Is accidental racism really an oxymoron?

I assume that Ta-Nehesi Coates wouldn’t agree. In a post titled “Why ‘Accidental Racist’ Is Actually Just Racist” he makes the case that the song is, well, you know. He makes some good points, even if I don’t completely buy it (by the standard he sets up, almost any discussion of “black people” or “white people” becomes racist because it overgeneralizes). But even if I were persuaded, I don’t think Coates is arguing that Paisley meant to be racist. In other words, Coates’ indictment of Paisley amounts to the lesser charge that Paisley’s “Accidental Racist” is … accidentally racist. …

And then of course there’s kabuki dance of accidental racism we are most familiar with. A public figure says something the wrong way with no ill-will or racist intent, and he is flayed alive for it. Think of the D.C. bureaucrat who (temporarily) lost his job for using “niggardly” correctly in a sentence. Or the trouble Howard Cosell got into. Or a billion stupid gotchya incidents that keep the cameras on at MSNBC. (Of course, actual racists sometimes say something racist by accident too, but that’s increasingly rare at the national level — because old-fashioned racism is, thankfully, vanishing from American life.)