These days, it’s difficult for normal people to determine what counts as a racist remark and what doesn’t. (For instance, the preferred PC term for a non-white individual is “person of color,” but if you accidentally transpose the words and say “colored person,” you’re racist.) Therefore, in the wake of the Harry Reid flap, I’ve decided to provide my readers with a handy racist vs. not-racist chart.
Not racist: Reid saying Barack Obama was an appealing black candidate because of his “light skin” and his lack of a “negro dialect.” Fellow Democrats have rallied around him, and Obama accepted Reid’s apology, citing his commitment to “social justice.”
Racist: Hillary Clinton supporter Geraldine Ferraro saying Obama was a more appealing candidate because he is black. In the face of relentless hectoring from liberals and black activists, Ferraro resigned from the Clinton campaign. (And she didn’t even use the word “negro.”)
Not racist: Chris Dodd praising fellow Democrat and former Klansmen Robert Byrd, saying he “would have been a great senator at any moment”--including, presumably, when he was running around West Virginia in a white hood. Dodd apologized for his “poor choice of words,” and with that, the subject was dropped.
Racist: Trent Lott praising fellow Republican and former segregationist Strom Thurmond, saying if Thurmond had been President, America wouldn’t have had “all these problems.” Lott was forced to resign as Senate majority leader despite his repeated apologies.
Not racist: The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee obtaining a copy of black Republican Michael Steele’s credit report. (Because all black people have bad credit, didn’t you know?) Although the Democrats denied race had anything to do with it, Steele was the only candidate targeted.
Racist: A Republican ad in which a ditzy white woman says she met biracial Democrat Harold Ford “at the Playboy party.” Ford admitted to attending the party, and no normal person could figure out why the ad was racist. But according to liberals, Americans have a deep-seated fear of biracial men dating white women…or something.
Not racist: Cartoonists depicting Condoleezza Rice as a slave, a “house ni**a,” and a parakeet perched on Bush’s shoulder—often with stereotypical dialect and exaggerated black lips.
Racist: Cartoonist Sean Delonas comparing Obama to a chimpanzee.
Not racist: The media pointlessly obsessing over the skin tone of Republican governor and Indian-American Bobby Jindal—although the jury was out on whether he was “moderately dark-skinned” (The Associated Press) or just plain old “dark-skinned” (The LA Times).
Racist: Republican Senate candidate George Allen calling a liberal heckler a “macaca.” This is supposedly a disparaging term for blacks in Europe—although no American had ever heard the word, much less been insulted by it. Oh, and the heckler was Indian, not black.
As we can see, the liberal criteria for “racist” depends not on what a person says and does, but whom they associate with. If you have an “R” after your name, you’re a bigot. If you have a “D” after your name, you can praise former Klansmen, publicly obsess over your opponents’ skin tone, and drone on about “negro dialects.” And when it comes to especially hated Republicans like Condi Rice, you can even use the n-word.
It’s all good.