This Town Needs a Better Class of Racist

[Orsino]

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/05/This-Town-Needs-A-Better-Class-Of-Racist/361443/

By Ta-Nehisi Coates

...The problem with Cliven Bundy isn't that he is a racist but that he is an oafish racist. He invokes the crudest stereotypes, like cotton picking. This makes white people feel bad. The elegant racist knows how to injure non-white people while never summoning the specter of white guilt. Elegant racism requires plausible deniability, as when Reagan just happened to stumble into the Neshoba County fair and mention state's rights. Oafish racism leaves no escape hatch, as when Trent Lott praised Strom Thurmond's singularly segregationist candidacy.

Elegant racism is invisible, supple, and enduring. It disguises itself in the national vocabulary, avoids epithets and didacticism. Grace is the singular marker of elegant racism. One should never underestimate the touch needed to, say, injure the voting rights of black people without ever saying their names. Elegant racism lives at the border of white shame. Elegant racism was the poll tax. Elegant racism is voter-ID laws...

[Hoyt]

1. Descriptive term -- "Elegant racism." I remember Charlie Rangel said something to the effect

"They use to beat and lynch us, now they cut programs for the poor, enact restrictive voting laws, and the like."

It's still shameful and obvious.

[AverageJoe90]

2. Good piece. nt

[gollygee]

3. Kick to front page.

[11 Bravo]

4. K&R for "elegant racism". What an artful turn of phrase.