Thought Police

There is this stereotype that some liberals are so liberal that they will attack you for even asking certain questions. Do blacks have lower SAT scores, in part, because they study less and not just because of bias in the test? Don't ask, racist.

But in most cases there is a reasonable response: no one is attacking someone for asking the question, just for intentionally get the answer wrong, probably due to prejudice. At least some of the time that is plausible.

But today Time just published this headline from Toure:

Will Blacks Vote for Obama “Because He’s Black”?The question itself is offensive and racist. Here's why

A lot of the time journalists don't write their own headlines. I don't know if he wrote the subtitle, but he does say it in almost the same words in his article "the idea that blacks support Obama just because he’s black is itself racist."

The strange thing is that Toure brings up these statistics "Obama leading Romney among blacks 94% to 0%" while "Al Gore won 90% of the black vote in 2000 and John Kerry won 88% in 2004" and then concedes "[yes], Obama’s blackness is part of why many blacks support him."

The strange thing is that Toure goes on to write about why blacks should vote, in part, based on race because race is "a deep shaper of your life, a significant part of your soul, such that [Obama's victory] is critical to your life and worthy of support."

I wonder what people will think of this argument in 50 years. When my mom was a kid every Irish person she knew in New York was a Democrat. They all liked the Kennedys, in part I guess becasue John's "victory helped Irish-Catholics feel fully American." But my generation, or maybe it's just me, look back on the era of machine politics with shame, not pride.