While watching the news recently, I heard a reporter ask what I thought was one of the dumbest questions ever asked. She asked the politician who she was interviewing: “Are you a racist?” The answer given, not surprisingly, was “No.”

In spite of recent remarks made by the politician that were clearly motivated by bigotry, this ended that part of the conversation. It occurred to me, however, that the politician truly didn’t believe he was a racist and a bigot.

Later on, while talking with a friend about why I believed the Confederate flag should be removed from all public places, my friend pointed out that when I was a child, “The Dukes of Hazzard” was one of my favorite shows.

This was true. Like all young boys, I thought The General Lee (the Duke boys’ Dodge Charger, which had a Confederate flag painted in its roof) was the coolest car on television.

Wasn’t this evidence that I was a racist? This didn’t seem to be a fair charge to make. I was, after all, a child, and ignorant of the broader meaning of the symbol.

This leads to the obvious conclusion: Racism is ignorance. People don’t dislike an entire race of people because of what they know about them – they dislike them because of what they don’t know about them.

I look forward to the day that the media figures this out, and instead of reporters asking politicians if they are racists, telling them that they are.

Glenn Selwood

Westbrook

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