I have been pretty consistent about my position on the subject.
When I was a kid growing up in Chicago in the 60s and early 70s, I heard racist things every day. Then...I stopped hearing those things. I only heard them in hushed tones from people who knew that it wasn't acceptable to say these things out loud anymore. Society had cracked down on their open casual use, and an entire generation was raised not using them.
And then the internet became popular. It has been one of the greatest inventions, if not the greatest invention of my lifetime.
But...I also started receiving some unbelievably racist e-mails that had been forwarded a thousand times. And then I started seeing some of these things repeated in the comments section of newspapers, always on-line--unedited, and unrestrained in major publications like the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune. The professional journalist's work was seperated by the racist troll's spit, by one simple scroll of the mouse. By allowing those comments, which as long as they didn't swear were not edited at all, those newspapers were essentially sanctioning what they said. "Look, it's in the Wall Street Journal."
Soon people began to feel comfortable saying these things in the open again.
And now I hear casually racist things being said every day just like I did when I was a kid; at the supermarket, at the bar, at the barber shop. Worse yet, I hear them on the radio, on television, and in the media...where it had been off-limits for many years. People casually saying things like "those people" or "those thugs" or "those animals" about an entire race of people while believing that they aren't being racist at all. People saying things about "lazy deadbeats" who are "looking for handouts" about an entire race of people, and thinking that they aren't being racist. People who will look you in the eye and say without irony that the only racists in this country are the people calling racists racists.
Ending the comments sections won't end that, of course.
But it's a nice first step.
