Oh, lovely

[yendi]

A racist asshole who coaches ten-year-olds in football is complaining that A) he has lots of Asian friends, really, B) that the people who printed out the Facebook postings are the real jerks, and C) that his comments posted to facebook were meant to be private. Meanwhile, one of his supporters accuses people of playing "the race card," as if they just pulled it out of their sleeve.

Given the free space, they're already at bingo on some cards.

Comments

[karnythia.livejournal.com]

The thing that kills me about these kinds of stories is that there is always at least one person who insists that the bigot is the victim. I always wonder if the reporters just go around asking until someone says the right phrase.

[yendi]

Sadly, I think they come out of the woodwork on their own.

[ex-gnomicut.livejournal.com]

I've noticed more people than the usual lately in the blogosphere publically stating that "I know we're supposed to believe calling someone a racist is worse than doing racist things, but I'm going to call that guy a racist anyway." I mean, they're all hella liberal, but still, the fact that I'm seeing that framing at all outside of the usual circles gives me some hope. Maybe the it's becoming something people are more willing to talk about? (Not racism, I mean, but the fact that people act like Kanye West accusing you of not caring about black people is worse than anything else that could ever happen to you.)

[ex-gnomicut.livejournal.com]

The person who yelled "race card" also referred to him as "a gentleman".

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

[yendi]

There's a longstanding tradition amongst racist folks in the south of using the word "gentleman" to mean "proper white man." It's one of the many little coded things racists do that allow them to plead plausible deniability.