Sensitivity Made Simple

Americans are smart these days. You sure can't pull the wool over their eyes — especially when it comes to rooting out racism. In 1954 you would have had to wait over 20 years for racial integration of the public school system. But today, it took America only five years to discover that Don Imus hates black women. That's real, quantifiable progress.

But the issue is a little different for the ladies. Sexism is an odd bird — a bird that isn't as easy to catch as she once was. Today we don't get the easy targets like the bigots of yore, who tell you to show a little more leg around the office, or expect that you stay home to raise the kids or demand in public that you iron their shirts.

Can racism and sexism be quantified and compared? In order to test America's relative racial and sexual sensitivity in this 2008 election season I developed, in concert with computer scientists based out of the Los Alamos National laboratory, a brand new machine. We have named it the Bigotron3000. How does it work? It's easy! With the patented technology inside the Bigotron3000, all the difficult analysis is done for you. To demonstrate, we've collected some statements made about Hillary Clinton by well-respected public intellectuals. All you do is enter each statement made about Ms. Clinton into the Bigotron3000, set the dial to "race," and — Presto! — out pops the congruent statement, as it would have been phrased about Barack Obama.

Chris Matthews, Hardball: "So does her attack on him for having had ambition as [...] a kindergartner, does she look like Nurse Ratched here?"

Congruent statement: "So does his attack on her for having had ambition as [...] a senator, does he look like Uncle Tom here?"

That comment would fly about as far as a lunch bag full of poop in this day and age. Good thing Chris Matthews would never say something like that.

Andrew Sullivan, Times Online: "Hillary Clinton came back from the dead with the help of a legion of sympathetic housewives."

Congruent statement: "Barack Obama came back from the dead with the help of a legion of jolly barbershop regulars."

Ooh, that sort of smug condescension feels a little better when you're talking about the humblest of idle ladies, not the humblest of idle Blacks. Andrew Sullivan's actual argument sounds reasonable enough. But when fed through the Bigotron, Mr. Sullivan looks more biased than Elton John's party dress!

Andrew Sullivan, Times Online: "She tried out several personae and ended up with a perky, blow-dried Mother Teresa Shtick."

Congruent Sullivanism: "He tried out several personae and ended up with an optimistic, MLK-without-the-Jheri-Curl Shtick."

Ouch. That's the sort of thing that gets you cut from Al Sharpton's Fave Five. It's a good thing he didn't actually say that about a Black man. That sort of bile is much easier to look at when it's all over the face of a lady.

Christopher Hitchens, Slate: "Of course, against all these considerations you might prefer the newly fashionable and more media-weighty notion that if you don't show her enough appreciation, and after all she's done for us, she may cry."

Hitch-o-tron: "Of course, against all these considerations you might prefer the newly fashionable and more media-weighty notion that if you don't show him enough appreciation, after all he's done for us, he may go all Negro on your ass."

Okay, Bigotron, now your read-outs are beginning to go over the line. The natural tendencies of women toward weakness, that's understandable — and it makes for a really super last sentence of a Slate article. But the natural tendencies of Black men toward anger? Eek! Somebody hire Tavis Smiley for a speaking engagement at Hitch's house, and fast!

Maureen Dowd, New York Times: "At her victory party, Hillary was like the heroine of a Lifetime movie, a woman in peril who manages to triumph."

Hit me, Bigotron3000: "At his victory party, Barack was like Hollywood's magic black man, a Morgan Freeman in Shawshank Redemption, who is befuddled but pleased by his new freedom."

Whew, it's a good thing that a machine came up with that one! Ms. Dowd would be voted off the island of Manhattan if she said that. Those Hollywood movies sure do highlight black innocence and ignorance as a way to make them more palatable to white audiences. It is as laughable as it is intolerable. But that said, I'm Pretty sure a Woman has never gotten sugar-coated to seem more appealing.

It looks like the Bigogron3000 is not quite ready for production yet — I keep feeding it perfectly innocent, snarkish comments made by intellectuals about Hillary Clinton, and it keeps spitting out all this hateful, insensitive venom toward Barack Obama. Maybe I should reprogram the machine to do something useful, like iron my shirts.

Bigotron3000: Barack, Plow My Field!

Okay, that's enough.