Here's a hearty "here, here" for Barry and Lawrence, who have been
deeply thoughtful and appropriately outraged in their eloquent
responses to this banal stupidity of Fears.   Is the expression he
used racist in its essence and core?  Of course it is.  (What, he's
talking about painting his walls?)   Is he a racist?  Of course he
is.  Most of us are.  It's in the culture, and the language.  Does he
consider it a problem to overcome and work against, or a privilege to
smugly defend and euphemize?  That's the issue.  I think I know what
side he (and his equally insensitive defender, Wuster) comes down on,
shamefully enough.

Ben

Benjamin N. Wise
Keene State College