explaining away the individual situation is always a bingo card response

I had a post written and never revised on the whole "individual versus pattern" thing, wherein one set of people keep asking "is this thing, taken solely on it's own, racist/sexist/etc?" and the other is asking, "is this thing part of a larger pattern withing which it is racist/sexist/etc?" I need to get back to that some day. It may be supplanted by a post entitled, "I'm criticizing Doyle, and you're defending Watson."