A Message to the Right:

Not unexpectedly, Barack Obama’s choice of Joe Biden as his running mate has been met with much commentary by right leaning pundits. From Rush Limbaugh to Sean Hannity to this site’s very own Justin Quinn, conservatives have reminded us of Biden’s one-time description of Obama as a serious black presidential candidate who is both “clean” and “articulate.” Such a description, we are expected to realize, is “racist.”

I am not disposed to accuse anyone of “racism.” That the charge of “racism” has potentially ruinous consequences for those at whom it is leveled explains to some extent my reluctance to resort to it. Yet, in all honesty, my primary reason for not using “racism” as an epithet is not so much morally as intellectually based: I simply don’t believe that anyone really knows what they mean by the term.

This point aside, I don’t think that anyone is well served by attempts on the part of Republicans, conservatives, libertarians, or other Rightists to depict either Biden or any other Democrats as “racist.” Given the Left’s tireless --and disgraceful -- efforts over the years to create the impression that it alone is concerned with the well-being of non-whites, it is understandable that their opponents should be tempted to repay them in like coin. However, I believe this temptation should be resisted.

First, when the Right and Left accuse each other of being “racist,” they accuse each other, at the very least, of thinking less of blacks and other non-whites than they do whites. That is, Leftists never, and establishment Rightists seldom, accuse their rivals of anti-white animosity. This being so, when those on the Right attempt to convince Americans generally -- and black Americans especially -- that one of the two major national political parties is “racist,” they, ironically, reinforce precisely that vision of America that they have labored so mightily to belie.

For decades, the Left has worked around the clock to persuade -- or intimidate -- Americans into believing that white “racism” is the omnipotent culprit lurking behind every “disadvantage” experienced by blacks and other minorities. And while Democratic politicians, like Obama, whose professional lives depend on being perceived as “pro-American,” wouldn’t dare to say it so bluntly, Leftists in Hollywood, academia, and other places have told us time and again that America is a “racist” nation.

Those on the Right have steadfastly denied this. But insofar as they insist that an American institution like the Democratic Party, and the possible next vice president of the United States, are “racist,” they expose themselves to charges of dishonesty: either Rightists are lying when they deny that America is “racist” against blacks and other non-whites, or they are lying when they claim that non-Right politicians are “racist” against blacks and other non-whites.

There is another reason why the Right should avoid leveling the charge of “racism” against their political rivals.

Rightists claim to be opposed to “political correctness.” Yet by insisting that it is not they, but their opponents, who harbor racial animosity toward blacks and other non-whites, they actually reinforce the “politically correct” orthodoxy while ingratiating themselves to it. Once again, those on the Right open themselves to allegations of dishonesty: either they are lying when they claim to reject “political correctness,” or they are lying when they accuse their opponents of having racial animus toward blacks and non-whites.

Finally, the grounds on which those on the Right accuse Joe Biden, Robert Byrd, and other Democratic Congressmen who opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 of “racism” are flimsy at best.

Joe Biden’s remarks about Obama may have been ill-worded, but they were well-intentioned and, from the Leftist perspective that Biden holds, true. His comment to the effect that Obama is “clean” had nothing to do with hygiene; he was referring to his record.

Yes, Robert Byrd was at one time a member of the Ku Klux Klan, but this was over a half-a-century ago. In many respects, he is not the same person today as he was then and, in any event, he has repented of his ways.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was indeed a controversial piece of legislation that people, especially conservatives, could in good conscience oppose. One conservative who, unfortunately, is virtually forgotten by today’s “movement conservatives,” but who argued passionately and intelligently against it was George Schuyler. Schuyler was a protégé of H.L. Mencken, and about as brilliant and insightful an essayist. Oh yeah, and Schuyler was black.

If “political correctness” is ever going to end, the Right needs to stop trying to outdo the Left in this silly contest to prove who is more (or less) “racist.”