The Race Card: A ‘Sword’ and a ‘Shield’

This is a very interesting discussion. Generally, I agree with Michael Medved, and I think he did a very good job here. I don’t think that it is fair to call Neil Munro a racist for interrupting the President of the United States, but it is fair to call him incredibly disrespectful and stupid. I also appreciate that Michael Medved isn’t caught up in the “What if Bush was interrupted?” stupidity that some conservatives keep repeating as their main retort on this issue. Firstly, that is a red herring, and, secondly, simply showing that liberals treated Bush horribly when he was president—or that Reagan was interrupted by liberals during his tenure as president—is not an excuse for conservatives to behave in the same deplorable manner. The unavoidable logical conclusion of that line of argument is that conservatives are just as uncivil and ill-mannered as liberals.

Interestingly, Keli Goff made an excellent point in this segment about the conservative tendency to pretend as though someone must don KKK regalia and burn a cross on a black person’s lawn before they can be justifiably considered a racist. Conservatives are much more willing to brook the idea that imagery and arguments can be racist when a liberal is offering those images and arguments. (Liberals also demonstrate this kind of tendentiousness with the charge of racism.)

Read the rest of this entry »