Again, magellan01 , calling someone “racist” is a personal comment and is discouraged, but it is not a personal insult. I’ve addressed this issue before. Just to muddy the waters, tomndebb does describe it as name calling in the posts I’m linking to.
If someone was that upfront about it I don’t think I’d object, but I’d rather see posters take their arguments apart than just call them racist. We have some posters with views that are racist or near-racist. They like to complain that people are calling them racist to shut them up, but Dopers rarely accuse them of racism.
I mentioned I found a few instances of “racist” being moderated. They’re here: from Great Debates last December , one in MPSIMS in March (although this could be about the tone, not just the use of the word racist), and another in GD in January 2009 .
brickbacon was asking, in essence, if it’s okay to call a poster a racist in Great Debates if it’s true, or if the poster acknowledges it. I think tomndebb and I agree that in both cases, it isn’t because it’s still a personal remark.