The liberal reaction to the McCain ad illustrates the folly of trying to achieve race-neutrality through heightened racial consciousness. People for whom racial tolerance and equality are top virtues scour a political ad with no overtly racial content to locate racial stereotypes. They end up looking at an ad that simply includes a black man and young white women and they see, “Barack Obama will rape yo daughters overtones.” And they assume everybody else, especially evil racist conservatives, must see it too. But you can’t fight racism by adopting the racist mindset.
