You Keep Using That Word

In the comments to this post featuring a video of Katie Couric calling the Vice President of the United States “the white guy”, Hapkido said “Couric’s comment was racist, plain & simple. I wouldn’t accuse her of deliberatley being racist, however.”

“I’d like you better if you were also a hermaphrodite.”

Which gave me pause.

How can a comment be racist if the speaker isn’t?

Maybe racist is the wrong word. Time to check the dictionary… which says it means “racially discriminatory”.

That’s a head-scratcher. Discrimination implies some sort of adverse action. Katie didn’t act, she just talked. In fact, I don’t think it’s possible for ANY words (or cartoons) to be racist by themselves, apart from other evidence of speaker intent to do harm.

It’s time to resurrect two long-neglected words to help us understand this situation:

Prejudice and bias.

The first is an irrational opinion against something, the second is an irrational opinion in favor.

In this case, I don’t think Katie was prejudiced. She sounded CHEERFUL about the presence of “the white guy”. She wasn’t like “curse Joe Biden for destroying the multiculturalism of this moment with his foul caucasity!”

No, she was HAPPY.

So I conclude that she is not racist, but merely has a bias toward seeing groups of politicians with varying skin colors and sex organs.

Now this implies that she would conversely have a prejudice against seeing groups of similarly colored & sexed politicians. Does this mean that if she ever saw a meeting of the Congressional Black Caucus, she would end both her life and career in a Columbine-like explosion of bullets and wrath?

Logic says “yes”.

But that’s not a reason to confuse prejudice with racism.

16 Comments

  1. she is not racist, but merely has a bias toward seeing groups of politicians with varying skin colors and sex organs.

    You give her too much credit. Katie “Carsick” (LOL #2), like her media colleagues, have a bias only FOR politicians/entertainers of the LIBERAL stripe. Her/Their prejudice is AGAINST anyone to the right of…oh, I’d say to the right of Communism.

    Oh, and America is still a racist nation since the voters selected Obama. It’s just as racist to vote FOR a candidate based ONLY on skin color (since he had no other qualifications) as it is to vote against someone based only on skin color.

    Fortunately, voters for the McCain-Palin ticket are NOT racist. We weren’t voting for or against Obama’s color … we were voting FOR Sarah’s Awesomeness!

  2. Wooo I need to get in touch with the new GM of amarketplaceofideas…..he’s going to want to hire Katie Carsick! She will feel right at home with MSMG (Main Stream Media Guy). I can see them creating an all global warming all of the time channel right off the bat. Oops…..history / discovery channel already has it covered. Don’t forget to stock up on baby wipes before they are banned! You will need them when you take a big meaty dump even though you are forcibly coerced into eating vegetarian.

  3. Before conservatives go defending liberals for not being racist,I have a thought. I think most white liberal elites are racist. Their desire to prove they are not gives us Obama. They don’t care about the country as much as their own reputation after all.

    Remember they are democrats. The party of race. Always has been always will be.

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