This is exactly why I avoided Shag's and Roberts original request for more specificity as to who was using race to distract from class. I have been around academic debates long enough to know an attempted evasion when I see one. First they ask for more specificity, then they claim that your examples are not representative of everyone. Who ever said WBM or Doug was talking about everyone and everywhere. Who is the general readership of NLR and LRBs ? That is probably the target audience, left-liberals with plenty of power. Folks who are on the fence between thinking that class is the main problem or whether what they have been hearing ad nauseum- that the problem is the racism and if they don't agree then they too are racist and part of the problem- is what is goin' on. I would think this would be his target audience, not the community organizers.
The fact that people generally think he is on to something but disagree with his tactics, seems to me to be overcome by the fact that he is probably making most people on this list think about the relationship bettween class and race. Which is a good thing. I personally don't like the tactic of telling people that the main reason that there will be no decent health care reform is because 'we are a very racist society" (Bill Maher), rather than talking about the fact that Obama is in the pocket of the health care industry and major pharma (along with a lot of the rest of the Dems). That is what I think a bad tactic is. If a fella needs to get polemic to get folks to think, so be it.
Brad