I am confused. A hypothetical to illustrate:

Person A has not one single ounce of racial animus in his heart. He creates a cartoon that has a monkey in it, not realizing for one second that someone may think that a monkey in a cartoon is a secret code for black people. Not being a racist, the thought doesn’t even cross his mind.

Person B is a stereotypical racist bastard. He comes up with the same cartoon, since it’s based on a recent news incident, but makes an immediate connection between monkeys and black people, because he’s a fucking racist. Knowing he’ll get shit for it, he doesn’t publish the cartoon, but comes up with a different one without any monkeys.

Person A is now declared the new Don Imus. Person B has dodged this bullet.

In other words, not risking being seen as a racist requires constantly keeping in mind the stereotype that black people are often compared to monkeys by racists. If you don’t immediately make a connection between black people and monkeys, because you aren’t a racist, you run the risk of inadvertently printing something that will result in people accusing you of being a racist.

Actual racists don’t run this risk, because they immediately do think of black people when they think of monkeys, which is what we’re all apparently supposed to do so we don’t make a mistake and have people think we’re racist.

And Attorney General Eric Holder thinks we don’t talk about race because we’re “a nation of cowards“? Seems like we’re just sensible.

Thanks to Best of the Web for this analogy.