Jamelle Bouie argues that conservatives are simultaneously obsessed with and oblivious to race. Citing Glenn Beck’s accusation that President Obama hates white people and some conservatives’ public delight in the Zimmerman verdict, Bouie contends that conservatives have adopted a distorted and distorting understanding of racism according to which “anyone who treats race as a social reality is a racist.” It follows that:
Because Obama acknowledges race as a force in American life—and because he even suggests that there are racists among us—he becomes the “real racist,” a construction designed to give conservatives moral high ground, while allowing them to insult Obama. After all, for them, “racist” is the worst accusation in American life.Bouie is right to criticize the naivëté about race that Dan McCarthy mentioned in his defense of Jack Hunter, which is characteristic of talk radio and other political entertainment. But he misunderstands the conceptual frame that many conservatives apply to these issues.
Read more: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/race-and-the-right/
