The Anchoress has a sharp find up today — about racism directed at former President George W. Bush and the unveiling of the plans for his Texas presidential library and museum (which are beautiful, by the way). 

In a highly unprofessional turn, the New Republic had to slip in a nasty little racist jab by captioning one of the photos, “White people, perhaps on their way to an editorial meeting of The Wall Street Journal”.  Here’s a screengrab before someone removes that caption, which we’re sure they will. 

For starters, there would be no editorial meeting of The Wall Street Journal at the Bush presidential library, so the caption could never in our imagination be accurate.  If this was a drawing of a generic office building in New York or Washington, maybe that caption could be true…because we imagine Wall Street Journal editorial meetings happen in buildings like that.  But, the captioner could never be correct in the case of the Bush Library. It was a stab at humor that used a racist joke against white people and Bush that we don’t think would have been tolerated if blacks were the subject of the caption. 

Just imagine the furor that would have erupted if the caption said, “Black people, perhaps on their way to a basketball game” or “Black people, perhaps on their way to a meeting at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago” or “Black people, perhaps on their way to the watermelon patch”. 

Al Sharpton and the rest of the Race Industry would have been on the next plane to wherever that captioner works, ready to protest. Henry Gates would have been rolling on the ground in epileptic fits from shouting RAAACISM! so loudly (but, of course, coming around fast enough to scold, “Don’t forget to photograph me from my good side, only!” when the media arrived, professional that he is). 

Part of the reason the Race Industry still exists is that white people don’t stand up to entities like The New Republic when they make race jokes like this — so there’s forever this beating down of white people for their “whiteness” while simultaneously making white people paranoid of ever disagreeing with a black person about anything. 

We don’t think the joke made by New Republic was funny, appropriate, or even plausible.  No more so than we’d think one made about blacks and basketball, Trinity United, or watermelon patches would have been funny, appropriate, or plausible. 

Why bring race into a sketch of a building?  

Why not talk about the merits of the architecture on display?

Isn’t the point of the article supposed to be a review of the presidential library’s design — and not some weird commentary on race?

If a new design came out for the Martin Luther King memorial that’s being built in Washington would we be treated to those watermelon patch comments by New Republic, seeing as we bet the people used to illustrate scale in those architectural drawings would be majority black?  

When did New Republic become such a racist laughfest?