2nd thing: u mad?

You certainly could have engaged Willingham directly over the issue at the location of his own post. Much easier than tracking down his phone number. Instead you run back to your own dark corner of the internet to write your piece and have your say. Sure, he’s welcome to track down your post and debate you, but I really don’t think he’s desperate enough to defend himself against every little attack that comes at him from whatever random third-rate blogger decides to set off on a nice rant to meet their black history month whine-quota. Let’s face it, it’s much much easier for you to engage Willingham in what passes for a face-to-face debate on the web than it is for Willingham to engage Holden. Maybe Willingham did contact Holden directly — or maybe he just hoped Holden would play “follow the link”, as you’ve invited (or expected) Willingham to do with you.

My accusation of “cowardice” was not meant to apply some sort of blanket logic onto Willingham’s statements, it was meant to call attention to your own carefully yet hastily constructed straw man that you closed your piece with, labeling Willingham a coward through your misinterpreted “summation” of his points in an attempt to make him appear flippant, foolish and ignorant. I can’t blame the man for not wanting to discuss it with folks who would resort to such tactics.

You still seem to be dead wrong that Willingham is only interested in having conversations about the issue with “conservatives”. He clearly states he is only interested in dealing with folks who can reasonably debate the issues seriously and with a cool head. If you’re somehow equating folks who tolerate his views and/or engage him in discussion of said views without attacking him with loaded and childishly-defensive “hate-tags” (which are really only used to avoid rational discussion by painting the other party as villainous before the argument even gets under way) as strictly “conservative”, which seems quite myopic, well that’s your own distorted viewpoint that you get to deal with.

I can sympathize with Willingham’s position, albeit from the opposite side of the political spectrum. Sometimes I don’t feel like discussing race or gender with people whose views are opposite from mine. Sometimes I feel like I’m repeating the same arguments over and over again, and they are being swept aside. This is the type of feeling that leads people to create opposing argument bingo cards, as an oblique way of letting commenters know that their arguments have been well-hashed in previous discussions. It’s amusing, to begin with, but as a platform of discussion it rarely works.

I believe that prejudice is a learned behavior that is ubiquitous in all societies. I believe it’s so strongly ingrained that it is most often applied by people who don’t realize they’re prejudiced. Most people I’ve discussed race with have taken the opposite approach to Hanlon’s razor, assuming malice when only ignorance is implied. The more they fortify themselves in this position, the farther they cross into willful ignorance, which is much more dangerous territory.

The sum of everything I’ve learned about racism is in applying Hanlon’s razor and the principle of willful ignorance: to not know something isn’t a crime, it’s a human being’s natural state of ignorance; to avoid knowing something because it makes you uncomfortable is willful ignorance. You can always benefit from listening to what someone else has to say, even when you think you’ve heard it all before. That’s why I intend to read every word of Willingham’s essay when I get home from work, even though based on previous experience, I don’t think I’ll agree with him.

More discussion is always good.

By your logic, Willingham is a coward for attacking Holder “behind his back with a chosen segment of his [speech].”

Suggesting that people are afraid that they are going to be robbed of their free will… that’s a little silly, man. I don’t care about Willingham’s politics, I care about his post on a very specific subject where I think he has things completely backwards and vice versa. His views are laid out very clearly and in plain language, and I made it a point not to misrepresent them in my post.

Cut-n-paste attack article? This:

I don’t play your silly games anymore. I only ever talk about important matters like race and gender politics with those for whom there is still the possibility of serious discourse and reasoned debate

is intellectually dishonest, considering the rest of his post. He makes it explicit that he’s only interested in discussing race with like-minded people, in this case “conservatives.”

Nice try on trying to pin the coward label on me, but I think you should have tried harder.