Mark Judge is a white guy. He lives in DC. He had a bike. A few days ago, his bike was stolen. He doesn't know who stole his bike. But the theft of his bike does have a silver lining: it has freed Mark Judge to be a racist, from now on. Huzzah!

Mark Judge's bike was stolen in the Brookland neighborhood. He has used his detective skills in the following manner. Please follow closely:

I could be pretty certain that on Good Friday a member of the Little Sisters of the Poor, which is across the street from where I was parked, had not nicked my bike. Neither had the monks at the Dominican House of Studies on the corner. The students at Catholic University were on Easter break. That left the neighborhoods around the university. Since the time I was an undergrad at Catholic University in the 1980s, most of the crime that has occurred on campus has come from those neighborhoods, which are predominately black. As sure as it took the D.C. cops forever to get to the parking lot to file a report, I knew that the odds were very high that a black person had taken my bike

So: Mark Judge does not have any idea who stole his bike. HOWEVER: he's pretty sure it was "a black person." Two things:

1. He does not know if it was a black person.
2. Even if it was "a black person," so? This is akin to saying, "My bike was stolen in Ecuador. I knew that the odds were very high that an Ecuadorean stole my bike."

And then, you see, Mark Judge had himself a revelation: white guilt is ridiculous! This is, verbatim, what "white guilt" meant to Mark Judge: "It meant leaving valuable things like a bike in a vulnerable position in a black part of town because you didn't want to admit that the crime is worse in poor black neighborhoods."

Oh, Mark. You're mixing up "white guilt" and "being dumb." What part of DC is so white and safe that you can leave your bike in "a vulnerable position?" None. Because it would be vulnerable then, you see, by definition. Mark continues:

In that moment, I had a change of consciousness. Why was I assuming that the kid who stole my bike was acting out of some terrible pain, as if he had been directly under the lash of Bull Connor? What if he has a car, a nice apartment, a hot girlfriend and good health?

What if he is just a selfish asshole?

I don't know... what if he is? What then? What if he is a black selfish asshole, Mark Judge? What if? I know: if a black selfish asshole stole your bike, then the correct course of action is to write a self-righteous editorial in The Daily Caller with the headline, "The end of my white guilt." That is a rational and not at all racist reaction, to this development. Kudos to you, sir. You played this one just right.

Mark Judge does not know whether a black person stole his bike.

[The Daily Caller. Photo: Richard Masoner/ Flickr]