When conservatives tell me that the conservative movement isn't about race, I am reminded of those "moderate Muslims" who went on TV just after 9/11 to assure everybody that al-Qaeda terrorism wasn't about Islam. They were kind of a sad joke. Because then you had the al-Qaeda leadership saying "We are doing this in the name of Islam" 24/7. If terrorism wasn't about Islam, how come Bin Laden and Zawahiri were saying it was?
Similarly, there are a lot of conservatives out there saying that conservatism is about race. Take retired Colonel Ralph Peters, who went on Fox News and said that government monitoring of right-wing extremists was "racist" and was "targeting white Christians." Even if "white Christian" doesn't equal "right-wing extremist" in reality, this guy obviously thinks the two are one and the same. He thinks the conservative movement is about race. And you don't see the Fox anchor contradicting him either.
Moral of the story: Convincing me that most conservatives aren't racist isn't going to convince me that conservatism isn't about race, any more than proving that most Muslims aren't terrorists will convince me that al-Qaeda isn't about Islam.
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