Wulfpackr – thank you for your thoughtful, reasonable dialogue on this. (Its the kind of discussion our society should be having.)
I do think it is a good thing that there is condemnation of racist thoughts, actions and words when it comes to whites being racist against blacks.
Where I believe there is a problem is that “ism” is not equal nor does potentially racist actions and what behavior society deems unacceptable.
For example, its fine to call a black Supreme Court Justice an “Uncle Tom” if his political and judicial views are to the right of his race’s consensus beliefs.
Black on black violence is tolerated and even glorified. There is a casual mainstream acceptance of violence and out of wedlock childbirth (when we know the damage it causes).
What concerns me is that as a society we are placing more importance on words than we are actions and that we are only increasingl the racial divide when some racism is deemed more damaging than others.
Finally, you are spot on about this not being a 1st amendment issue – anyone should understand that. It could be seen as a privacy issue – but I am not a huge advocate of expanded privacy protection in the constitution.
