Organizing the Race Cards

Stanford University law professor Richard Thompson Ford makes an invaluable contribution to societal discourse about racism with his Slate article today. Spurred to action by a world in which leftists blame every challenge faced by minorities on overt and despicable racism and righties torture logic with claims of "reverse racism," Ford defines several different sub-genres of bigotry, how these sub-genres manifest in society and their legitimacy as examples of true racism.


One might disagree with some of Ford's conclusions - I know quite a few people, for example, who would resolutely insist that "bad people acting with racial animus" led to the pitiful government response to Hurricane Katrina - but that's beside the point. The more essential lesson is that discussion of racial issues is fundamentally undermined by the inflammatory and egregious use of the term "racism," and that we need to take an honest look at what true racism is and where, how and when it still poisons our culture.


It's a convenient thing - and in the heat of a very emotional moment, it may even seem to be an insightful and wise thing - to say that "George Bush does not care about black people," as Kanye West so famously claimed in the wake of Katrina. But while the R-word is useful in identifying heroes and villains, real life is rarely about such clear-cut distinctions. Ford's article is a reminder that the other forces at play, from unconscious biases to poor urban planning to the lingering after-effects of centuries of undeniable racism, are probably more relevant at this point in history than overt hatred. Understanding how these forces work, rather than cavalierly tossing the term "racist" around, is the key to overcoming racial inequality.

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