Waay back in 2012, Ethics Alarms presented “The Knight Scale,” described as a “ten point scale for rating the outrageousness of race-card sightings.” I named the scale after a race-baiting L.A. blogger who insisted that the cartoon above, suggesting that First Lady Michelle Obama was taking on imperial airs as the Obama departed for yet another lavish family vacation, was “racist.”

I revised the Knight Scale in 2017, writing in my introduction that…

” Race-baiting has been one of the primary features of public discourse embedded in our culture by having a black President, was well as one with so many unscrupulous race-obsessed supporters and so much evidence of incompetence and dishonesty to try to defend. Its widespread use, tacitly approved if not orchestrated by the White House, has also contributed to the vastly deteriorating race-relations in the U.S., along with the racial distrust and anger fueling it. I have stated, and strongly believe, that this will be, above all else, Barack Obama’s legacy. The tragedy this represents cannot be over-stated. I am offering now and belatedly a revised Race-Baiting Scale, running from 1, the least offensive and significant form of race baiting, to 11, the worst and most unethical.  Two notes: 1) All entries are based on the assumption that no actual racist or bigoted conduct has occurred, and 2) It is stipulated that all actual racist conduct or bias is unethical and should be called out and condemned.”

Here is the current version of Ethics Alarms Race-Baiting Scale (I’m retiring “Knight”). The race-baiting flagged in the previous post is a classic #11.

The Ethics Alarms Race-Baiting Scale

1. The Race “Gotcha!”: An accusation of racial bias based on an innocent, ambiguous but arguably insensitive remark that had no intentional racial connotations.

2. The Double Standard: Protests against comic or satiric performances or jokes by white performers or others involving African-Americans as racist, when in form and substance they are indistinguishable from similar performances of jokes regarding whites.

3. Dog Whistles: An accusation of racism based on the accurate and appropriate use of terms like “urban.”

4. Taboo Facts: The position that stating facts or statistics that accurately reflect pathologies or persistent problems in the black community is racist.

5. Blame Game: The false or dishonest attribution of disparities between the black and white populations primarily or entirely to racial bigotry and discrimination.

6. Discrimination Gamesmanship: Accusations that a black individual has been fired from a job or otherwise penalized for documented and objectively measured poor performance or misconduct due to racial bias.

7. The With Us or Against Us Ploy: The argument that a white individual opposing policy measures widely favored by or advantageous to African-Americans is proof of racial animus.

8. The Lesser Paranoia Validation: Assertions that when a white individual doesn’t support or approve of a black individual’s performance or conduct, it is based on race, and not the conduct or the performance.

9. The Greater Paranoia Validation : The contrived defense to a fact-based accusation of crime or wrongdoing against a black individual that it is based on race.

10. Manufactured Outrage: Accusations of racism based on criticism of a black public figure for conduct that a white public figure would be and has been criticized for in exactly the same manner.

11. Presumed or Contrived Racism: Accusations of racism based on no other factors but the races of the individuals involved, or accusations that are entirely fanciful and motivated by a desire to discredit or malign.