Vox Nova: "...we are all racists"

Sam Rocha from Vox Nova seems to be attempting to confuse the current race card situation further. If so, he succeeds. I'll attempt to provide some corrections in my response below.

We all know the drill: X calls Y a ‘racist,’ then, Y calls X ‘racist’ for calling Y a ‘racist.’ Then, others enter the fray and repeat the accusations. And this is a major part of what passes as “politics” these days.

Uh, no. The Democrats like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Jimmy Carter (X) call those who oppose Obama's recent domestic proposals (Y) "racists", then camp Y accuses camp X of being a bunch of asinine political hacks, which is how those in camp Y perceive them. It's too bad this is what the Democrats seem to desire to have pass for politics, since they were the first to play the race card in this latest episode, and can hardly expect those whom they attacked not to defend themselves.

It seems too easy to forget that racism is not just a term, it is a real experience that happens to human persons.

This is possibly the stupidest line in the article. For normal people, especially those engaged in the argument, it is not "easy to forget" that any given word isn't "just a term", unless you are some sort of advertising copy writer, pop song writer or political sloganeer like Pelosi. It does seem easy for some to hurl the accusation out there, like tossing spaghetti against the wall, that some people in the Y group don't realize racism actually exists in the world.

Then Rocha goes on to posit a difference between a discriminatory racism which he claims everyone possesses and a capitalized Racism which includes supremacy in addition to discrimination.

In another sense, we all Racists but differ in relations and degrees of Racism and ought to try to eradicate the spirit of Racism from the human condition.

I like how he dropped into street slang there—"we all Racists"—to emphasize his point. It's cool; the bro is keepin' it real—don't fault my man fo' that, dog.

Attempting to sanely discern the difference between the two is what it would take to elevate political discourse on race from hand-wringing to an authentic consideration of what it means to be a racist in a folk sense of the term—a sensibility that doesn’t suffer from the need for these tortured categories.

I won't take further advantage of this embarrassment by quoting any more from it. My main point is that this is what passes for logic and thoughtfulness in the leftist mind. At least he admits that his categories are tortured; I question any need of them whatsoever. I've posted already on a few of the many successful attempts to provide sanity and discernment to correct the silly talk, and by them one can see that the political discourse has already been elevated on this issue by people like Toby Harnden, Michael Steele and Brit Hume. And since President Obama has spoken definitively on the issue stating that his opponents are not racist, the case would appear to be closed at this point. To behave as if no one has spoken with clarity, sensibility and persuasiveness in what Mr. Rocha calls the "Y group" on this matter is extremely misleading.