Richmond on Racism

Through HBL, I have learned that fellow subscriber Don Richmond of Naples, Florida, has had a guest op-ed published in the Naples Daily News. He addresses the common leftist smear of the tea party protesters as racists.

Note that racism need not be based on skin color or other overt physical characteristics. Under Marxism, social class served the same purpose. In some parts of the world religious beliefs or membership in another tribe have been the defining characteristics. The common denominator is the belief that the basic social unit is the group, not the individual. Since there is no common word to identify this type of collectivist thinking, "racism" will have to serve here.

So who might be racists in the United States? Anyone who considers others solely as members of a race or class, not as individuals capable of thought and independent action, is acting on racist principles. Anyone who lumps all individuals who hold superficially similar positions into a single group is acting on racist principles. Another commonly occurring racist action is to assert that the opinions of an entire group are those of its least rational or most disreputable members. This claim is normally made, without evidence, to be accepted as a given.

I have often found it frustrating and annoying that leftism so frequently serves as cover for individualists to be tarred as "racists" by racists, and undeservedly marginalized. I'm grateful to Mr. Richmond for making this point and fully agree with another HBL poster that this piece deserves the attention of the leaders of the tea party movement.

-- CAV

PS: In a related editiorial, Walter Williams recently discussed Jimmy Carter's outlandish charge that critics of Barack Obama are ipso facto racists.