In general, if you ever find yourself saying, "I'm not a racist," you're a racist.

The same holds true for a variety of hatreds, of course. "I'm not a sexist" is evidence one is sexist; "I'm not homophobic" proof that one hates gays. Those people who truly have no internalized misogyny, racism, or homophobia are few and far between, and those most likely to be good allies to those groups are also the most likely to be aware of their own shortcomings.

No, saying one is not a racist is proof that one is one, because a word always seems to follow that phrase -- "but."

We are in the midst of an election of consequence, one in which the probable Democratic nominee is an African-American, a man who has been attacked in recent weeks for the words of his minister, who has been clear that racism exists in America today. Barack Obama responded to this crisis by bravely calling on Americans to examine the issue of race in our society.

That is something long overdue, and I hope that we can get to the point where we can have a meaningful dialog on what race means in America today. But if we're going to get there, we're going to have to ignore a lot of racists. Racists like Old Punk.

Old Punk, of course, will tell you he isn't a racist:

I don't hate black people. I can't pretend to be color-blind because absolutely nothing in my culture will allow me to be. I admire Thomas Sowell, Duke Ellington, Roberto Clemente, Muhammed Ali, Alexandre Dumas, Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, Count Basie, Tiger Woods, and Bill Cosby. There are many others but that's a sampling of the famous folks whose courage, genius, character, and achievements I would be proud if I could get anywhere in the vicinity of. The bald truth of the matter is that they're better than I am, and it doesn't arouse a flicker of racial feeling in me to acknowledge it. They have enriched and elevated my own experience of life.

No, Old Punk isn't a racist. But:

On the other hand, I am sick to death of black people as a group. The truth. That is part of the conversation Obama is asking for, isn't it? I live in an eastern state almost exactly on the fabled Mason-Dixon line. Every day I see young black males wearing tee shirts down to their knees -- and jeans belted just above their knees. I'm an old guy. I want to smack them. All of them. They are egregious stereotypes. It's impossible not to think the unthinkable N-Word when they roll up beside you at a stoplight in their trashed old Hondas with 19-inch spinner wheels and rap recordings that shake the foundations of the buildings. It's like a broadcast dare: Go ahead! Call me a nigger! And then I'll cap your ass.

No racism evident there. No sir!

zOMG! Some young African-Americans drive crappy cars! They play loud music! They wear silly fashions! Why, it's almost like they're young people!

After all, it's not like there aren't plenty of white kids wearing goofy get-ups, playing music too loud, driving rusty Fords, acting like goofballs. About a decade-and-a-half ago, I was one of them. This is a disease endemic in the youth of all races. Or, if you're Old Punk, it's proof that African-Americans, as a group, are evil. Or worse.

Here's the dirty secret all of us know and no one will admit to. There ARE niggers. Black people know it. White people know it. And only black people are allowed to notice and pronounce the truth of it.

Are there African-Americans who are thugs, shiftless layabouts, bad actors? Well, sure. This is primarily due to the fact that there are thugs, shiftless layabouts, and bad actors among all ethnic groups, races, creeds and colors.

But Old Punk can't leave well enough alone. He has to drag in the vilest, ugliest word in the English language to describe those African-Americans of whom he disapproves. And since a paragraph above he was excoriating African-Americans as a group, it's pretty bleedin' obvious that he means for the N-word* to extend to all African-Americans.

Oh, sure, he dresses it up, citing that one Chris Rock bit that racists love to point to. But his real point is that the bad blacks are all blacks, because all blacks aren't preventing some blacks from being bad. That white people, for all our genius, still haven't manged to eliminate malefactors in the white community is lost on Old Punk. In his world, those white people are white. They can't be bad.

I'm not proposing the generalized use of the term, just trying to be clear for once, in the wake of Obama's call for us to have a dialogue about race. However much they may scream and protest, black people will know what I mean when I demand they concede that the following people are niggers:

- Jeremiah Wright
- O.J. Simpson
- Marion Barry
- Alan Iverson
- William Jefferson
- Louis Farrakhan
- Mike Tyson

You know what I mean. They hold you back. They're dirty, violent, and stupid. They make you look bad, and you foul yourselves by defending them, by reelecting them to office, by admiring them in spite of all their awful behavior.

Okay, here are a few white people:

-John Hagee
-Robert Blake
-Larry Craig
-John Daly
-Newt Gingrich
-Pat Robertson
-Robert Downey, Jr.

All of them are jerks and lowlifes. Some may be worse than others, some may be redeemable. But all have failed on a massive scale.

So why is it that these idiots don't make all white people look bad, and foul themselves by defending them, by reelecting them to office, by admiring them in spite of all their awful behavior? Why am I not "held back" by Pat Robertson, or Robert Downey, Jr.?

Because, of course, white people are not responsible for every white person who does something dumb. Almost every serial killer in American history is white, and yet we don't hear how Andrew Cunanan and John Wayne Gacy are permanent blots on the souls of white people. We don't have to explain away Tim McVeigh as not a typical white person; it's understood that all white people are not defined by the actions of some white people.

The same courtesy is not extended to African-Americans, certainly not by racists like Old Punk. To them, any failure by any African-American is proof that "they" are all bad.

And if you don't believe me, listen to him:

We can have this conversation now -- should have this conversation now -- because African-Americans are on the verge of the greatest setback they've experienced since the election of Rutherford B. Hayes. You see, you've just given life to the suspicion that black people in America are, and have long been, a fifth column -- unanimously hating the very country that has afforded the highest standard of living ever achieved by black people in human history. We're teetering at the edge of believing that you're a secret society, a massive collection of sleeper cells just waiting for your chance to do serious harm to the rest of us. You've made it possible for us to believe that. Because you're never outraged by what the worst black people do. Because you continue to make excuses for what should be inexcusable to everyone.

It's as clear as day: because some black people have done some bad things, all black people are untrustworthy. That there's plenty of outrage in the African-American community over the bad actions of African-Americans is beside the point; no amount of condemnation would ever be enough to prove to the racists like Old Punk that the African-American community can be trusted. To him, every African-American is suspect, because some fail.

And then he is gobsmacked that African-Americans have not moved forward in this country, and dismissive that racism could have anything to do with that.

There are, of course, things that the African-American community will need to tackle on their own in order to move forward in society. But that's for them to tackle. What white people need to do is tackle the problems in our own community -- and yes, that means being aware that we are privileged in this society by virtue of being white. That we have automatic advantages that flow from that privilege, like the fact that we aren't all assumed to be jerks just because some of us are like Old Punk. And that we need to work to make that default assumption become the default assumption for all people, to give African-Americans the benefit of basic trust and equality. This is something we have failed to do, because the racists are convinced that the African-American community can't be trusted. It's up to those of us who are sane and tolerant to drag the racists, kicking and screaming, into the 20th century. Eventually, we may even get them to come along into the 21st.

*I don't use that word, even as a referent. It's a vile word, and the language will be better when it's no longer used.