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"Somewhat like how easily the Clintons have been successfully painted as racists despite their decades of work to support civil rights."
False dichotomy. One can have worked for civil rights and be a racist, all at the same time. I'm not making a case one way or another regarding the Clintons, but intellectual honesty demands that you acknowledge that racism is an exceedingly complex phenomenon and not given to facile dichotomies such as the one you present. It's not either/or.
"What I have seen in monitoring these boards is that Kate is angry at Obama and his supporters for playing the race card and tarnishing the Clintons with it. And in that, I agree with her. So, I suppose I am a racist too."
I don't know if you're a racist or not, and part of my point is that frankly, I don't care.
I'm not here to accuse anyone of anything, just to be clear.
"You are perfectly free to mistrust her. After all, she is a Clinton supporter so by definition is untrustworthy."
No, I mistrust her because what I've read of hers suggests we're on such different pages I'm having trouble finding the common ground on which trust is built. I'm not speaking to her character, but to a huge difference in perspective.
Perhaps "mistrust" is too loaded. What I mean to say is that she's yet to earn my trust, based on the posts of hers I've seen.
"People like David, Tom, Manos etc., on the other hand, are totally justified in race-baiting, name calling, cursing, smearing, inciting, etc. because they are Obama supporters, and therefore, pure as the driven snow."
?
"Look back over their previous posts. The most vile invective. I don't know Kate and I don't know you. I only know what I read. I thought you were sincere in your attempt to have a civil discussion about race, but your eagerness to label someone a racist reveals the phoniness of the Obama "ethos" of reconciliation. Truly disappointing, to say the least."
Ok, listen. I'm not "labelling" anyone a "racist." I'm saying that from my perspective things Kate says and how she says them strike me as something akin to what I would call racist.
It's my opinion. But so what?
I'm still making an effort to talk to her, racist or not.
Perhaps over time my opinion will change. For now, I'm suspicious of her and it's precisely that suspicion that I'm trying to address head on, through dialogue, rather than "retreating to my corner," as Obama puts it.
What's your problem with this?
