Frame-Flipping

Well worth the full read. Ta-Nehisi Coates in The Atlantic on the NAACP condemnation of racism in the Tea Party movement:

The NAACP's announcement initially struck me in much the same the way. But some hours of considering this have proven to me that my initial skepticism says more about the broad American narrative of race and racism, then it does about the justness of the NAACP's charge.

I think it's worth, first, considering the record of American racism, and then the record of the Tea Party and its allies. Racism tends to attract attention when it's flagrant and filled with invective. But like all bigotry, the most potent component of racism is frame-flipping--positioning the bigot as the actual victim. So the gay do not simply want to marry, they want to convert our children into sin. The Jews do not merely want to be left in peace, they actually are plotting world take-over. And the blacks are not actually victims of American power, but beneficiaries of the war against hard-working whites. This is a respectable, more sensible, bigotry, one that does not seek to name-call, preferring instead change the subject and strawman. Thus segregation wasn't necessary to keep the niggers in line, it was necessary to protect the honor of white women.