Legal Commentary

Harry Reid and the Costs of Expanding the Definition of Racism

By Ilya Somin

Various Republican politicians and some other conservatives are calling on Harry Reid to resign because, back in 2008, he said that Obama had a chance to win the presidency due in part to the fact that he is a ?light-skinned? black who doesn?t speak in ?Negro dialect.? For reasons outlined by senior Conspirator Eugene Volokh, I think these remarks were not racist, even if they did use outdated terminology such as ?Negro.? In addition, I believe conservatives should think long and hard about whether they really want to promote such an expansive definition of racism.

Conservatives and to a lesser extent libertarians are often accused of being racist for things like opposing affirmative action, skepticism about broad antidiscrimination laws, claiming that intergroup differences in income are not necessarily due to discrimination, arguing that some cultures are better than others, and so on. If the GOP wins this particular fight and Reid is forced to resign, there will be a new norm in public discourse under which no prominent person can openly say the same kinds of things as Reid without being labeled a racist. This norm will ensnare some people of all persuasions. It will also have the unfortunate effect of making honest discussion of racial issues even more difficult than it often is already. But in many settings ? especially the media and the intellectual world ? it is likely to be used most aggressively against conservatives and libertarians. And if conservatives complain that such attacks are unfair, their credibility will be undermined by their own previous attacks on Reid. I realize, of course, that it?s tempting to score some political points against Reid, especially at a time when Republicans see the Democrats? popularity plummeting and hope to make major gains in the November elections. However, even forcing Reid to resign probably will have only a minor, temporary impact on the overall political balance of power. By contrast, the effect on discourse norms will be much more permanent.

Perhaps that price would be worth paying if Reid really were a racist who believes that blacks are inferior to whites and should be relegated to second-class citizenship. But there simply isn?t any evidence to support that. Comparisons to Trent Lott?s statements in 2002 are misleading at best. Lott retrospectively endorsed Strom Thurmond?s 1948 presidential campaign, which was explicitly based on segregationism (Thurmond and his ?Dixiecrats? had temporarily broken with the Democratic Party because President Harry Truman had desegregated the military and taken a few other steps to combat anti-black discrimination). And, as conservative columnist Jeff Jacoby pointed out, Lott had made similar remarks before, and had a long history of association with the racist Council of Conservative Citizens. His remarks on Thurmond weren?t just a one-time aberration. Reid doesn?t have any remotely comparable history.

Despite all of the above, it?s certainly possible that if Reid were a Republican and had said the same thing, many liberals would denounce him and there would be more of a media outcry. But that doesn?t justify the right?s reaction to Reid. Imitating the bad behavior of one?s political opponents is rarely defensible. You can?t justify yourself with the lame excuse that the the other side is bad too. In this case, conservatives themselves are likely to be the biggest long-term losers if they persist in imitating liberal excesses.

Full post as published by The Volokh Conspiracy on January 11, 2010 (boomark / email).