Conor Friedersdorf responds to my earlier argument about his standard for describing something as racist:
Mr. Serwer and I seem to agree that Mr. Limbaugh hurts minorities with some of the comments that he makes. For example, when Mr. Limbaugh claimed that in Barack Obama’s America, white kids are getting beat up on school buses, he stirred up racial anxieties in a way that victimizes credulous white people and black people. Describing his comments as racial provocations rather than racism doesn’t imply that it isn’t wrong, or that no one is hurt by it.
This is a distinction without a difference. Limbaugh manipulated the circumstances of that event to make his listeners mad at black people in general so that they would view President Obama as an illegitimate inversion of the correct social order. To describe this as "racial provocation" rather than "racism" is simply splitting hairs. The objective and underlying premise of Limbaugh's remark are racist in that they view white people and black people as being in a zero-sum competition for power in which white people should be dominant, because otherwise they will be subject to violence from black people ("[I]n Obama's America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering").
Mr. Serwer is right to conclude that my standard for labeling someone a racist isn’t perfect, insofar as some actual racists won’t be branded for lack of proof. Similarly, the presumption of innocence in criminal law, and the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard for proving guilt, results in some criminals going free for lack of sufficient evidence, despite their guilt. This is galling, sure, but it’s also the most just approach.The irony is that Friedersdorf essentially read off a rap sheet of some of Limbaugh's most outrageous remarks, and then he said he took Limbaugh at his word that he wasn't a racist, merely because he said so. By this standard, should we be taking Keith Bardwell and Patrick Lanzo at theirs. To extend the legal analogy, it's as though Friedersdorf were a prosecutor working a first-degree murder case with a near-certainty of conviction and he decided in his closing argument that he couldn't speculate as to the defendant's motive.
Prosecutors infer motive from people's behavior. In the case of Limbaugh, I think it's fairly obvious that his intent is to "hurt minorities" with his remarks. For example, the point of his "government's been taking care of [young blacks] their whole lives" remark was to paint black people as ungrateful, lazy, and stupid so as to delegitimize whatever grievance the poll he referenced was measuring. Focusing on a standard of "proof" that requires telepathy pretty much ensures that only the most outrageous behavior can credibly be described as racist--but in this day and age, precisely because certain behavior is so easily identifiable as racist, it's the least threatening form of racism.
At any rate, I think Friedersdorf's analogy is flawed, because I think everyone at some point or another is influenced by assumptions based on race, and in that sense, we're all "guilty." The treatment of racism as a social "crime" rather than something that affects everyone to some degree ensures that the necessary checking of one's own assumptions does not occur. It's better to focus on tangible behavior, and in Limbaugh's case, he has a long record of making statements that invoke familiar negative stereotypes about African Americans.
I will concede this: There may be a rhetorical advantage in referring to racism through euphemism in that it may prevent people from becoming defensive and shutting out whatever argument is being made. But that's not the same as genuinely arguing that Limbaugh's actions are "racial provocation" rather than racism. That is splitting hairs.
-- A. Serwer
