A Belated Comment on Ben Shapiro's Race Thingy

I've been linking a lot to TPM lately, but there you go: fangirl, thing I do. But I want to punctuate this thoughtful comparison of Jonathan Chait's slightly flawed long piece on conservatism and race and Ben Shapiro's much shorter and dumber piece on Colbert's parody of conservatism with an observation. When I read Chait's piece, even if I thought he was bending over backwards to not depict conservatives and specifically the GOP party message all this while as racist per se even if the results tend that way in practice in terms of income inequality and legitimate claims of inequality of access to the ballot, education, etc., I understood he was well-intentioned.

When I read Ben Shapiro's piece, I was overcome by the black face picture of Al Jolson. Seriously? Whose editorial decision was that picture? (Does, um, Shapiro have editorial control over his thing over there?) Because when Shapiro makes the claim that Stephen Colbert's satirical representation of conservative thought is a minstrel-show of it which should revolt any conservative watching, I kind of tended to recall that some conservatives watched the show and thought it was great fun because they took it at face value. Indeed, there is an Internet concept of Poe's Law--where it is known to be impossible to distinguish between true extremism and parodies of same, because extremists are so very. And parodies are supposed to depict the so very--so they have considerable overlap.



But behold--Ben Shapiro, the Friend of Hamas himself, with a black face picture prominently displayed where he is trying to say that black face depictions are The Worst. The Worst. I don't actually think Shapiro is well-intentioned, not on the basis of his work-product. Not on the basis of the Breitbart stable from which he hails. It is Shapiro who demonstrates the damn-near unparodyability of the disconnect between thinking oneself not-racist, and kind of being totes biased.

If a picture says a thousand words, who needs Chait (I mean, except I read him all the time?) to discuss the problem. Conservatives are so violated when their 1st amendment rights are met with--sharp criticisms. They are so bummed by being called racists when they--restrict the rights of "some people" to vote, and stuff. Sarah Palin has so been blood-libeled. And Ronald Reagan certainly implied his welfare queen was white (Uh. No?) And Nixon's silent majority was a fucking rainbow.  You got me. Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms led every MLK Day parade. And they liked it. (No, that last bit, I made that up. Warning for other Breitbart writers.)

C'mon. The picture is the point. Ben Shapiro doesn't get why that picture is as offensive as it is. And he thinks it's okay to compare the people parodied by that minstrel-face with people who have had actual power whose bs opinions are comedically atomized by Colbert. How bitter and how trying to change the subject. He's comparing apples and things that are totally not apples. And that is basically the point. The thing in front of him--he doesn't get it. That's the hole in conservative talk about race. His vacuity is what were talking about. He resents Colbert for being his cracked mirror. It isn't the fakeness-it's the realness that gets him. And we can get that too, if we look.