Welcome to Google's post-racial America!

From my Google Reader:

Of the hundreds of thousands of people who read Crooked Timber, only three of them cheered when the Director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research was arrested. 

Racism in America is truly dead. 

(Except for the insignificant bit of it that motivated the arrest in the first place.)

Comments

[Ahistoricality]

JP is Patterico, at least that's how Karl has referred to him before. That it's not his name is the root of your confusion.

[Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain]

I didn't call you a racist, moron. Learn to read.

I called you a self-righteous victim whore. Words mean something, even to the "States Rights" crowd. I mean, you did just give us hours of whining and foot stamping over your aggrieved character....on the internet where for all we know you are Matthew Hale or President Obama or some insurance salesman for Utica or Topeka or Indianapolis. Your character means nothing here; only your words and your argument. Judging you from that makes me thing you're a simpering man-child, who is no more serious in his use of words than you think good ol' Doc Gates was when he cried something similar.

No, most of my outrage is for the simpleton calling himself happyfeet, who ignores 300 years of oppression consciously used by one political party for the last 40 years to divide Americans, to make a lame ass, while he ostensibly supports the party where racists like Hannity, Furman, Helms, and Thurmond called home.

You are a sad little boy child. Happyfeet is disgusting

[JD]

Thank you, Ahistoricality. You are far less vile than your brethren.

Goodnight, racists !!!!!!!!!

[JD]

Ooooooo, Joshua. I am scared and intimidated by you. You are mean. Maybe you could point out where I am part of the "states rights" crowd, or is that another asspull? Holy Jeebus, SEK. You academic folks sure have a problem arguing with actual positions. Those caricatures in your heads are far more fun to attack, aren't they? Character may mean nothing to you, Joshua. That would be sad.

[JD]

BTW, I am from Indianapolis, Joshua. Good guess.

[happyfeet]

ohnoes. I was doing alludings again right in front of everybody and you busted me. ok then. Let me be clear. Hah just kidding ok for real no more lusions. NPR shibboleths like Southern Strategies and climate changes and performance enhancing drugs and gay marriagings are guess what? Popcultural artifacts is what they are now. Mine to play with and even... mock. It's easy cause there's not a shark in the sea what those dirty socialist NPR goofballs won't jump. But it's also a lot cause of I said so... it's will to power! It's not just for dirty socialistas anymores!

[JD]

Words mean something.

Thanks for the laugh, Joshua. How would you define the word "racist" ?

[Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain]

Was that in English?

[happyfeet]

whatever Josh Lawrence. I'm harder to ignore than 300 years of oppression cause of I'm for real! Deal with it. Hah! In you face!

[Patterico]

happyfeet is hilarious.

[P.T. Smith]

There's be no point in trying to point out that there are in fact different types of racism, would there? As in, there is racism that consists of a way of acting towards others, a way of thinking full of what really amounts to hatred; and there is a form of racism that rises without that aggression? That there is a form of racism that has been created by years of insular culture (i.e. being raised in a mostly white (or really, a mostly any race) town or suburb), and of the media's reporting, and of the fictions we see on television, that gives rise to a narrative that is in fact racism, but is a narrative that we, as a culture, have been subjected to, and unless we are able to see the strings forming that narrative, the racism there is impossible to escape, much less notice?
What I'm saying is that I find it unlikely that the cop who arrested Gates, Patterico, or JP are actually, in any way thinking, "Uppity black needs to be put in his place," which would be the more aggressive and undeniable form of racism. However, it is entirely possible, and for the cop at least I am sure it is true, that because of the narrative that has surrounded him for his entire life, he responded to Gates differently than he would have responded to a white professor behaving the same way. So, yes, that is racism, but it is a form of racism that needs to be unwound, the moving pieces of the narrative need to be revealed so that the one caught up in it can stop behaving that way.
In other words, screaming racist racist racist at someone who has been caught in this narrative, doesn't do anything.

[AMac]

rac•ism (rā'sĭz'əm) n. A defining doctrine of 20th and 21st century America, used by rightwing whites to oppress and dehumanize African Americans. Thanks to constant struggle by African Americans and virtuous leftwing whites, the influence of this scourge has been slightly reduced. However, rightwing whites have an arsenal of clever ploys requiring constant vigilance. The telltale sign that one is using coded language to advance his (occasionally her) doctrine is the bleated disavowal of racist motives.

rac•ist (rā'sĭst) n. A description of rightwing individuals who dissent from points of leftwing orthodoxy. When applied by progressive commenters, this is a jocular term that advances debate. Rightwing individuals sometimes feign offense at the application of this lighthearted term, even alleging that it is slanderous. Such whining is prima facie evidence of the validity of the accuser’s insight into reactionary racist psychology and ideology. A request for substantiation of the charge (“playing the victim card”) is similarly dispositive.

How goes the war against Eastasia?

[Rich Puchalsky]

P.T., I've been waiting with some amusement to see whether anyone is going to tell Patterico & co that liberals typically think that everybody is a racist, and that their whining and wailing is the crybaby tactic that it is.

But, you know, you left out one kind of racist. That's the conservative pol who isn't personally a racist in the "uppity blacks must be kept down" sense, but who coldly uses those tropes for personal gain and for the gain of his movement. The person who wouldn't discriminate against a black person in personal life, but who would do whatever they can to keep the Nixonland racist appeals alive, because that's what motivates conservatives. The racist out of political interest, not out of belief.

People like Patterico haven't been "caught in this narrative". They help to *create* this narrative.

[Karl Steel]

This is awesome. I love being effete. Maybe Harvey Mansfield will have me over to tea now?

Nice catch, ahistoricality.

[Karl Steel]

@Happyfeet: are you a refugee from Fafblog? I liked that shtick when they did it, but I'm a little unmoved by the tribute band version.

@"JP": Every person here would be shaking their heads in disgust at the high-on-himself Republican professor.

You're building straw castles in the air. Without the benefit of cognitive science, it's impossible to know what my future emotions may be (although the presence or absence of fart spray may have something to do with it), but I like to think that if Mansfield, or Robbie George, or Lawrence Summers ("democrat") were arrested at the threshold of his own home to satisfy a cop's fit of pique, I'd be just as outraged. I might even shake my head a bit, disgusted.

My point stands: someone who has achieved Gates' level of professional success has earned the right to pull rank.* He or she would be allowed a certain degree of dignitas, gravitas, &c in his or her personal dealings, particularly when in his own home, confronted with strangers. "JP," however, "just ha[s] a different view of people acting like they're important." Let this be noted (likewise for the down-home adverb, last heard in the phrase "we're jus' folks; we don't keep no airs around here, no sir"). Patterico, champion of down home democracy: shall we have no titles now but "citizen," using real names only when you dig them up?

* Of course I don't mean in cases where an obvious crime has been committed.

[RWL]

Meanwhile, JD, brave adopter of a pseudonym, rides the Sarah Palin grievance Express...

So is this the real Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain? Awesome. I loved your work at Gettysburg.

[Karl Steel]

Joan Vennochi didn't write that great of a column, not least of all because it uses anecdotes instead of data, but the column still should be understood as one Patrick Frey might have written were he trying to encourage rather than cauterize thinking.

[happyfeet]

Hood point Mr. Dr.! Help me out with this one. Should po-po what have dedicated their careers to protecting people and their stuff be allowed a certain degree of dignitas, gravitas, &c in their professional dealings, or should they be routinely second-guessed and called big stupidheads by some douchebag president on the tv?

[happyfeet]

oops I meant *Good* point, Karl...

[Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain]

I can help with that. Since your own "leader" declared the arrest was an abuse of power, maybe you ask him. Your boss and the President and law since the Magna Carta seem to be in agreement

Oh, and the 300 years of oppression was a little more real than some jerkoff on the internet who can't even use his own name. Well, in the words of the great Sage "you weren't ever going to write Beethoven's 9th." You little piisant, go back to whatever right wing cesspool you crawled out of.