Totes Post-Racial

This slow, agonizing implosion of conservatives since Obama took office due to their complete inability to handle their own racism has been really amazing for me to watch. On one hand, we've got people like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, wallowing happily in their deeply embedded racism like so many hogs in slop. They're unable to keep from gleefully repeating racist talking points, like calling health care reform "reparations." Beck recently said:

This president, I think, has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, who has a deep-seated hatred for white people, or the white culture.

...without a trace of irony. And if you like that, you'll love Limbaugh blurting "I had a dream that I was a slave building a sphinx in a desert that looked like Obama."

On the flipside of this two-sided coin, you've got people like conservablogger Dan Riehl, who is so eager to prove that he's totes not racist, that he sits down at his keyboard and writes one of the most racist things I've ever read. I could throw up some blockquotes, but really, you need to just read the whole thing for yourself.

As an extra special bonus, Riehl shows how totally non-racist he is by offering up an encounter with a white woman, dripping with extra misogyny sauce. (Garbled sentences and typos intact for your pleasure.)

Anyway, I get lost in a DC suburb yesterday and need directions. I pull into a shopping mall and see this lady (white) walking to her car, I'm in mind. I'm inside the vehicle, so I power the passenger side window down and say, excuse me, I'm lost. Can you tell me how to get to so and so.

Well, she barely paused, looking at me with this almost disdainful look. As though I was ruining her day. "Well, you want to get to so and so the best way you can". ANd on she goes with really no help, or desire to help at all.

Of course, the idea that this woman may not have "desired" to help him because, oh, maybe she had a good reason to not stop and give directions to a strange man that slowly pulls up behind her in an idling car never crosses his mind. Getting out of his vehicle and making it clear to this woman that he's not a threat before asking directions would obviously be too much goddamn work, so let's paint her with the bitch brush and move on, shall we? After all, Big White Man has some brown men to pat on the head for doing such a good, good job getting him to his destination!

(Tip 'o the energy dome to S,N!)