Quite a brawl broke out on this site as a result of Lauren's rather provocative essay beseeching illegal immigrants to return to Mexico. Now I can't say I agree with Lauren; the logistical and ethical challenges of a massive deportation program would be so great they are hard to imagine. However, what I have to take to task was this reaction that Lauren's blog was somehow racist.

Facile charges of racism seem to be becoming more and more popular in our political discourse (and particularly on the left) as a means to quickly de-legitimize an opponent's argument and shut down the debate. Due to this country's collective guilt over our history of mistreatment to American blacks, there is nothing an educated white person is more afraid of than being labeled a racist. Liberals recognize this fact well; they have learned that charging someone with racism is the easiest and quickest way to put them on the defensive and cast doubt on their personal integrity and thus the validity of their argument. Conservatives have started to pick up on this too; we saw a bit of it from them in the early defense of the Dubai ports deal. It's a blunt but effective tactic of debate, and that's why I think we are seeing it more and more, despite the fact that our society has continued to become more diverse and is evidently more racially tolerant than any other society in the history of the world.

Calling all illegal aliens Mexican is not racist. Imprecise? Certainly. Politically incorrect? Definitely. Racist? No way. Racism is the application of a preconceived, unreasonable, and adverse judgment against all people of the same race or ethnicity. Referring to Honduran immigrants as Mexicans is not applying any prejudice to either group; it's simply an incorrect appellation. There is no malice or adverse judgment involved. Making a statement in favor of the earnest enforcement of our current laws - and the punishment of those who have violated them - is inherently not a racist position. The fact that such an action would impact one racial group much more than any another is just a simple result of geography and economics (specifically, the huge, open border we share with a substantially poorer country) - not racism.

So can we please try to restrain the urge to charge each other with racism? 99 times out of 100, it's just not true.