I have yet to hear from an albino NRO reader. I did hear from a reader with three albino siblings, all liberals.
This reader also told me that: “It is impolite to refer to someone with albinism as an albino. That tends to label the person rather than label an attribute of that person.” Apparently “people with albinism” is the preferred form. Personally I’m loth to trade three syllables for six, so I’ll stick with “albino,” and face the consequences as bravely as I can. In any case, the logic here seems to me specious, if not positively Hegelian. Would it ALWAYS be incorrect to refer to anyone simply by one of their attributes–as a Frenchman, or a redhead, or a chatterbox? This is to turn language upside down. The argument seems to be: “If we do not think of each person first and foremost as a PERSON, tagging any interesting attributes on as an afterthought–’person of ’–then evil consequences will result. That person will suffer contempt, scorn, humiliation, and discrimination, etc., etc. Unless you train yourself to always SAY that this is a human being like yourself, you will forget the fact.” I find this kind of logic a bit insulting. I don’t need any contrived linguistic props to prompt me to treat people decently.
I’ll allow that albinos seem to be a popular choice for literary villains. Here’s an albino villain from the past: I seriously doubt that this kind of thing causes anyone to mistreat albinos, though. I have a British accent. It has been complusory in movies for at least thirty years for the most sinister villains to have British accents; but I can’t recall suffering any contempt, scorn, etc. on that account.
And here’s an albino jazzman:
“Derb—The most famous albino story I know is of Red Rodney, a trumpet player. Charlie Parker presented him as a Negro albino so the white Rodney could play with his band in the segregated south back in the 40’s and 50’s. That’s the legend anyway.”