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Today’s GOP is not racist, as Harry Belafonte alleged about the tea party, but it is deeply troubled — about the expansion of government, about immigration, about secularism, about the mainstreaming of what used to be the avant-garde. People with conventional views must repress a gag reflex when considering the mayor-elect of New York — a white man married to a black woman and with two biracial children. (Should I mention that Bill de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, used to be a lesbian?) This family represents the cultural changes that have enveloped parts — but not all — of America. To cultural conservatives, this doesn’t look like their country at all.
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He has gotten some well-deserved flack for the column and he has been accused of being a racist. He says that is a hurtful word. Whereas, I assume, he finds the idea of "gagging" on the idea of an interracial couple with biracial children acceptable.
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So let us reframe for him. Maybe he isn't a racist. But his position on race makes me, and vast swathes of America, want to gag. His gag reflex is not "conventional" in any sense of the word except as racist reminiscing.