"The Left: The New Racist Right"

I know what this guy is saying, I really do, but he seems to be really over-sensitive. His comments remind me of myself, complaining about things from a feminist perspective - most people think my remarks are so nitpicky, when I think I'm stating the extremely obvious. His most recent post is about Newsweek's Obama profile, but I think this earlier post captures his perspective more clearly (I included an excerpt below). I really object to him lumping liberals together (he calls it the Liberal Plantation) just because a high profile person like Biden makes an ill-considered statement about how articulate and clean Obama is, and his white friend comes back from vacation and compares his tan to Ridley's skin. Insensitivity is not racism. And acting like the faux paus of well-meaning people who sincerely desire to be blind to race is in any way equivelent to genuinely negative feelings about non-white people is foolish and insulting and extremely short-sighted and self-defeating. Just my two cents.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-ridley/the-left-the-new-racist-_b_40829.html

John Ridley
The Left: The New Racist Right (Part II)
February 9, 2007

On the eve of Barack Obama announcing his official run for the white house, I was lamenting to some of my liberal friends - as opposed to my friends who are conservative of which I have none - about the surreptitious bigotry being displayed by liberals for Obama. As opposed to the overt racism being displayed by some conservatives - hello, John Gibson you racist jerk!

I'm talking to my liberal friends about some subtle bigotry and one of them says, "You people think everything is about race."

"You people." Actually said it.

Okay. I give up. I'm throwing in the towel. Drinking the Kool-Aid. Announcing to the world that as an authentic black man I really love the way America has openly embraced Barack Obama's run for the white house. Not a hint of latent liberal bigotry to be found anywhere.

I mean, sure, you have the occasional Bidenism about an "articulate, clean" black. But I now blame Biden's comment more on the likes of Alan Keyes and Carol Mosley Braun not being more obviously articulate and bathed than on Joe Biden having spent the last twenty years living under a rock.

Fortunately the media's all over a clearly racist comment like that.

Unfortunately the media occasionally displays its own white bias by throwing up undue fascination with the fact that, according to research polls, Obama's going to have to earn the black vote...just like every other candidate's going to have to earn their votes.

Still waiting for the New York Times piece announcing Vilsack is going to have to earn the white, mid-western vote.