Posted by
Andrews on Thursday, April 17, 2008 5:06:31 PM
James Taranto at
Best of the Web has postulated that this election may mark the point where the word "racist" ceases to have any sting:
The Obama campaign has set in motion a fascinating
dynamic. On the one hand, some of his fellow Democrats, especially Bill
Clinton, have been willing to attack him in expressly racial terms. On
the other hand, we have someone making the case in a semi-major
newspaper that adjectives are the white man's tool of oppression and
that anyone who modifies Obama is a racist.
The Obama campaign may mark a turning point in the
history of race relations in America: the point at which calling
someone a "racist" comes to carry no more sting than calling him a
"fascist."
Wouldn't it be ironic if Mr. Taranto's prediction proves true?
While Mr. Obama thought he would bring racial healing by being "above race" and adopting a "postracial" identity. Instead, his legacy of racial healing is to make the word "racist" meaningless, robbing it of all its meaning through overuse. Stopping all these meaningless charges of racism will probably help race relations more than anything Mr. Obama could do as president, but I have to think that he will not be happy to see white Americans no longer frightened of being branded with the dread scarlet "R".