Ending racialism as a step toward ending racism

"Racialism" being, in the most neutral sense, "an emphasis on race or racial considerations", but in practice meaning the use of the abstract concept of "race" as a political tool, and as a source of both power and income. Racialism and racism are not the same, but they're symbiotic: racialism needs racism, or the specter of racism in order to survive, and in turn it feeds racism, consciously or unconsciously. One of the most lamentable aspects of the Obama presidency has been a sharp increase in the reliance on racialism as a kind of blunt instrument with which to attack political opponents, regardless of the ostensible issue, and we see the latest manifestation of this in the sleazy NAACP resolution calling on the Tea Party movement to repudiate "racist elements" in its ranks -- just like the old lawyer's trick of calling on a witness to repudiate beating his wife. The sorry Breitbart-Sherrod-Obama-admin kerfuffle that followed only demonstrated how this sort of tar sticks to everyone.

By contrast, here's a clip of Morgan Freeman being interviewed by Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes a few years ago that's surfaced recently -- it's just under a minute, and it's devastating:

Thanks to Kate at Small Dead Animals