... is that there is no objective standard regarding what is racist and what isn't.  Do read Renee Crawford's writing on subtle racism... and then ask yourself... what is the standard?  Is there one?  Can there be one?  Sure... there is always some asshole out there who calls people n*ggers, and talks about lynching, but by and large, Renee is saying the problems are now more subtle than that.  It's gotten to the point where "I'll know it when I see it" is the new standard, but everyone sees it a different way.  Can you label something as racist when that's the case?

Where some people are saying that "disaffected minorities need special consideration", others will talk about "the soft bigotry of low expectations".  Two different phrases to describe the same situation.  And depending on who you talk to, and which phrase you use to describe a situation, they'll both be considered racist.  Depending on who you talk to, both abolishing and encouraging affirmative action is racist.  You're damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

Normally I wouldn't mind the contradiction in belief.  It seems that politics is built on the necessity for two sides to attack every issue from opposite extremes.  But the problem is that being labeled a "racist" has such immediate negative consequences, no matter who is doing the labelling, that it becomes a weapon to be used by both sides.  Decrying someone as a racist is an easy way to silence someone when you don't want to talk about what they actually said.

Renee talks about how teachers liked her because she was "proper" and "articulate".  Parents said other kids could play with her because she was "polite" and she "acted right".  Well guess what... that was the standard I was held to when I was a kid as well.  Now I'm not going to suggest that my upbringing was anywhere near hers, or that she didn't have to deal with real racists.  Where I went to grade school for instance, there was only one black girl in my class.  Granted, she was one of my close friends at the time, but that should paint a picture of the difference in our surroundings growing up.  Yet, there were plenty of kids who I wasn't allowed to hang out with because they weren't "polite" and because "they didn't act right", and they were all white.  I look at a lot of white parents today and how there children behave, speak, and act, and say to myself and others that "those people don't raise their kids right."

She says:

We are not "good blacks" and "bad blacks". We are people with different backgrounds and life experiences raised in a variety of cultures under the fabric we call America. The thread you were raised under should never determine the way you are perceived in life.

Maybe I'm reading into her meaning of "good blacks" and "bad blacks" incorrectly, but I wonder why there can't be the two groups.  I certainly think there are "good whites" and "bad whites".  To me, racism is when you determine a "good person" and "bad person" by their race.  But a person shouldn't be exempt from being called good or bad because of their race.

Label me what you will.