In one of the most snide and offensive columns written this year in The NY Times, University of Pennsylvania Political Science Professor Adolf L. Reed, Jr. called Tim Scott and other Republicans who are black “cynical tokens.”
In response, I noted that I would not be so offensive as to accuse either The New York Times Editorial Board or The U. Penn. Political Science Department of tokenism even though they don’t, um, “look like America.”
So I decided to take a look at Salon.com, whose author David Sirota has carved out for himself the inglorious first of Injecting racial politics into the Newtown, CT, murders:
“The issue with it will be, politically, I think; the profile is white men,” Sirota said. “That’s a profile that’s not, essentially, in America allowed to be profiled. That’s the one profile in America that’s not allowed to be profiled.”
Sirota’s “white privilege” rants have been featured here prior to the Newtown shooting. He has attempted to use the White Privilege construct against, among others, the Tea Party movement, All Roads Lead to White Privilege.
White Privilege, as we have explored here before, is the seemingly perfect answer to the inability actually to prove racism — it’s everywhere so no proof is needed.
But Sirota’s really trying to make a name for himself with White Privilege in the aftermath of the shooting, a strategy promoted by Salon.com, David Sirota on CNN: The media doesn’t profile white men:
Salon columnist David Sirota spoke with CNN to elaborate on his observation that recent mass shootings have been perpetrated by white men, and that “if this was any other kind of demographic, you would be hearing that in a much different way, a much uglier way.”
Salon.com gives Sirota a platform to perpetrate this intellectually lazy headline-grabbing nonsense.
So let’s take a look at the 14 regular columnists at Salon.com (who they call on the home page the Salon.com “Voices”)
I could accuse Salon.com of intellectual laziness, but I could not accuse it of tokenism, even if I wanted to (which I do not).
White privilege, however, may fit.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY