into storage tanks, usually located under the houses. This helps keep the house cool and supports the freshwater supply on an island with no inland lakes or rivers.
Is the entire island of Bermuda racist?
That'll come as news to the roughly 52.3 percent of Bermudans who are black.
Between 2008 and 2010, researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory proposed a Bermuda-esque plan of having white/light-colored roofs and white/reflective pavement to help reduce global warming. Los Angeles even began testing this in 2015, painting asphalt streets with light gray/white reflective coatings. To this day, the Berkeley Lab still backs this basic principle.
Are they racist, too?
No, and neither is white paint. Professor Walters knows this. So do the people at Columbia who gave her money to complete this garbage book and those who gave her the National Book Award recognition. It's all political activism pandering as academia, in an effort to keep grifters who thrive on racism collecting a paycheck.
