Old racist articles?

Three quick thoughts on the little war of digging up old racist articles:

1. Left, right, libertarian - until comparatively recently, pretty much everyone was a racist by contemporary standards. There is nothing unique about finding racist statements by economists like Stigler. You'll find them among leftists too, and that's not even counting the eugenically-inclined progressives. The game of "gotcha" is just pure intellectual deadweight loss.

2. Noting that famous intellectual X said some racist things says nothing in and of itself about whether the broader set of ideas he or she adheres to is inherently racist or is somehow a tool of racial oppression. That some Chicago or Austrian or Public Choice economist held racist views of some sort at a time when such views were common tells us nothing about whether those schools of thought were somehow racist or attempts to defend racial or class or any other sort of privilege. You still have to work in the realm of ideas.

3. Where the evidence is clear that some major thinker said something racist, those who work within his or her intellectual tradition should accept that head on, admit the problem, and insist that the debate is over the ideas, not what Person X said about race per se. The accusers still bear the burden of proof of showing how any of Person X's racism is linked with his or her intellectual framework. Denying what the evidence shows does defenders of X's intellectual framework no good and shows a lack of integrity. Condemn the racism of those who came before us, but don't feel as though that means you need to be defensive about their political economy. And it goes without saying that where accusations of racism are without evidence, they should be fought vigorously and civilly.