Case in point: the New Yorker's magazine cover featuring Barack and Michelle Obama, dressed as a Muslim terrorist and Black Panther, respectively, with a framed portrait of Osama Bin Laden on the wall and a blazing American flag in the fireplace.

Paterson told the NAACP he found the cover "tasteless, Islamaphobic, mean-spirited, and racially offensive."

Presumably, a liberal pub like the New Yorker isn't trying to be racially offensive, let alone anything else we're more likely to associate with the right wing. But I take Paterson's point to be that such cases of racism pose an even greater threat than if they weren't "satirical" -- i.e., if they came from people we expect to be racist, or at least anti-Democrat.

If we pass something like the New Yorker cover off as social satire, how will we make any progress towards a "post-racial" world? Satire or no, commentary like the cartoon in question brings race to the fore, and raises a lot of ire. And once that happens, minds -- both Democrat and Republican, black and white, rich and poor -- tend to close.

[Image Credit: Al Behrman for AP]