I have not paid too much attention to the whole Instapunk flap that is burning up Memeorandum, because nothing is ever settled in these sorts of debates and all you end up doing is getting mired in discussions over who is and who is not racist. That being said, this Tom Maguire post had me laugh out loud:
As an example of the PC police in action we need look no further than my previous post. “Old Punk” of the InstaPunk crowd posted his thoughts on why specific behaviors of a specific subset of the black community annoys him. Frankly, there is very little in his post I would be inclined to defend, but I would be very curious to learn how widely held his viewpoints might be. As an example, I would guess his aversion to the hip-hop gangsta sub-culture is widely shared.
Well. Rather than trying to look for the message in his message, the Usual Suspects, led by Glenn Greenwald, seized on the offensive sections as an opportunity to brand Glenn Reynolds and the entire conservative movement as racists.
So let me summarize the exchange:
Obama: We should have a national conversation about race.
Old Punk: OK, here is what annoys me about some black people.
Lefties: The Old Punk is a racist, as are all righties.
One might well argue that this does discourage anything like a candid conversation.
Here is what was said at Instapunk:
I’m not proposing the generalized use of the term, just trying to be clear for once, in the wake of Obama’s call for us to have a dialogue about race. However much they may scream and protest, black people will know what I mean when I demand they concede that the following people are niggers:
– Jeremiah Wright
– O.J. Simpson
– Marion Barry
– Alan Iverson
– William Jefferson
– Louis Farrakhan
– Mike TysonYou know what I mean. They hold you back. They’re dirty, violent, and stupid. They make you look bad, and you foul yourselves by defending them, by reelecting them to office, by admiring them in spite of all their awful behavior.
And so on. Look, I read and watched Obama’s speech the other day. I read the great piece by Chris Caldwell in Financial Times. If Tom Maguire thinks that when Obama was writing his speech and Caldwell was writing his piece, what they had in mind for a candid discussion about race was a bunch of jackasses stating “Here is what I hate about niggers,” then he probably really didn’t understand the speech or the FT piece.
*** Update ***
I should probably add that I have added Tom to the links because he really is one of the last few on the right I read anymore (well, I read a bunch of them, but mostly to make fun of them. Not so with Tom.).
*** Update #2 ***
As suggested in the very first comment, in order to continue this national dialog on race, at least as it is envisioned above, black commenters are permitted to submit their list of crackers they can not stand. I will just throw K-Fed out there for starters.