Midwest Chick's Place

Bookworm has a fantastic post about the redefining the word racist and her definition of a conservative racist.  Some excepts:

I’m a racist because I believe that blacks are fully capable human beings who are perpetually demeaned by the liberal theory holding that blacks cannot function without handouts from condescending, rich white people.

I’m a racist because believe that blacks are just as academically capable as any other people in America, but that they are having their abilities systematically squished when condescending, rich white people assure them that they can’t make it without assistance — a heinous approach predicated on the liberal’s implicit assumption that blacks are inherently stupid, ill-informed and ill-suited for intellectual effort.

I’m a racist because I believe that vigorous (but still constitutional) law enforcement benefits blacks, who are disproportionately the victims of crimes by other blacks.

I’m a racist because I believe that excusing harmful behaviors in the black community (whether academic failures, teen pregnancies, drug use or crime), on the ground that blacks cannot help themselves because whites have essentially ruined them, is the ultimate insult to blacks, reducing them to the level of animals without intelligence, self-discipline, moral fiber, ambition or ordinary human decency.

She ends her post with this:

I just want to throw in here that words can change meaning.  Racist used to mean that one thought other races were inferior.  Now it means one thinks Obama is a bad president.  One day, I hope it means that we believe all races can achieve their full human potential. 

I always remind myself that the word “beldam” (old hag) started life out as “belle dam” (beautiful or grand woman, which then became grandmother, which then became old hag).  Language is not static.

Please read the whole thing!