Devaluaing "racist"

Jay Nordlinger makes a great point about the meaningless of the term "racist" as it is used currently:

I’ve spoken of weariness in this column, and here is a point I am very, very weary of making: Because racism is charged stupidly and unjustly—and promiscuously—power drains out of the charge. You hear that something, or someone, is racist, you can almost assume that it, or he, isn’t.

I thought of this when reading about Harry Reid, the Democratic leader of the Senate. He declared that recent amendment concerning English “racist.” And in modern America, “racist” means nothing except, “I don’t like it.” It has nothing to do with racism, of course. It just means—for example—“I, Harry Reid, don’t like it, or you. You and your thing are racist.”

Sickening.

When real racism rears its head—as it inevitably does—what do you call it? You can’t use “racist,” because the Harry Reids of the world have made the word a nothing.

This is right on the money. There is no issue for which taking a given side of the argument can be racist behavior or can make one a racist, and there has not been for four decades now. Nor can taking a position make one any other form of -ist or -phobe or any other silly label. The only bigotry present when these labels are recklessly tossed around comes from the speaker.