IN MY SHOES: Reflexive Racism From Well-Meaning Liberals
Jason Riley, an editorial writer at The Wall Street Journal, describes the well-meaning – but racist, nonetheless – comments he and his wife are forced to endure as parents-to-be of an interracial child:
Upon finding out, friends can't resist informing her that "interracial children are beautiful." It's said in a tone that suggests deep gratitude and admiration, although the reasons are a little unclear.
The comment may be kindly meant, as a sort of reflexive compliment, but it inevitably suggests that she is being congratulated for her willingness to place the aesthetic enhancement of the populace above the imperatives of racial purity.
She's heard the remark, or some variation of it, from a dozen different people …
[I]n all but a couple of cases, the remarks came from white people parked on the political left, the kind of superior folks who might run you down in their Prius for even suggesting that they harbor racial hang-ups. As liberals constantly tell themselves, only conservatives have race issues.
But you know the truth is closer to the opposite. It is the left's obsession with skin pigmentation--invoking it everywhere and always, regardless of its relevance--that keeps race front and center not only in our public policy debates but even in everyday life. In his latest book, "White Guilt," Shelby Steele … describes the endless frustration of dealing with whites "who have built a large part of their moral identity and, possibly, their politics around how they respond to your color."
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