Jtdcftul

I am not sure if you can use the infinitive here.

I would rather say:

Accuse people of being racist.

The other question is if you can say:

Accuse people of being racists.

Accuse people to be racists.

I sometimes use words like "racist" as noun instead of adjective. Are both ok?

to is for purpose or a place.

• I went to the field to play football.


• I wanted to do the work.

To accuse someone of being something is idiomatic.

Therefore,to accuse people of being racist.

racist can be a noun or an adjective.

"To" is used to express motion or direction either to a literal place, person or thing, or toward a stated goal or a situation.

When you accuse somebody you are calling them out for something they have done and that "crime" usually has a name. It is correct therefore to say:

I accused him of being racist.

or

I accused him of racism.

It would be incorrect to say "accuse... to" because there is no implied direction or motion towards something; you are labelling something they have already done.

There are some other ways you could use "to" with an accusation, however - if you were indicating some kind of movement towards the act.

Examples:

Trump's xenophobic vision of America is inciting people to racism.

This is correct because it suggests that people are moving towards being racist through the process of incitement.

I consider him to be racist.

This is correct because consideration is a process of thought so it is described as having motion or direction. Idiomatically this is pretty much the same as accusing someone of something because you are saying that you think they are something.

The existing answers are right that "accuse people to be racist" doesn't mean the same as "accuse people of being racist".

It is not entirely incorrect or ungrammatical, however. It just means something different. 'To' indicates direction or purpose. Therefore you could say "I accuse people to be racist" if you are accusing them of something (not stated in that phrase, perhaps not the sentence) in order to be racist yourself.

So, you could be asked why you keep accusing people (presumably of some specific ethnicity) of some crime, and you could reply:

I accuse them to be racist.

Which would mean your purpose in laying the accusations was "to be racist".