Keith Bardwell, a Louisiana County justice of the peace, refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of "concern" for the children they might have. Of course, he's not a racist:
"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way," Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. "I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else."
"Piles of black friends." What a curious choice of words.
Patrick Lanzo, the Georgia restaurant owner who regularly uses the word "nigger" in expressing his political views on a sign outside his establishment, isn't a racist either. His most recent sign said: "Obama's plan for health-care: Nigger rig it."
Despite the sign, Lanzo said he's not a racist.
He said he's just against what he calls a "sub standard healthcare plan," which he said President Obama is trying to push through.
Ta-Nehisi Coates writes, "There aren't any racists in America." Well that's not true. What about Sonia Sotomayor, or the people who opposed Rush Limbaugh owning the Rams? The first rule of racism is that there are no racists, the second rule of racism is that all racists are liberals.
Incidentally, yesterday Michelle Malkin went nuts on this Ben Smith story crediting the president with making interracial marriage somewhat more acceptable, and explained that the only people who oppose interracial marriages are liberal (natch). Of course, in her lifelong quest to adhere to the Bender Theory of Discrimination, most of the links she provided were of people criticizing her for her interracial marriage. (Just in case it isn't clear from the fact that I happen to be the child of an interracial marriage, I think the things people said about her are disgusting.)
Oddly enough though, Malkin didn't criticize her buddy, conservative blogger Robert Stacy McCain, who once complained that "the media now force interracial images into the public mind and a number of perfectly rational people react to these images with an altogether natural revulsion."
At the time, McCain helpfully explained that "THIS IS NOT RACISM." Of course not, because there are no racists in America and only liberals are racist.
-- A. Serwer
