Peggy Noonan Thinks Criticizing Racists Is Racist

Former Reagan speech writer and Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan apparently thinks that anyone who expresses concern over the racial implications of Arizona's harsh new crackdown on illegal immigration is in fact a closet racist:

"The establishments of the American political parties, and the media, are full of people who think concern about illegal immigration is a mark of racism. If you were Freud you might say, "How odd that's where their minds so quickly go, how strange they're so eager to point an accusing finger. Could they be projecting onto others their own, heavily defended-against inner emotions?" But let's not do Freud, he's too interesting. Maybe they're just smug and sanctimonious. "

Peggy Noonan, The Big Alienation, Wall Street Journal, May 1, 2010. Apparently, those good-hearted white folks in Arizona who want anyone "reasonably suspected" of being an undocumented alien to show their papers are not doing anything that impact a particular race or nationality as far as Noonan is concerned. And any concern to the contrary is simply some bizarre expression of internalized white liberal guilt over carefully concealed prejudice.

Noonan argues in her piece that the reason for paralysis in dealing with the immigration question at the federal level is fear of losing "the Hispanic vote," as though this were some kind of illegitimate reason. And if the politics of illegal immigration were not bound up with the politics of race and nationality, why would the Hispanic vote be an issue?

The draconian measures enacted by Arizona quite obviously put every dark-haired, brown skinned person under suspicion and require them -- citizens or not -- to prove their identity and legitimacy in ways that white citizens do not. This set of laws creates an invidious distinction based on race; it is therefore racist. And it does not take any complex concealed bias and inner guilt to reach that conclusion.

As the national debate unfolds and the Tea Party cavorts for the national press, the level of white grievance is quite easy to discern. It is quite remarkable how put upon white America feels every time a person of color catches a break. After our long history of slavery, Jim Crow, and de facto segregation, you would think white America would not still be harping on the loss of white privilege. And yet the argument proves itself every time some white yahoo from the hinterlands cries out that if a person of color got ahead, it must have been through chicanery. There's even a cottage industry in white America devoted to delegitimizing the President: what other President has been accused of not being a real citizen and of being a closet Muslim, with the further nasty implication that American Muslims are part of some kind of sinister fifth column.

If Noonan is going to pander to the prejudices of her white readers, the least she could do is confront the issue in a straightforward manner, rather than engaging in a cheap and phony jiujitsu that tries to turn the accusation of bias back on the accuser.