Call Them Out

A little while back they were discussing the election on This Week and Snufalupagous brought up the idea that there "were still a significant number of Americans that just couldn't get themselves to vote for a black man."

Why such soft language George?

We're two generations past when it might have maybe been excusable, although still - you know - wrong to hold that kind of opinion. Almost 50 years later this sort of thing ought not be treated so politely by the media. I guess maybe the Obama people themselves can't make anything out of it for fear of touching off some kind of explosion of ignorance, but main-stream media ought to be, well, main stream; and unless the issue isn't just "a significant number" but more like "an embarrassing majority" then perhaps instead of saying "couldn't get themselves" we ought to use the word we have in our language we have for such instances: bigot.

were still a significant number of Americans too bigotted to vote for a black man

Different tone I think, and closer to the mark. Think "bigot" is too strong, well then you won't want to use "racist" either. How about "ignorant" or "prejeduced?" Seems like we have a whole lot of language available to describe this behavior in a negative way, we ought to use it.

The description of this should be perjorative. The behavior is small minded and really just inexcusable. Letting people be comfortable with it by giving it the same level of energy and morality as "can't bring themselves to eat broccoli" is letting people off the hook. They ought to hear themselves being discussed in front of the world as backward.

With black and white soldiers dying overseas and black and white home buyers being put on the street and black and white stock holders seeing their nest eggs crumble and black and white tax payers being made to foot the bill for wealthy indescretions I think we owe it to ourselves to present these candidates not as the black and the white candidate but as the this and the that policy candidate; and someone that can see themself voting for a black man isn't progressive, they are a modern American.

Someone that can't, they are a bigot.