“Well now I feel the pain of racism”

I’d never heard of Doc Thompson until today. The only reference I can find of him in a very quick Google search is that he hosts some talk radio program out of Richmond, Virginia. However, apparently he was given the reins of Glenn Beck’s radio program yesterday and decided to make a name for himself. The type of name that will resonate with the Glenn-Beckers and Tea Partiers and nutters out there. Perhaps the type of name that will rescue him from Richmond and land him a gig on Fox News. That is, at the very least, the only plausible explanation for the following:

Racism has been dropped at my front door and the front door of all lighter-skinned Americans. The health care bill the president just singed into law includes a 10 percent tax on all indoor tanning sessions starting July 1st, and I say, who uses tanning? Is it dark-skinned people? I don’t think so. I would guess that most tanning sessions are from light-skinned Americans. Why would the President of the United States of America—a man who says he understands racism, a man who has been confronted with racism—why would he sign such a racist law? Why would he agree to do that? Well now I feel the pain of racism.

If he’s being serious, and feeling seriously slighted, then this hearkens to the apologists for the white-power crazies out there. “They have a United Negro College Fund! If white people had a United Caucasian College Fund, we’d be racists!” “Black Entertainment Television? Time for White Entertainment Television!”

You know, forget about the fact that tanning is dangerous, causes cancer, and, at the end of the day, is absolutely, one-hundred-percent, a luxury purchase. I’m not personally one for using tax code to effect changes in behavior, but calling this a racist provision is silly attention-seeking at best, and dangerous hate-baiting at worst.