Are There That Many Racists Out There?

Yes, I believe there are. I believe that about a quarter of non-black Americans do not like black people and that most of these people vote Republican.

I think a significant reason for the amount of racist vitriol online is that any comments remotely smacking of racism is such a huge social sin. Saying anything racist is about the worst thing you can say in middle-class polite society.

Report from the Chicago Sun-Times:


“Lock this monkey up in a cage next to Bubba. Go get the other monkeys in his gang and lock them up as well.”

“Blacks are far too lazy and co-dependent on whites to ever change — if they did who’d pay for their babies and food?”

“If it happened on Mars, I’d say he was a Martian. But it happened in Logan Square, so I said he was an illegal. Wanna bet?”

Who would write something like this? Some of our faithful, foul-mouthed readers, that’s who.

One of my jobs as a Web editor at the Sun-Times is to moderate the reader comments on every article — and man is it a messy job. Are there really that many racist people out there? Would they really say such appalling things in everyday conversation?

About Luke Ford

I've written five books (see Amazon.com). My work has been covered in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and on 60 Minutes. I teach Alexander Technique in Beverly Hills (Alexander90210.com).
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