Ellen DeGeneres Is Not Racist

One of the most disgusting photographs I have ever known was the one in 2000 of then New Jersey governor Christie Todd Whitman. She was riding along on a cop call; when a black man was detained, the cops invited her to take a turn at frisking the man. In the picture, Whitman is heartily grinning for the camera as she frisks—or really, "frisks"—this human being, as if she had caught a massive salmon, as if this were some kind of sport.