Racism is a subject that somehow seems to find its way into the news quite regularly. In my experience, it has been several decades since America has been in the grasp of overt, mainstream racism, and since racial tensions were based on real events rather than a cultural “climate” which seems to all too often lack concrete examples. But the cries of racism continue even with a Black American in the White House and more minority representation in Congress, education and commerce than at any time in American history. So what is going on?
Human beings tend to seek out the company of those most like themselves. We are selective in our gregarious expression, and so we tend to feel more comfortable in the midst of those with whom we share common interests and backgrounds. This is perfectly normal and understandable and there is not a thing wrong with it, (the strident efforts of the “Diversity Police” notwithstanding). There are however, those among us who would painfully stretch the definition of racism in an effort to believe that simply liking people who are most like us brings with it a social and cultural pathology that must be remedied. The race baiters then appoint themselves as the arbiters of how that process should be executed and managed, and of course who should benefit. I would submit to you that this is not in our best interest as a nation.
I was taught as I grew up in a family of educators, both in Europe and the United States that good English was the hallmark of the educated. Education was held up to me as the greatest determinant for success. Today, I hear many young people try to express themselves without the ability to speak in complete sentences and to otherwise mangle and torture the English language, ending every phrase with, “Know what I’m sayin’?” I often then quickly conclude that time spent with that individual does not have enormous appeal to me. Now if that person happens to be Black, there are those who would call me a racist. I reject that out of hand! I would drive a hundred miles to hear Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas or Alan Keyes (all Black men) wax eloquent. Thus it becomes obvious to me that to hurl about the label of racist as freely as so many do in our society is nothing more than a calculated effort to reap some kind of manipulatory or compensatory benefit. Sorry ,but that isn’t going to work with me, and I think that Americans have had about enough of it.
My grandparents were Jewish and fled Europe to escape the Holocaust. Was the Holocaust experience on the moral level of slavery? Were the concentration camps as bad as the slave ships? I was in neither place and will not attempt that comparison. What I do know is that the generations succeeding the Jewish holocaust victims have not created Jewish Affirmative Action or expected anyone to hand them anything because their great-great grandfather was brutalized or the victim of genocide.
I don’t think I owe Jesse Jackson a blessed thing. Let him live off his corporate shakedowns and the two Budweiser distributorships his sons wound up with after Rainbow Push Coalition accused Budweiser of discriminatory practices in 1998. (Some of the allegations are covered in the book Shakedown: Exposing the Real Jesse Jackson by Kenneth R. Timmerman.)
The cry of racism in America today is largely fabricated. People have the right to like whom they choose. Barack Obama’s ascendency to the Presidency should once and for all put an end to the notion that we are a racist nation. The blood shed by Union soldiers during the Civil War for the sole purpose of ending the enslavement of Black people should never be forgotten or diminished. The souls of the 360,222 Union soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice in the cause of Negro emancipation should not be insulted daily by the race baiters who continue to find new ways to leverage fairminded Americans by trying to tarnish them with the unwarranted stains of racial guilt.
The fact that a highly disproportionate percentage of minorities populate our prisons only evidences one thing to me: these people commit more crimes! (Ask your insurance agent.) The cultures from which they come give prominence and social status to successful criminals and often believe that the “snitch” who reports crimes to law enforcement is the true culprit and not the predatory criminal with a record of felonies as long as their arm. Sorry, but I have a right to not like people like that, and I reject wholeheartedly the notion that this makes me a racist.
Do I believe that we can paint entire communities with the predatory characteristics and social patterns of a few? Not at all. The realistic and honest question however, is whether or not these types are in fact the “few.” I will admit that they do not represent their entire community’s moral standards, if you will admit that they are anything but “the few.” Both of these premises seem strikingly evident to me.
You can feel free to bow to the pressures of societal convention and take the politically correct route (maybe with a little “white guilt” sprinkled on for good measure), and consider any critique of any minority an expression of racism. Like an old LP record stuck in one place, no matter how enjoyable that passage, it quickly becomes annoying. It is time to bump the stuck needle , America, and to give our country a fair assessment on racism. The Al Sharptons and other race baiters know they have much to loose, and they will fight this tooth and nail, but America has much to gain. We are at heart a tolerant, fair, and very giving people. We have made all the amends that can possibly be made for the errors of our past. It is time to move on.
