How a New York Times editor's demotion implicates rural-urban difference, which is viewed instead as racism

The New York Times reported a few days ago that it had demoted a senior editor in its Washington Bureau for his Twitter activity about Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar.  The editor, Jonathan Weisman, had Tweeted on July 31, 2019:

“Saying @RashidaTlaib (D-Detroit) and @IlhanMN (D-Minneapolis) are from the Midwest is like saying @RepLloydDoggett (D-Austin) is from Texas or @repjohnlewis (D-Atlanta) is from the Deep South,” Mr. Weisman wrote. “C’mon.” 

In its story about the demotion, the New York Times noted the Tweet's rural-urban dimension:

In the July 31 posts, he implied that it was inaccurate to describe certain politicians from urban areas as being representative of the Midwest and the South. 

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Mr. Weisman, who is white, deleted the tweet and a pair of follow-ups after they were criticized as racist on Twitter and in the African-American-focused online publication The Root. 

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Tlaib, whose parents were Palestinian, represents a Detroit district, and Omar, who was born in Somalia but came to the United States when she was six years old, represents a Minneapolis district.   

Yet ultimately Weisman was demoted for the racial angle of the Tweet, not the spatial angle.  (And by the way, it's important to note that this is not the only Tweet that got Weisman in hot water with his boss; the others were perhaps more indisputably about race). I can't help wonder about the extent to which the spatial angle gets conflated with the racial angle--cities like Detroit and--to a less extent Minneapolis--are associated with African Americans, whereas the midwest, broadly speaking, is associated with whiteness, as is rurality more generally (though I've often written about the inaccuracy of that conflation).  Plus, it bears noting that the Austin v. Texas example doesn't fall into line with the others; that is, Austin isn't distinct from Texas because a higher percentage of people of color live there compared to the rest of Texas.  Austin is distinct from Texas because it is a blue magnet/cluster, just like Boise is for the rest of Idaho.  As for Representative John Lewis not being from the Deep South, well that is curious.  Certainly Atlanta is a highly cosmopolitan and diverse cluster in the midst of what most would agree is the Deep South.  Yet surely the Deep South still exists within Atlanta, too, and it's hard to imagine anyone saying that John Lewis, who marched with Dr. King in Selma, is not also the Deep South.