Suntanning in America

As readers will know, I've long believed that the idea that America was more racist than other developed nations is total bunk. America doesn't have a problem with racist chants at sporting events. America doesn't have over a third of our voters self-identify as racist. No monkey noises are made at black American athletes. The only people in America who make the "slanted eyes" Chinese faces are preschoolers, not a national basketball team.

Yet the BBC has a special series on being "Black in America", as if we're some backwater nation that brutalizes our ethnic minorities.

I write all this to point out that I put very little stock in the idea that my new President finally exonerates America from its racist past. Yet when I read this story, I could understand how insulated, self-important, racist European intellectuals might be forgiven for sneering over their glasses at us Yankees: they don't know better.

When your president compliments my black president for his "suntan", Italy, I now know where to place you in relation to our own history: 1920's Louisiana sounds about right.