Thought for the day

[bcholmes]

The point here isn't that [Juan] Williams endorses hate crimes -- he does not. The point is that prejudice, by its very nature, makes broad leaps in logic. Prejudice is not wrong because it is uncivil, impolite or unsympathetic. It is wrong because it is weak thinking. In the case of Williams, it means believing that a terrorist would be so stupid as to board a plane dressed in a dishdasha and clutching the Koran. In the case of Sodi, it meant that all swarthy looking people with turbans are the same.

Finally, it must be said -- in the broader context -- that Juan Williams simply isn't Shirley Sherrod. Juan Williams' father, to my knowledge, was not murdered by anti-American Islamic radicals. Juan Williams did not grow up watching his mother face down the Al'Qaeda on the front porch. Juan Williams did not have his entire life absorbed by the fight against Islamic terror. Juan Williams makes a career amicably discussing bigotry with bigots. Shirley Sherrod made a career, and a life, of confronting bigotry -- perhaps most admirably, her own.

— Ta-Nehisi Coates, "The 'High-Tech Lynching' of Juan Williams"