All racism, all the time

"Skinny" is the new "black" -- literally.

Timothy Noah clues us all in:

In the Aug. 1 Wall Street Journal, Amy Chozick asked, "[C]ould Sen. Obama's skinniness be a liability?" Most Americans, Chozick points out, aren't skinny. Fully 66 percent of all citizens who've reached voting age are overweight, and 32 percent are obese. To be thin is to be different physically ... "I won't vote for any beanpole guy," an "unnamed Clinton supporter" wrote on a Yahoo politics message board. My point is that any discussion of Obama's "skinniness" and its impact on the typical American voter can't avoid being interpreted as a coded discussion of race.

How does Noah manage to discern that "skinny" is a racist code word?

When white people are invited to think about Obama's physical appearance, the principal attribute they're likely to dwell on is his dark skin. Consequently, any reference to Obama's other physical attributes can't help coming off as a coy walk around the barn.

In other words, any mention of how Obama is physically different from -- whom, anyone? -- is racist language. So mentioning that he's tall is racist. Saying he's handsome is racist. Affirming that he's in good shape is racist. Pointing out the wart (or whatever it is on his nose) is racist. And, Noah asserts, "any failure on Chozick's part to recognize such is just a wee bit clueless."

We also learn from David K. Shipler that when Obama talked about "bitter" people who "cling to guns and religion," the criticism of Obama as an elitist was also racist:

"Elitist" is another word for "arrogant," which is another word for "uppity," that old calumny applied to blacks who stood up for themselves.

These particular instances aren't coming from Obama himself, although he's certainly been willing to assert racist motives to his opponents on similarly thin grounds. The evidence seems clear that far from Obama's candidacy leading to a post-racial society, it's creating (or highlighting) a hypersensitivty to race in which almost any mention (not to say criticism) of Obama is racist.

Beyond the concern that Noah has really gone around the bend, is there any bottom to this rabbit hole of discovered racism?

If it's this bad during the campaign, what kind of moral lectures is the country going to have to endure if Obama becomes President? Will the few criticisms of him that aren't quashed by "truth squads" be allowed only as examples of racist thoughtcrime?

The sad part is that Obama's supporters are making serious discussion about race and racial problems less likely and demeaning the seriousness of actual racism. When calling an objectively thin African-American man "skinny" makes one a racist, even people with common sense and good will throw up their hands and say "To hell with it. There's no point in even trying." The people who claim to be concerned about racial sensitivity sabotage their own cause by their ridiculous over-sensitivity.

I can guarantee you that if Obama wins and Americans have to hear every criticism of the President for the next four years parsed out in racial terms, race relations in this country will be set back decades.

Both parties have used racial fears and animosities to their political advantage. Both need to stop. And for the sake of the nation, Obama really needs to tell his supporters to back down and stop making ridiculous accusations of racism that poison the well.


(h/t: James Taranto)