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]

All due respect to your satirical skills, but doesn't this misread the use of "like" in Google Reader? I'm not a google reader user, but if it's like most web 2.0 applications, then most of its users use the 'like' feature as a kind of bookmarking, a significance notation rather than approval signifier.....

[Josh]

OT: Any comment on this? You would seem to have relevant experience...

[tomemos]

Ahistoricality, I certainly assumed that Scott knew that and was making a joke. A good one, I thought.

[SEK]

What Tomemeos said, Ahistoricality.

Josh, you know what's weird? That's the woman who was department secretary when I arrived at Irvine, so I don't doubt she knows what she's talking about. That said, I'm not sure who she's talking about, because of those you could reasonably expect to be genre fans (i.e. not Hillis), most of them are. Shortly after arriving here, my bootlegged Buffy and Angel VHS tapes made the rounds of the junior faculty, and my adviser was the one who pushed Battlestar Galactica on me after we'd had a long conversation about the merits/demerits of Babylon 5.

[Ahistoricality]

OK. I'm so used to you swinging for the fences on satire that I completely missed the bunt.

[Patterico]

Racism? More likely the volatile combination of a Harvard professor overly eager to accuse cops of racism, and a cop high on his own authority and sense of outrage.

[JD]

This just shows how racist those redneck southern GOPer's are.

[Karl Steel]

Patterico refers sneeringly to a "high-on-himself Harvard professor." No further comment.

[JD]

Viewed with the aid of this information, this does not appear to be a case of a racist police officer, as claimed by Scott Eric Kaufman. It appears to be a high-on-himself Harvard professor inappropriately screaming “RACISM!!” combined with an offended cop who got high on his own authority and sense of outrage, and made an inappropriate arrest.

Mr. Steel left out quite a bit around his little quote there.

[JD]

Someone once said blame is not a zero-sum game. That seems quite appropriate here.

[Karl Steel]

Mr. Steel left out quite a bit around his little quote there.
Dr Steel, my friend. And I included all the necessary information.

[Karl Steel]

for a change of pace, here's something worth reading.

[JD]

Screw that, you pompous arse. You sign your name Karl in the comments, and then have the temerity to expect someone to address you as Doctor? No thanks. If that is the way Dr. Gates acted, does this come as a shock to anyone? And, you most certainly did not include all of the necessary information, unless your point was to distort what Patterico actually said.

[Rich Puchalsky]

Oh well, if you invite dogs into the house, Scott, you've got to put up with fleas.

And what Patterico said was quite clear. It was a bad arrest with dropped charges, and Patterico tried to make it an even-sided error, a mistake on both sides, with the "high-on-himself" business. Which JD is now stripping the coded phrases from into a full "if the uppity black guy mouths off he deserves to get it".

[Ahistoricality]

The subtlety of using the English spelling when accusing someone else of pomposity is quite nice.

There is, as it turns out, no obligation to discuss everything, and you've given no indication of how the complete quote in any way alters the meaning of "high on himself Harvard professor" such as to render it less of a populist pose and (in context) false equivalence.

[JD]

What did I strip from Patterico's comment, Rich? I put the entire paragraph in there. The only person doing any selective editing was Karl Steel. And, the only person that has said or alluded to anything approaching an "uppity black guy" is you, Rich. Project much?

Ahistoricality - I was using that to avoid a content filter that I am used to that kicks out the word ass. Plus, I was being snarky, considering the manner in which Karl Steel demanded that I call him Doctor.

You are right, there is no obligation to discuss everything. But the snippet which Karl took out and posted intentionally attempts to make it look like Patterico held only Dr. Gates to blame, when the full quote shows that he is more of a pox on both your houses kind of guy. But, we cannot let people's actual positions get in the way of calling someone a racist now, can we?

[Rich Puchalsky]

JD, when someone goes off about how a prominent black academic is high on himself and therefore is half responsible for being arrested out of his home in this way, that's code for "the uppity black guy deserved it." You know it, Patterico knows it, I know it. It's the kind of thing I'd expect from Patterico, who is a Bush dead-ender who supported the whole conservative regime -- which means, of course, that he had no problem with its reliance on racial appeals, no matter how much he may say he's not a racist.

And I see to reason to be polite to you about it, given how you write. You're a racist, and so is Patterico, and your reflexive defense of a bad arrest under coded racism disguised as populism is just par for the course. You are both part of what's wrong with this country, but luckily the movement you serve is out of power now, so really you should just be ignored.

[JD]

Oh, I get it. It is code ... What other things are code? Can we get a list? Is it you that gets to redefine what other people say, or do I get to redefine everything you say to fit some code as well?

RACISTS !!!!!!!!!! You forgot the exclamation marks. That was really kind of pathetic on your part. Not kind of. Very pathetic.

What evidence do you have that I am a racist, you lying bastard?

[Ahistoricality]

he is more of a pox on both your houses kind of guy

Well, we're starting to approach agreement on something, I think. A slightly more selective quotation.....

Rich, and I refer to him by first name because we're old acquaintances here, is right: the only way to balance the scales in this event really is to ignore the racist assumptions that led to the confrontation and the abuse of authority that ended it: the presumption that Gates' hostility was status-based rather than a normal human reaction under the circumstances is just inane.

[JD]

My prior comment did not post, so forgive me if I repeat myself.

Code? Are you serious? Code? Where can I get a list of code words and their meanings? Are you the only one that gets to change the meaning of the words, or do I get to change your words into a code of my choosing?

RACISTS !!!! See, with the exclamation marks and ALL CAPS, it is more forceful.

Now, what evidence do you have that I am a racist. Put up, or apologize.