When to Call a Racist a Racist

Where are all the radical leftists? You'd think we'd see a better race-baiting turnout in response to Georgia's Patrick Lanzo. The guy posted a sign out in front of his Paulding Country restaurant suggesting the administration's ObamaCare legislation is a "nigger rig" to fix the healthcare system (and the dude's said to boast "a mannequin in a Klu Klux Klan costume" back by the pool tables). Another Black Conservative calls out the lefties, "This Is What Real Racist Opposition To Obama Looks Like":

Memo to all members of the Raaacism Industrial Complex:

Please read and study this picture and article above. This is what REAL racist opposition to Obama looks like. Notice, there is no use of “speech codes” like the word “socialism”. There is no trick photography required and not a subliminal message to be heard.

So to all you members and followers of the Raaaaacism Industrial Complex who applaud in agreement to the manufactured racism of Janeane Garofalo, Jimmy Carter, Rep. Hank Johnson and the like know this, you are helping to hide real racists like Lanzo in a sea of falsely accused racists.

Actually, there are a couple posts linking Lanzo to conservative opponents of the president. For one, Gawker has an entry titled, "Racist Old Man: 'I Am Not Racist'." That piece then links to some stupid episodes during the campaign last year that no one takes seriously (Obama food stamps?). Recall, in every single case like this conservatives denounce the racist imagery. Normally, the idiots who post such stuff are shamed by the PC police, and it's not unusual for a political career to implode.

Folks like those at Gawker will take every chance they can get to remind white America of its racial past. At the sidebar to the Paulding County story is this post, "Why We Need to Be Reminded That Michelle Obama Is Descended from Slaves. And that entry includes this image below for extra schock value. Never mind the fact that Michelle Obama, to the best of my knowledge, has never been chained like an animal her entire life, readers are already commanded to feel sorry for the First Lady because of her race:

Further, in discussing a recent New York Times story on Mrs. Obama's slave history, the Gawker article notes that:

Michelle Obama's ancestry isn't really the point: It's that the distant monumental evil that lives in history books can be tangibly connected to her, and to see the actual lives of her ancestors who lived with slavery and its consequences recounted with texture and detail is all the more moving because it is so rarely done.

As someone who teaches the "monumental evil" every semester - starting with the slavery clauses in the Constitution, then all the way to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and affirmative action today - I can guarantee you that America's pernicious, peculiar institution is not a distant memory. Young people are constantly bombarded with America's slave past. My oldest son's in 8th grade and U.S. history is assigned this year. Anyone who's looked at the contemporary history curriculum is well aware that historians rarely if ever pass-up the chance to retell the story of our "monumental evils." It's just there. And it ain't going away, and I don't think folks want it to go away.

Racism is wrong. Slavery was wrong. And I think Patrick Lanzo's sign is wrong. But the man is not representative of conservatives today. If Mr. Lanzo wants to exercise his First Amendment rights, at least he's putting his money where his mouth is: If folks are upset by his sign, they don't have to patronize his restaurant. Indeed, what more fitting way to protest his racist imagery than to reverse the pattern of Jim Crow segregation. Boycott the guy in the great tradition of the civil rights movement.

Of course, with yesterday's big outrage over President Obama's Nobel award for his manifest non-accomplishments, the race-card maniacs are due out for another big showing today. Larisa Alexandrovna, for example, starts off the day with her entry, "Republicanistan - A Country of Its Own." Hmm, "Republicanistan"? Conservatives as Taliban? Where'd we here that one before? Larisa recently attacked me with this odd description, "Donald Douglas, is an ultra-nationalist, openly racist professor of political science." I guess that puts me in good company, with Michelle Malkin, for example: "Malkin and the Racists..."

I'm putting up Larisa Alexandrovna with Janeane Garofalo as a candidate for race-baiter of the year. (See my previous post, with my picture, "White Power! Janeane Garofalo Has Revealed My Secret!") Folks like this, who have denuded the word "racism" of what real revolting impact it should evoke, have joined folks like Patrick Lanzo in the racist hall of shame. (See also, Confederate Yankee, "Diluted.")

Thank God for we still have some folks, like Clifton cited above, and Mary Baker (author of the majesterial essay, "Why I am No Longer an African American"). More commentary at Memeorandum.