Just like every car has mass or weight, everybody – to some degree – is a racist . With a car, no matter how much it weighs – but the less weight the better which is why race cars are much lighter than street cars – the trick is to control as much of the weight as possible by putting put it on the control side of the springs or suspension. The weight on the uncontrolled side of the suspension, the unsprung weight, is the weight that causes the most trouble. I think the same is true with our racism, the more we can see it – the more that we can see how the filter of racism colors our perceptions – the better we are able to control the damage done by our racism.

That may be the reason that the people who are the most noticeably racist do not think they are racist and are the most offended by the accusation that they are. They don’t see the filter, they only see the filtered perceptions of their racism. So when Newt Gingrish makes ridiculous, dickish, racist, remarks – like Obama is the food-stamp president because more people are on food-stamps than ever before – I suspect that he doesn’t see them as racist. (He might not even see them as being simplistic to the point of being stupid.)