By Daren Bakst

Recent events make it clear that race baiting is alive and well. On September 12, 2009, tens of thousands of American taxpayers marched on Washington, DC calling for limited government and expressing their anger over the Obama Administration’s policies.

The left-wing media immediately responded to this march by labeling these individuals as racists. We can’t even have a dialogue on non-race issues in this country without liberals calling the other side racists.

The racist name-calling primarily stems from the notion that anyone criticizing President Obama is a racist because he’s African-American. This of course isn’t an argument as much as a desperate attempt to smear anyone who dares to criticize the President.

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When debating issues, you know the other side has no arguments against you when they don’t counter your arguments but instead resort to ad hominem attacks. As concerned citizens express anger over proposed health care reform, nationalization of industries, excessive government spending, cap and trade energy taxes, among other things, their concerns should be responded to with clear and cogent arguments.

Instead, the talking heads in the media sit around and attack citizens. We constantly hear about how the public needs to get engaged in the issues. Now the public has gotten engaged, but they didn’t take the “right” side. The media should have clarified they only wanted to seek active engagement when the public agrees with them.

The left-wing media hasn’t simply limited their claims of racism to the public. There’s a much broader campaign to label anyone that opposes the President as a racist.

Davis Shuster of MSNBC, during a debate between strategists from the Republican Party and the Democratic Party had this to http://www.mrc.org/biasalert/2009/20090910062902.aspx target=”_new”>say about the Republicans during Obama’s recent address to Congress, “You look at the image of the Republican Party, all white males with short haircuts. They look sort of angry. No women, no minorities, and it looks like they’ve sort of become unhinged.”

In other words, there are no minorities because the Republican Party is a bunch of racists. Shuster conveniently forgets the fact that Republican National Chairman is Michael Steele, an African-American, because it would undermine Shuster’s message. The purpose of Shuster’s comment was to strengthen the impression that anyone that opposes the President is a racist.

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times has tried to connect South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson’s outburst during Obama’s address as a racist act. During the address, Representative Wilson yelled out “You lie” to the President.

For anyone with common sense and honestly, this whole event was a legislator showing his anger, possibly inappropriately, at the President for his policy claims. However, when one is trying to race bait, it is far more.

According to Ms. Dowd, “But, fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy! The outburst was unexpected from a milquetoast Republican backbencher from South Carolina who had attracted little media attention.”

It’s quite amazing how far she’s willing to go to stretch her argument so that it fits her template of racist conservatives. Fair or not, Ms. Dowd, Rep. Wilson didn’t say “boy.” He expressed his anger over a policy proposal. I wonder what other things Ms. Dowd hears—probably whatever is necessary to write her columns. In this instance, she needed to hear imaginary things so she could portray Representative Wilson as a racist.

Not to be left out of this race baiting frenzy, former President Jimmy Carter http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/09/15/carter.obama/index.html?section=cnn_l
Atest target=”_new”>stated, "I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he's African-American.”

The former President doesn’t have a shred of evidence, but he does “think” the opposition is largely comprised of racists. Even a former President should know that thinking something doesn’t make it true, unless he has magic powers that we don’t know about.

This race baiting should anger anyone, regardless of ideology. Calling someone a racist without any concrete evidence is reckless and vindictive. The threat of being called a racist will have a chilling effect on speech. Nobody wants to risk being branded a racist, even at the expense of silencing oneself. As this country faces difficult questions, the last thing we need is to stifle speech.

We all need to fight these race-baiting tactics and to be brave in light of being attacked. It is time to call these left-wing hacks the race baiters that they are. Calling them out on their actions and defending their victims is a step in the right direction.

Daren Bakst, Esq. is the Legal and Regulatory Policy Analyst for the John Locke Foundation. Prior to joining the Foundation, he was Policy Counsel for the National Legal Center for the Public Interest in Washington, DC. In this position, he examined critical regulatory and legal issues, primarily affecting the business community.