THE ERA OF POST-RACIAL POLICING

On the same day that Glenn Beck was allowed to broadcast to the nation his assertions that our President hates white people and white culture, and is a racist, this news from Boston:

"(CNN) -- A Boston police officer who sent a mass e-mail referring to Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. as a 'banana-eating jungle monkey' has apologized, saying he's not a racist."

A rousing chorus of the signifying monkey may be in order here . . . .

What are we learning from our media's coverage of this teachable moment?

It would seem that people who make racist remarks are not racists, but someone who says that a particular white person behaved "stupidly" is.

The power to determine definitions still rests where it always has . . . .