In your language I suffered a maximum of aspersions on my personal character, to wit:
"I have not read Clayborne Carson, but I don't need to read him in order to characterize this as a bullshit lie." "ignorant garbage." "idiotic bullshit" "More ignorant bullshit." " not much of a Marxist," " lunatic characterization ... Your hysteria ... clueless" "Poor Rakesh, the perpetual graduate student," "you idiot." " stupid phrase-mongering" " incorrect. ... bullshit. You were the one who went beserk, not me."
Far from sending a windbaggish comment on the overuse of the charge of racism then, you actually pretty much said that I had provoked and deserved the abuse. From my perspective, your only concern is trigger happiness with the charge when it is applied to fellow honkies.
Rakesh
>>
RAkesh,
A bit more wind . . . I don't think I "actually pretty much said" any such thing as you were a racist. Half the stuff above is pretty mild, and NONE of it goes to your character. To me branding someone a racist is different, and serious.
If I am recalling the same episode, you said some pretty bad stuff about some historical figures I thought did not deserve it, and I responded strongly and may have used terms like bullshit and idiocy to describe what you said, and maybe you, after similar language from you about me. I can't imagine having called YOU a racist, which doesn't even parse in terms of the argument (about Malcolm X and followers, no?). I'd say that in a heated argument, calling something said stupid easily spills into you're stupid, or somesuch, but to me this is intrinsically not as serious as repeatedly calling someone else a racist, amidst other falsifications.
Fact is, our late and unlamented list-member ended up "pretty much" calling everyone who disagreed with him a racist.
You may be more offended by being called dumb than many others, maybe more than I. I think there are worse things, like racist or cop or agent.
mbs