Race Card In Spades

I generally don't pay much attention to the Seattle Times Northwest Life section, but I was on the toilet and there was the section, so I opened it and ran into Florangela Davila's first-person article on the inevitable potential departure of the Sonics. Davila is the paper's former race reporter, and you'd think she would have finely hewed sensibilities about race in Seattle. You'd be wrong:

A result if the Sonics leave Seattle: One less ethnic mainstay where different races merrily, casually, intersect. Yes, that'll make some of you squirm. But people of color get me. We've been there: Walk in a room, count the number of other people of color, sigh or, in some cases, swoon.

OK, so let's see if I've got this right: The crowd in a room is only acceptable/cool/swoonable to people of color if there are enough other people of color in the room. Isn't that a little bit racist for people of color who sometimes imagine see "oppression" in the smallest of glances from white people—to make assumptions about people's characters because of the racial composition in a room? Last time I checked, prejudice is prejudice, but I'm glad a Times reporter is at least being honest about her bullshit biased assumptions when she goes out to cover civic events.

Another bit of oddness in the piece:

If the Sonics leave, tell me, what other cultural institution features as many African Americans on such a grand scale? Pacific Northwest Ballet—as much as I like going—hardly. The Mariners, not quite. Dance Theater of Harlem and Alvin Ailey only land in Seattle every couple of years.

OK, I'll tell you, Florangela: the Seattle Seahawks, the UW Huskies football team, the UW Huskies basketball team!