Thought I'd share this nails-it blog post (dated though, from June)

[Montauk6]

EXCERPT:

On a related note: Talkington refers in passing to “the sort of genuine discrimination that’s leveled at ‘ethnic traitors’ like Thomas Sowell or Jean R. Cobbs.” Again, I know I’m awfully slow on the uptake when it comes to right-wingers’ beliefs about liberals and black people, but I’ve just never understood the claim that liberals criticize black conservatives like Sowell because they’re “ethnic traitors.” The problem with Sowell is not that he deviates from some mythical party line; as most informed people are aware, many African-Americans are socially conservative on a wide range of issues. Rather, the problem with Sowell is that he has become a third-rate hack, as I pointed out—politely!—in my treatment of his book (from that same Nation review).

And for Ba’al’s sake! Are liberals supposed to refrain from criticizing black conservatives because they’re black? What in the world would that look like? “Privately,” says one white liberal to another, “I think Shelby Steele’s latest book is the work of a crude, ranting ideologue. But I’m not going to criticize him, because he’s black, you know.” Now there you’d have yourself a racial double standard, folks. The fact that white liberals criticize black conservatives is evidence not of liberal duplicity but of simple, single-standard consistency. We criticize conservatives of all genders and races and sexualities, especially when they slander us! (Indeed, this humble blog criticizes crude, ranting ideologues of all kinds!)

http://www.michaelberube.com/index.php/weblog/freedoms_just_another_word/