I've come to be quite disturbed by how quickly accusations of racism are being chosen as weapons nowadays. The point was driven home to me as I was browsing through various other blogs, and came first upon a blog entry about Alberto Gonzales and the Bush DWI coverup. Matthew Yglesias used the Newsweek article about the issue to make a statement that Alberto Gonzales has no respect for the rule of law. That sort of assertion can, of course, be debated somewhat hotly, but what was interesting was that the blog comments made no argument about whether or not whether or not Gonzales' role in the coverup with portrayed correctly by those who were witness to it, nor whether or not Gonzales had changed since that time, nor whether that sort of "minor" exertion of influence would quality as corruption, nor anything else actually addressing the issue. Instead, two commentors in a row immediately accused Matthew Yglesias of being a racist (the second of which accused him of hating Hispanics and Jews, which is almost stunning in face of the fact that Gonzales is drawing a lot of fire from Jewish organizations such as the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, an independent group of 21 Rabbis, and over 250 other religious leaders, including Rabbis).

Another right-wing blog points to a Dallas Morning News opinion piece claiming in a somewhat confusing and contradictory fashion that even though the Democrats were admittedly being soft on Gonzales during the confirmation hearing, they are conspiring on a witch-hunt against him because they don't want any minorities appointed where they don't get the political credit.

... boggle ...

I think I'm insufficiently racist to wrap my head around that kind of reasoning. The fact that race issues are only being brought up by people trying to deflect attention from the long array of very scary issues about his appointment is actually striking me as a good sign; it's indicative that prejudices against hispanics in government are becoming minimal to nonexistent. The politicians have become concerned about ideologies, not race, which was probably inevitable once the laws were changed to allow it; you have to be somewhat out of your mind to choose someone who is going to deliberately hinder you as opposed to help you, no matter what the skin color is. Real racism among our higher governmental officials is going away.

On the other hand, this doesn't mean that politicians who couldn't otherwise care less about race won't play it as an attack card, and possibly even a successful one. It's a classic ad hominem fallacy attack, combined with some mind-bending circular reasoning: my opponent has no valid criticisms of my minority candidate, therefore my opponent must be racist, therefore no criticisms my opponent may make about someone who isn't white can have any value. Unfortunately, most of the populace either has never taken or mostly slept through introductory logic and critical thinking classes, so this sort of reasoning actually has some traction, and I am beginning to wonder how much the chances of appointment of Alberto Gonzales are going to be affected by a form of reverse racism.

Reverse racism is a term you mostly hear from disaffected college applicants frustrated at being passed over in favor of minority applicants with lower scores, but a presumed inferior lower education system. Having had the opportunity to see the results of schools in poorer, mostly black areas in sharp contrast to schools in neighboring, mostly white areas, I generally have a very unfavourable view of the term. Seeing it in use in the political arena, however, makes me wonder if I haven't been a tad hasty; beating all criticism back with the trump card that the candidate is Hispanic does seem to be racism moving in reverse, made all the more disturbing by the fact that those pushing that line don't care that Gonzales is Hispanic, either. It's not just racism running in reverse; it's a completely synthetic, manufactured racism operating in reverse.

That thought is so scary that I'm not certain we wouldn't be better off with genuine racists.