White people can’t talk about race

April 10, 2008

Which probably explains why I’ve been talking about it so much recently. At Sadly, No Gavin M. expresses something that’s always bugged me about the poor-me tales of conservative oppression: they seem to think that freedom of speech includes the requirement that we take their speech seriously.

They don’t want their grievances eased or hurts salved. What they want, really, is for their great, historic argument between a noble ‘us’ and a villainous ‘them’ to keep roiling, for the pique of the heated moment never to go away leaving them empty and lonely. What they want is for the argument never to end.

How does one debate with a liberal? Sorry, under current rules, debate is not allowed.

Oh, okay then. Doop-de-doop, turnin’ on the TV.

Just as our new national conversation on race is limited exclusively to authentic blacks, so is any…

See, there she goes already. No consistency.

But hold on a second. Already we have the complaint that white people aren’t allowed to talk about race, while Ms. Morgan keeps talking about race. What she really means is that white conservatives can say any ding-dang thing they want, all the doo-dah day, but if they talk about race — which they so often do — people disagree with them and call them idiots. [ Nancy Graceless Pt. I ]

People can say whatever they want about race. Hell, the ACLU will even defend the Klan. But freedom of speech does not mean freedom from social consequences for that speech. So if you say something stupid, and I call you an idiot or ignore you or (more likely) call you an idiot then ignore you, well, that’s dialog. At least, it’s dialog with an idiot.

Posted in Race