Why the Left Needs Racism--II
...Barack Obama is at least the third consecutive president to be the subject of paranoid conspiracy theories, and it strikes us as odd that anyone who lived through the Clinton and Bush years would automatically assume it must be because he's black. The false claim that Obama was born outside the U.S. does not reflect any common racial stereotype. Nor, for that matter, do the rumors that he is Muslim. The vast majority of American blacks are natural born and Christian....

...Baselessly accusing their political foes of racism is a way in which today's liberals attempt to incite fear and loathing of "the other." As we argued last year, this serves a political purpose in that it helps persuade blacks not to consider voting Republican. But it serves a psychological purpose as well. It reinforces white liberals' sense of their own superiority.

Yet that sense of superiority is not as secure as it once was. Here is Remnick's most telling quote from that interview: "Really, I'm not in the habit of screaming racist at every turn. I don't think you [interviewer Michele Norris] are and I don't think most people are."

It used to be that people expressing politically incorrect views about race felt compelled to preface their statements with a defensive denial: "I'm not a racist, but . . ." The editor of The New Yorker, speaking to an NPR audience, now has a similar compulsion to deny that he is "in the habit of screaming racist."

The tables have turned. Now it is the left that is on the defensive over "racism." Their outdated attitudes about race put them in the absurd position of arguing that the most powerful man in the world is a victim of oppression because of the color of his skin. Men like David Remnick turn out to be the ones who aren't ready for a black president....