This diary was a comment in Troutfishing's provocative diary Try Fitting This In Your "the right is racist!" Conceptual Box.
Chris Houghton worked for a local conservative radio station. His appearance was a publicity stunt. Just like the appearance of Clarence Thomas, Michael Steele, and Ron Christie are publicity stunts for the conservative movement. Just like the election of J.C. Watts was a publicity stunt for the Oklahoma GOP. They are all hired folks whose primary purpose to the conservative and the GOP is to muddy the waters about the hidden and overt racism that the party has been exploiting as a campaign strategy since Richard Nixon ran in 1968.
If Chris Houghton were say, the conservative owner of a garage or a small business owner, one could argue your point more persuasively.
Now Clarence Thomas, Michael Steele, Ron Christie, and at one time J.C. Watts are true believers in the conservative cause, and no doubt Chris Houghton is too. But the significant thing is that the conservatives who hired them hired them because they were black and could provide cover to the rest of the message.
The real political question about this is not whether there are racists in the US; there still are--in almost every community. The real political question is that the GOP has gone from a "Southern strategy" to "dog-whistle racist rhetoric" in the Bush administration, to actual overt racist rhetoric and the promotion of acting out of racist attitude. I say the GOP because FoxNews is a wholly owned propaganda network of the GOP. And Rush Limbaugh is the de facto leader of the base. And every other conservative radio shock jock wants to get in on the gravy trail. And what better brand to to that than as a "black conservative" shock jock.
The roots of racism in the modern GOP go back to the day the Democrats in the Senate stripped Strom Thurmond of his chairmanship and the GOP encouraged him to switch parties; he brought along with him to the GOP the representative from SC-02 Albert Watson. (Coincidentally, SC-02 is Joe Wilson's district, although gerrymandering has much changed it and Strom's Edgefield County is no longer in the district.) But until 1968, that was coincidental rather than primary in GOP political positioning.
One of the things that happened during the Carter years is that overt racism subsided in the South, and behavior, even compelled behavior such as busing, changed attitudes. That trend was reversed during the Reagan administration with Reagan himself personally undermining public support for the most successful school busing program, in Charlotte NC. This legitimized re-segregation of the schools nationwide.
The problem isn't racist people; over time, family, friends, neighbors, co-workers can move them along--and eventually after a long life they die. The problem is that the GOP at the highest levels is legitimizing racism and racist attacks as "ordinary politics". We haven't seen this since the 1960s and Ross Barnett.