forgottenliberty.com

I don’t know if you are a racist or not. You might know thatabout yourself—then again—you might not. You might not be consciously a racist, but you could be subconsciously a racist. The subconscious mind operates in ways that are hard for a person to tap.

I have a friend who says that ALL PEOPLE (everywhere) are racists in one way or another, and he may be right. No person that I know is more supportive of minority rights than me, but I can still laugh at a good, disparaging negro joke or yell out, “Oley Mackal Sapphire!!! Oley Mackal!!!” (See Amos ‘n Andy sitcom of the 1950s.) To that extent, I am probably somewhat racist. The thing I wonder about, though, is who is really qualified to define someone as racist? For example, I am a white guy and would guess that you are too. If I were to tag you as racist, would I really be qualified to do that? Maybe the only one qualified to do that is a member of a minority. For example, if someone does something that appears to be racist to Stevie Wonder and Stevie feels hurt because of it, perhaps he is the only one qualified to tag whatever the offending behavior was as racist.

With regard to recent conservative protests and the racist protest signs toted by some, I think people are tagging folks like you as racists because it appears that no one in your general ranks is ordering the people who tote those signs to take them down. In case you have never heard of it, it is a classical case of what is termed “tacit approval.” In criminal law, it is the same principle that allows you to be charged with Murder 1 because you were at the scene and were capable of stopping the perpetrator of the murder—but neither tried to do so nor called the police.

You can say that you would not have the power to take down someone’s sign because they have a right to free speech. Well, there is no such thing as free speech at my house. If someone gets verbally rowdy at my house, I have the power to send them home. The First Amendment ends at my front door. If it is your organized protest, I would think that you have the authority to ask someone, “Please take down that witchdoctor poster of Obama because that is hurting our cause more than helping it.” If no one does that, then it is clearly tacit approval of the sign and the racist message. Of course, the guy may say that he is on public property and you have no right to ask him to take his sign down. Technically, that is probably correct, but if his keeping it up poses a threat to your cause under circumstances where he is part of your organized demonstration—then it’s intimidation time because those signs are hurting your cause and defining it in a way that is not the truth.

What you have to understand is that we live in a culture where the visual has a much higher impact than mere words. If you have a demonstration of 100 people, and the biggest signs are held up by the only three racists in your group, those signs will have the visual impact of defining the whole group.

Anyway, you wanted an answer to your question. In my opinion, that is the correct answer. Just tell the racists to take down the signs because it is hurting your cause—and it really is. Even though I disagree with you on matters of substance in regards to Mr. Obama, I fully agree that you have a right to be unhappy with the Obama administration and support your right to demonstrate against it.