But attacks are in the eyes of the beholder.

No.
No no no no no.
Especially when it is in the best interest of the beholder to proclaim an attack has been made.

Like the pop-quantum physics finding that light can be both a wave or a particle"

"Pop quantum physics:" What's that? The quantum physics I've studied (you know, the stuff with heavy calculus and diff. eq. and experimental backing) sure seems to have talked a lot about the wave-particle duality. Hell, I've done QM experiments myself that illustrate the wave particle duality.

Not really a pop-quantum physics thing -- just a quantum physics thing.

Otherwise, I get what you are saying.

Eye of the beholder?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmZ3o0Di7Go&eurl=http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

No, this last ad is objectively racist. This isn't even dogwhistle racist. Just plain racist racist.

Teece: My understanding is that the explanation is pretty heavily simplified. Duality is there, but it's a mathematical function, not the product of observation. Or something like that. Odds that I don't understand physics approach 1.

Bah. I'm fed up with this nonsense. McCain has greenlit an overtly racist campaign against Arabs; he hired the very people he accused of running racist ads against him in the past,he's known for using racist terms against Asians; and he's dog whistling against blacks then sniveling about how unfair it is for anyone to call him on the Klan rallies he and his wind-up Braun VP are creating.
I only wish that you knew how frustrating it has been to read and watch white pundits, that I generally respect, like yourself, delicately parse McCain's disgusting conduct, playing this meaningless game of is he a racist or isn't he. He is. The eye opener for me has been how careful journalists have been to cover it up and how nakedly he has revealed it as he loses this race. I was absolutely staggered to see Draper describe Tucker Eskew as a "decent person" the other day and frankly it will color (literally) everything I read by that reporter from here on out, but it says fundamental things about him.

"anodyne?" Perhaps you meant "alkaline?"

Anodyne

–noun
1. a medicine that relieves or allays pain.
2. anything that relieves distress or pain: The music was an anodyne to his grief.
–adjective
3. relieving pain.
4. soothing to the mind or feelings.

An "anodyne attack" makes no sense. An alkaline one might though, in that it's not acidic.

Intent has something more to do with this than just something unknown/obscure.

We know that McCain can be viscious (other Senators have so said).

We know that McCain despises Obama (evidence from debates).

We know that McCain can speak in alley talk (if you call your wife a trollop and c*nt in public, there's no limit).

We know that McCain is from another time and place (the Navy in his day was quite racist, especially among hot-shot pilots)

So it's not hard for me to 'hear' McCain calling Obama something like a dirty n-word in private, and approving an overt racist attack on him.

This doesn't stretch my imagination (or judgement) that these ads are racist.

I completely agree about McCain's response. Imagine if early in the campaign, when it was clear he was running against the first black Democratic nominee, John McCain had given a speech that included race. A speech that anticipated how the issue might play out (not hard to project), and made it clear where the line would be drawn. That would be moral leadership we can believe in, my friends.

As it is, if McCain doesn't agree with the racist attacks that come not from his campaign, but from other republican state officials, then he's an ineffective leader of the party. If he does agree, then he's no moral leader on this issue. He seriously missed his chance on this one.

Or something like that. Odds that I don't understand physics approach 1.

Which also means the probablity that he doesn't understand odds is likely greater than 0.5.

And the probably that I will mess up tags when being a pedantic ass also approaches one.

I'm sorry Ezra, but you are letting McCain off the hook way too easily. Its been McCain, not his supporters, who has approved advertisements that are quite clearly intended to rile up racist sentiment. McCain knows that to win he needs to exploit latent racism in this country and bring it to the surface. If your only definition of racist is someone who makes explicitly racist comments then you're letting some truly vile people off the hook.

John McCain has run a campaign consciously designed to exploit racial tension. The responses to his ads weren't accidents. McCain and his campaign were COMPLETELY aware of what the results of their ads would be because they intended to get those results. If creating ads with obvious goals of exploiting racist fears isn't racist then nothing is. And his failure is not just that he hasn't repudiated the racists in his coalition. McCain hasn't ignored the racists in his coalition at all, he's embraced them.

If it walks like a duck and looks like a duck, it probably is a duck. So lets be real here: John McCain is a cranky, boorish, racist.

Today on word-a-day: I beieve Ezra was using 'anodyne' in its sense as:

bland: harmless, inoffensive, or uncontroversial to the point of being dull
a rather anodyne speech, given the nature of the crisis

Ezra, he's so 'articulate'.

;-)

What's to wonder?

Everyone has a heiarchy of issues and it appears that 'racism' is at the very tip top for the American liberal left. Higher than national security (don't ask, don't tell), higher than the economy, higher than anything. And by judging from this post and the comments, there is no clear definition. It seems to be "in the eye of the beholder" as Ezra says.

So, when all of you look at the world through the fisheye lens of racism, expecting to see it, is it any wonder that you see it everywhere....even when it probably isn't there?

In contrast, I feel it's a problem, but it's not nearly at the top of the list of problems. The simple fact that Obama is the Democratic candidate and lots and lots of whites will vote for him kinda demonstrates that.

I truly believe that many here would tube the economy, tube our national security, tube everything else if they could "fix" racism.....even if you could all agree what it is....which you can't! And even if you could, what exactly would you do to "fix" the problem?

And today's "welfare" ad isn't racist either, I suppose. I understand that this Ross fellow is your friend, but he's not our friend. He's a hack and you're not doing yourself any favors by covering for him.

I agree that a lot of these attacks can be taken as non-racist, but will have racist overtones for those responsive to those overtones. Agree that McCain could do more to not inadvertenly (or advertently) benefit from that vote.

But I think you are too sanguine about liberal racism. See liberal reactions to Clarence Thomas and Condoleeza Rice, some of which were quite vile. Studies of good PC white kids show they still take longer to associate positive words with black faces than white faces.

Race stains us all to one degree or another. And because of that, I'm not so sure we should be sitting around with a hair-trigger about what counts as 'racist' or not. It's just going to take a lot of time and patience for us to move out of the shadow of race.

"In the Democratic primary debates, John Edwards frequently said that if his supporters were voting against Obama's race or Clinton's gender, he didn't want their vote."

whereas Obama accepted w/o question every sexist vote that came his way

I'd be more sympathetic to Ross if he hadn't written this (or if he didn't link to Steve Sailor so often):

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200802u/douthat-buckley/2

Buckley drank the most, but if it affected him, I never noticed, whereas Jaime and I fell into a drunkenness so deep I can barely remember our conversation. We talked about the Red Sox, I think—our host was writing a book set around 1946, the year that Pesky held the ball—and Ayn Rand, with Jaime asking Buckley if he had been there on the night when I.udwig von Mises had famously reduced her to tears by calling her a “little Jew girl.” (Buckley hadn’t, to everyone’s regret.)

One of the things self-styled "conservatives" wish to preserve is a hierarchy based on skin color. Racism is basic to them. And mara: Hillary Clinton made explictly racist appeals for votes during the Democratic primary; the "sexism" charges were imaginary -- or, pace Ezra, in the demented perception of her followers.

"I understand that this Ross fellow is your friend, but he's not our friend. He's a hack and you're not doing yourself any favors by covering for him."
--agreed, 100%. the difference between bloggers and big media is supposed to the absence of this sort of Village friendliness.

and as for non-racist conservatives, the fact of racist conservatives "sucks" for them??? it's been the key to their political success for the past fifty years! how about open, unambiguous repudiation of explict racism and implicitly racist policies? oh, because that'd permanently destroy the Republican party for a generation!--an event taht would, indeed, "suck" for non-racist conservatives...

I understand that this Ross fellow is your friend, but he's not our friend. He's a hack and you're not doing yourself any favors by covering for him.

Yes, yes. Douthat is a vicious little leprechaun. I don't know why anyone takes him seriously.

I loved that about Edwards, that he didn't want our vote if it was for racist or sexist reasons. (One of many reasons I supported him.) As for Clinton and Obama, they, their supporters, and the media did all use racist and sexist language occasionally, and that sucked big time. I like both of them, but I wish they hadn't done that.

I don't know if racist attacks are in the eye of the beholder, but I do know that saying "I didn't mean it, it was just a joke" is no defense if you've hurt someone with a racist remark. Context IS important, by which I mean that if there *wasn't* a history of certain phrases being used to demean people of colour, the words might be innocent--but because those words DO have that history, people should stay the hell away from them.

If you use a slur that no one understands (say, if you travel to the future and call someone by a slang word that doesn't exist any more), you're still being a racist ass, even if no one understands you. But at least you aren't hurting anyone if they don't know what you mean. Here, though, we see people trying for plausible deniability--hey, it's not *me* being a racist, it's my enthusiastic supporters! Well, if that's true, have you done something to bring their racism to the front? If so, you ARE contributing to the problem.

Good comment, nick. I have noticed that what's usually missing from conservatives' hand-wringing over the racsim accusation is any repudiation of the blatant racism of many of their most prominent spokespeople, e.g. Rush Limbaugh.

"there are white niggers. I've seen a lot of white niggers in my time, if you want to use that word. But we all--we all--we just need to work together to make our country a better country and I--I'd just as soon quit talking about it so much."
Klegal Byrd - March 2001