(7-second pause) "Bush is a racist," demanded the caller.

I opted for the high road and offered the caller a brief recap of the Republican Party. I explained that the party was formed out of the abolitionist movement, and that they announced the total elimination of slavery as part of their official platform during the first Republican National Convention in 1856. For this, the Democrats derisively dubbed them, "Black Republicans." In the 1950's and 1960's, Republicans helped push civil rights legislation into the mainstream. Republican President Dwight Eisenhower used federal troops to enforce the court's desegregation ruling. And despite the myth to the contrary, a far greater percentage of Republicans than Democrats supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964-a fact that kept the bill from being filibustered by those southern Democrats who relied upon race baiting to stay in office.

"Does that help clear things up," I asked.

(10-second pause) "But Bush is a racist," he responded with the consistency of the recently brainwashed.

We are constantly bombarded with images that reduce complex issues of race into the most easily identifiable symbols. These images condition us to make immediate visual connections: black equals liberal equals opposition to affirmative action. Television isn't reality. Its reality personified. Black, white, Hispanic, Republican, Democrat-they're all distilled into the most easily digestible image.

And a public that has grown up learning more through images than words just swallows it whole, then spits it back at one another in a passive form of racism-the sort that leads us to visually sum people up without ever bothering to listen to what hey might actually have to say.