I just read Bob Herbert’s column from July 23 where he says:

But the people suffering most in this long economic tailspin are the poor and the black, and you don’t hear much about that.

I would have been okay if he’d just said “the poor”. It would also have been okay if he said “the poor, the black, the Hispanic and the Native American”. But no… he said “the poor and the black”.

So let’s see now… the poor includes poor whites, poor blacks, poor Hispanics, poor Native Americans and poor people of any other color. So the black must have been called out to include the non-poor black.

From WordNet:

(n) racism: the prejudice that members of one race are intrinsically superior to members of other races

Isn’t it also racist to attribute any quality or condition — negative or positive — to a single race?

Try again, Bob. I have another word for you:

(n) hypocrisy: insincerity by virtue of pretending to have qualities or beliefs that you do not really have

References:

Thrown to the Wolves
Racism
Hypocrisy

I won’t quote the entire letter — you can read it for yourself at Snopes… but I thought this part speaks volumes:

And just who do you think you are telling the American people not to jump to conclusions and condemn that Muslim major who killed 13 of his fellow soldiers and wounded dozens more. You mean you don’t want us to do what you did when that white cop used force to subdue that black college professor in Massachusetts who was putting up a fight ? You don’t mind offending the police calling them stupid but you don’t want us to offend Muslim fanatics by calling them what they are, terrorists.

Did the media not catch this? Or did they just choose to ignore it?