Liberal Guilt

Ron Rosenbaum sings the praises of so-called "liberal guilt." I largely agree. He says, though, that "What I don't understand is why there doesn't seem to be any conservative guilt over racism." I don't actually find this puzzling at all: There's little conservative guilt over racism because political exploitation of racial animosity has been an integral element of the conservative movement's political strategy ever since the day when the conservative movement stopped issuing straightforward defenses of white supremacy.

Under the circumstances, anyone who feels too upset about racism can't make it far in the conservative movement. You don't need to be a racist, as such, but in your public work you need to express much much much more concern about the alleged evils of "political correctness" or some such than you do about actual racism.