Over the past few years, the "I'm not a racist!" defense has been used by those engaging in a host of deplorable activities: From a congressman who claimed he didn't know the racially charged undertones of calling the Obamas "uppity," to officials who insist that forwarding e-mails of the White House lawn as a watermelon patch doesn't mean they're prejudiced against our first black president. My colleagues and friends have often joked that Americans think racist only refers to people who wear KKK hoods and burn crosses on lawns.
But apparently, calling people who do that racist is also crossing some sort of rhetorical line -- at least when they do it for Halloween. A former police officer and his friend took first prize at a Halloween party costume contest this year for dressing as a man in black face who was led on a rope by a friend dressed as a klansman. But, you know, they're not racists:
Terry Nunn [a former police officer] says he is in “no way, shape or form” a racist and neither is his friend Blair Crowley [who dressed as the klansman]. . .
Mr. Nunn tells Toronto radio station AM640 that he doesn't believe in the Ku Klux Klan and he's surprised someone complained to police.
Neither, apparently, is anyone else.
-- Monica Potts