Thursday, May 28, 2009

Throwing around the word 'racist'

Some conservative talkers are calling Sonia Sotomayor a reverse racist for this quote: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

But if you look at it in context, you see she is clearly not being a reverse racist.

Now a counter I've seen from left-wing bloggers is trotting out some of Rush Limbaugh's old racist quotes. The most famous is his quote from the early 1970's when working as a DJ, he told a caller to take the bone out of his nose and call him back. But there are other quotes that are getting repeated and copied and thrown around that he never said. There's a list out there of Rush's Top 10 Racist Comments, but some of them he never said, and the guy making the list provides no sources. Rush never said we miss James Earl Ray, and he never said that under slavery it was safer to walk the streets after dark.

If people are going to try to smear others, they should have their facts straight, and if their defense is that the other side doesn't care if they have their facts straight, so it justifies them spreading falsehoods, well they have no moral argument.

Thursday, May 21, 2009