Posted by
Patrick Henry on Saturday, May 30, 2009 6:30:32 PM
When Barack Obama campaigned for president he called for a national conversation
about race. His Attorney General Eric Holder, also a black man, called America "a
nation of cowards" for not having had such a conversation. It is apparent, however, that
Obama, Holder, ACORN and the New Black Panthers have a different idea about what
constitutes a "conversation" and, for that matter, what constitutes racial justice and
equality than do most Americans. And therein lies the rub.
There is a sign on the wall of an ACORN office in Chicago, a place Barack Obama
has been on a number of occasions, which says, simply, "You Owe Us." Ostensibly
the sign refers to unlimited welfare, affirmative action quotas in the workplace and
in higher education and, eventual financial reparations to be paid to blacks by
whites. Never mind that modern blacks never were slaves, never knew their distant
relatives who were or may not even have any such relatives. And never mind that
no modern whites ever owned any slaves and many come from poor or middle class
backgrounds where no distant relatives owned any slaves. As long as "You Owe Us"
is the starting point for any serious conversation about race such a conversation will
never occur If such an adversarial proposition were litigated in court no jury would
find that all whites were liable for the despicable actions of a few, or that all blacks
were entitled to a permanent free ride because of the unconscionable status of their
distant relatives -- if they could even prove they HAD such relatives.
Another reason why serious conversations about race are scarce in the USA is
because they're not conversations at all. they're monologues where whites must
shut up and allow minorities to do all the talking. These so-called "conversations"
are akin to the one in which a man is forced to answer the question that has no
good answer. "Have you stopped beating your wife?" If he says he has stopped
then he admits he was doing it. If he says he hasn't stopped he admits that he's
still doing it. Minorities open by alleging pervasive white prejudice and then
posing one loaded query after another trying to prove that such prejudice is
still alive and that they are the victims of it. What Eric Holder, not the sharpest
marble ever to represent the Justice Department, has mistaken for cowardice is,
in fact, frustration by whites with such persistent minority tactics. Everyone
wants a level playing field in a discussion, and if minorities see that as impossible
do to assumed prejudice and whites deem it impossible because of minority
tactics, then the conversation will never happen.
All of this is to say that beyond what Barack Obama and his administration are
SAYING ("we need to have a conversation about race"), what they are DOING
is making that conversation evermore unlikely. During the presidential election
in Philadelphia a group of New Black Panthers was vdeotaped armed and
in uniform, standing in front of a polling place brandishing a club and shouting
racial epithets at (white) would-be voters. They were duly charged by the Bush
administration and did not even appear to answer the complaint against them
(either the organization or the specific defendants). They were thus found guilty,
whereupon Holder's (and Obama's) Justice Department inexplicably dropped the
charges, settling for an injunction against one of the men prohibiting him from
displaying a weapon within 100 feet of a polling place. Is anyone naive enough
to believe that if these were white men trying to intimidate blacks they would
not now be viewing life from the inside of a cell?
Simultaneously, to show his racial goodwill, Obama has nominated to the
highest court in the land a woman who stated publicly that a "wise Latina" was
likely to reach a better (judicial) decision than a white male who has not lived
that life. This is the same judge who held for the city of New Haven Connecticut
and against firefighters who were denied earned promotions because no blacks
scored high enough on the promotional exam to be promoted. While her decision
is quite probably headed for overturn on appeal, we see how her "empathy" works
in practice. Empathy is not a constitutional qualification for the court. Obama has
made it his foremost qualification. It is code for a judge who will be empathetic
towards minorities and not toward whites. Justice is no longer blind. Under Obama
it is also deaf and VERY dumb. How and why would America's white majority
ever want to enter into a conversation when the odds are so clearly being stacked
against them by one who is supposed to represent them?
ACORN is an organization as crooked as a snake. They have taken federal funds
as a not-for-profit corporation and illegally diverted them to poltiical activity
benefiting Obama and his party. It is no wonder, then, that congressional Democrats
are trying feverishly to forestall investigations into ACORN, and that White House
insiders are attempting to stonewall persistent stories about direct connections
between ACORN organizers and the Obama presidential campaign. But no matter
how much they wiggle and obfuscate, the truth is already starting to come out. And
it is ugly -- the dirtiest kind of identity politics in action. Of course, Holder's
phony Justice Department will find reasons not to prosecute ACORN, and will
continue to give the New Black Panthers a pass in hopes that they will intimidate
even more white voters in the 2010 and 2012 elections.
Under these conditions it is rank hypocrisy for either Obama or Holder to ask
whites to come to the table for a "conversation about race," and it is their own
shameful and blatant hypocrisy that makes THEM -- not Americans -- the REAL
cowards. And in the court of last resort, their policies will do far more to hurt
American minorities in the long run, than to help them. Same old song, ugly
new verse.