You Can Be a Racist without Being a Bigot

You can be a racist without being a bigot.

I can hear the tortured cries of indignation: “Why does it always come back to race?” 

The communicants of the White Saints of the Church of the Perpetually Aggrieved raise their protestations of umbrage to the heavens. From the perspective of the affronted, having their motives so regularly questioned justifies their reflexive sensitivity on the subject. (Their defensiveness about being called racist, however, seems to outstrip their outrage at the existence of racism itself. But, you know, whatever.)