My ex came over yesterday and I asked him what he thought about the Minaretten-Verbot.

"What Minaretten-Verbot?"  He asked.

"You know," I said, "the Swiss people holding a referendum and deciding to ban minarettes on their towers for no other reason than being totally fucking racist."

"Not everything is racist, Jacinta," he said carefully.  "You think everything is racist?  But a referendum can't be racist - it's the people's decision.  The people have decided."

The thing is, in German the word for referendum is Volksentscheid, the people's decision, so what he said made a bit more sense in German, but I'll be honest, okay, I was looking at him and thinking about trains headed in the direction of Poland.

"Unless the people decide something racist...." I said.

He laughed, then.  "It's up to the Swiss to decide," he said.  "Maybe they really hate those funny-looking little towers."

"There's only three of them in the whole country," I said.  "How much can they hate them without it just being racist?  And what about religious freedom?"

"Religious freedom had boundaries," he said.  "Is it religious freedom when I say my daughter can't learn to swim, because we are Islam?  Religious freedom has boundaries."

"Johannes," I said crossly.  "No one, except for very stupid or very crazy people, thinks we should let those Turkish girls off of Swimming lessons.  We just say, no, sorry, you got to do swimming, and plus please don't let anyone cut your Muschi up or sew it back together.  That is not racist, just logical.  But they are allowed to build a fucking mosque with a silly tower on it.  There is only one reason to ban those silly towers - racism."

"You're so quick to say the word racist, you know that?"

"I suppose you think Sarrazin wasn't racist either?"

"No, he is a racist man, he is a racist person, for sure.  But nevertheless, what he said - what did he say about generations of Kopftuchtürkinnen, for example?  That wasn't particularly racist, to be honest."

I mean, for fuck's sake.  If THAT isn't racist, what is?  What would you have to say to be actually considered racist nowadays?  How far would you have to go?  Answers on a postcard, people