Seems like Hank Williams and I are going back and forth these days. He posts an entry entitled "The 2008 Definition of Racism" that I think is important for anyone under the age of 35 or so to read. Even if you disagree with it.
I'd avoided the racism issue inherent in the whole Loren Feldman controversy because (a) I don't think he was trying to be racist and (b) don't think racism in general is something I'm qualified to comment on.
On that last point you have to understand I couldn't have less of a concept of this. I grew up in government funded housing in North Las Vegas in the 80s which is about as far from racism as exists in the world. 80% of my friends were black, my best friend was black, and I honest to God didn't think twice about the color of anyone's skin until I was about 8 years old and read a comic book where the villain was a skin head. At which point I asked the adults around me "What's a skinhead?" and had to have it explained to me.
Until that point I really had never conceived of people being prejudice over skin color. To be honest, it took me a while afterwards to wrap my young brain around the concept (I mean, no one seemed to have any problem with eye or hair color so what was the deal with skin?)
Anyway, though I now understand that people are hurt by it I still think the logical course of action is just to ignore it as foolish bigotry. Wallowing in the pain it causes just gives it license to create more pain and it isn't like prejudice based on race is the only irrational prejudice out there. There are always going to be people who see fit to hate you because of something that isn't your fault be it your skin color, your upbringing, or whatever else.
That said I also think its important for those who weren't around when it was an issue to try as best we can to understand the nature of the pain it causes which is why I link to Mr. Williams' post and why I encourage anyone reading this to take a look.
(for the record, he quotes me in the piece as saying protests are legally wrong which isn't really the point I was making but you can see that in the link he provides)