When we are dealing with weasel words, we need to recognize that the user of weasel words is a weasel, by definition. So often I have had discussions with people who tell me that they are not racists but simply choose to exercise their Constitutional Freedom of Association. It just so happens that it turns out that the people they don’t want to associate with – or more frequently, the kids they don’t want their kids to play with – are Black. Hmmmm. How does that work?
I recall my mother’s husband number three, as Charlie Chan would say, telling me about his best friend, Jim, a Black guy at work. But he would never invite Jim to his home. Just good old American freedom of association.
It is this kind of distortion and subterfuge that makes racists so despicable. But somehow, after all the stuff my kids went through, I am supposed to respect their opinion. No, I respect their right to have an opinion, but neither their opinion nor them.
Pat’s Polemics
On-going brilliance
