Richard Cohen Insists That the Tea Party Hates Race-Mixing

Slate ^ | November 13, 2013 | David Weigel

[2ndDivisionVet]

I've tried my level damndest to ignore the latest Richard Cohen column controversy, because life is short and Cohen will stumble into another racial contretemps within six weeks or so. And I don't like the idea of a columnist being Mau-Mau'd out of a job because he's a casual bigot. The smarmy-sounding Fred Hiatt defense—that Cohen "isn’t afraid to take on subjects where culture and politics and emotion overlap"—isn't entirely wrong. Past-their-prime white guys have opinions, too.

No, the problem with Cohen's column was that he made an assertion about an entire class of people being racist, and did no work to prove it. Cohen claimed that people with "conventional" views might be spooked by Bill de Blasio's interracial marriage and the social change it represents. "What I was doing was expressing not my own views but those of extreme right-wing Republican tea party people," he told Paul Farhi. "I don’t have a problem with interracial marriage or same-sex marriage." In an interview with the Huffington Post, he asserted that "I was expressing the views of what I think some people in the Tea Party held," though "I don't think everybody in the Tea Party is like that, because I know there are blacks in the Tea Party. So they're not all racist."

That's still quite an assertion about a group of people Cohen didn't even try to talk to for his column. He could have asked Tea Partiers whether they were bothered by Clarence Thomas' marriage to a white woman, given that she took a (short-lived) role as a would-be Tea Party leader in 2009 and 2010. He could have asked about their reaction to FreedomWorks Outreach Director Deneen Borelli, whose husband, Tom, is white....

[2ndDivisionVet]

Or that Todd Palin, husband of Gov. Sarah Palin, is an Eskimo (which means all of her children are, too) or that Hispanic Senator Ted Cruz's wife is white, or that Mia Love's husband is white.

[KC_Lion]

FReepers, Quick Raise your had if you, your children, your spouse are Mixed Race, Region, Creed, Ethnic Background, or come from different Cultures or Socioeconomic background.

I suspect that would be nearly all of us.

[2ndDivisionVet]

I’m Lutheran and my wife is Catholic. Plus, most of the ladies I’ve dated in my past were oriental.

[cripplecreek]

Great granny always said she suspected there was an injun in the woodpile.

[cripplecreek]

My first girlfriend was hispanic.

[KC_Lion]

See? My Point Stands.

The Most Conservative People I have meet have been of Mixed Race.

Many FReepers here have Bi-Racial Children, maybe the left needs to stop living in Wilson Segregated 1910's.

[Fai Mao]

My wife is Chinese I am not

It is the largest segment of the demonratic party (Blacks) that is, statistically speaking the most against interracial relationships

[Ronin]

Well I’m married to a Japanese woman and my daughter is half Japanese so I guess my hand is in the air.

[ThunderSleeps]

I consider myself a TEA Party kinda guy. Race? Unless we’re talking car racin’ I don’t really care.

[cripplecreek]

One of my great grandfathers appears to have been a Polish Jew and the family is mixed Catholic and Protestant.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

I have yet to meet a tea party person who had a problem with race mixing.

I have, however, met a number of liberals who had a cow over it.

[Bringbackthedraft]

Guys like Cohen, are the ones who paint the Tea party as red necks, Crackers, KKK and Neo Nazis. How many rallies did he attend to draw that conclusion? None I betcha.

[Standing Wolf]

Speaking strictly as a mostly Caucasian guy: it’s okay with me if leftist extremists are racists.

[Conspiracy Guy]

I have nothing to prove to the racist Richard Cohen. Liberals always accuse others of being what the liberal is trying to hide about themselves. Also they excell in telling you the opposite of what they are doing. “If you like your plan, you can keep it, PERIOD.”

[KC_Lion]

That is a testament to mankind moving beyond the obsession with Race.

The Melting Pot helps to prevent Balkanization, because you can't hate your own kids.

Just look at all the Inter Marriage that has taken place between Japanese or Koreans sine the end of the Wars.

If you went back to 1944/52 would ANYONE have believed that we have the number of Inter-Racial Couples we do today?

And yet it was that Generation that brought it to the forefront, Many of the kids I knew Growing up had a Japanese or Korean Grandparent.

[struggle]

My wife is Japanese...my kids mixed race.
My brother in law is black...
THEY’RE FAMILY. I JUST WANT PEOPLE TO DEPEND ON THEMSELVES LIKE WE DO.

[KC_Lion]

:P

My Jewish Side is from Germany but I know deep in the family tree they have polish blood, left over before the Partition of Poland by Prussia, Russia and Austria.

Poland used to house most the worlds Jews back in the Middle Ages.

Is there any wonder why the Commonwealth was so blessed by G-d? (or so targeted by his enemies?)

[seowulf]

Great granny always said she suspected there was an injun in the woodpile.

It's that smidin' o' Injun that gives me my swarthy good looks and a love of firewater.

[Mears]

DIL Asian-—mixed race grandchildren.

.

[Girlene]

Here's what these leftists think of Tea Partiers/Conservatives:

" Racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe, lunatic, extremists, dangerous, out of control, probably spittle dripping, missing the two front teeth, gun rack in the pickup on the way to church Saturday night for a good parking space as they pray to the Lord for anti-abortion belief." (Courtesy of Rush Limbaugh, Yale Professor: Tea Partiers Better at Science )