Jonah Goldberg defends ‘racist’ lefty writer

He writes re: the JournList “thing” and what some guy named Marty Peretz said about “Latin society”, which sounds perfectly accurate and “so what?” to me (but then, it would, wouldn’t it?):

The “near-tropical work habits” line is unfortunate. But is this whole thing really so beyond the pale? If it is, no wonder it’s hard to have that long-overdue conversation about race people keep talking about.

But it’s pretty clear that racism — real or alleged — isn’t the real issue. These guys hate Marty, hate TNR (no doubt in part because some of them couldn’t get jobs there), and are willing to use racism against their own the same way they use it against conservatives: as a branding tool against heretics.

Mark Steyn replies:

However, speaking as someone who gets called a racist by the left all the time, I’d always assumed, as when the mob take the tire iron to you in the back alley, that it’s all business, nothing personal: just what’s necessary to get the job done. It’s rather sad to find this is the way they talk in private, too. For what it’s worth, I don’t regard that Peretz quote as “beyond the pale”, but, if it is, why bother being a writer? I can’t see why anybody would want to enter a profession in which that passage exceeds the very narrow and strictly enforced bounds within which these subjects can be discussed.