Here's where I have to acknowledge that my question is vague by not defining "racist" given that using the term "black cloud" and "black hole" in a talking graduation card is blatant racism (because after all, it might be saying "black ho", you know how Hallmark is).
You act as if the right wing has no interest in these manufactured scandals. However the right wing does. They allow right wingers to point at
fake racism as opposed to
real racism without ever really having to define the implications of either. It's kind of like Rush Limbaugh slut comments to
Sandra Fluke overshadowed the larger argument being made by her that women's reproductive rights are under constant threat by a socially conservative establishment. From the moment it started, Rush Limbaugh
knew it would draw attention away her larger arguments and would have people focus on
what he wanted them to focus on. By making the discussion about
his manufactured sexism, he could point at "real sexism" which is how white protestant men get attacked for denigrating women on TV.
Similarly, the 'black hole' incident in retrospect was manufactured. It was manufactured because the supposedly
left wing media has no interest in discussing racism anymore than the
right wing media does. These perpetual discussions on
petty racial incidents avoid what the larger discussion on race in America. They also overshadow the fact that
black men receive harsher sentencing than their white counterparts, the fact that states have established laws affecting racial minorities and violating their civil rights
Stop & Frisk, and the fact that anti-drug legislation is crafted in such a way that
some drugs are subjectively judged worse than others (ie. crack cocaine, used primarily by low income minorities, is treated far harsher in court than cocaine, used primarily by middle class whites).
If the
right wing media focuses on smaller incidents of racial confrontation, it can avoid having to discuss the way its support for
institutional racism has affected minorities. So whereas for one media, the interest in discussing these issues superficially is mostly economic, for the other, it tends to be ideological. These positions switch depending on the issue but the rule of thumb is still the same. If one side wants to discuss the issue
because it affects its ideology, the other covers it because it's good for its pockets. In the end, the discussion avoids the larger issue.
