Newly minted AG Eric Holder, in a speech that must have had his boss banging his head against a wall in the White House residence, declared:
“Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards.” He went on to say, “Though race-related issues continue to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion, and though there remain many unresolved racial issues in this nation, we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race.”
Oh, don’t “we?”
I was always under the impression that talk was cheap. Having a black president and a black attorney general, I would have thought, counts a good deal more than talking. To quote another cliche: Actions speak louder than words.
I would concede the notion that there is a certain, shall we say, tentativeness when it comes to discussing deeper issues of prejudice. However, I am moved to ask:
Whose fault is that?
I mean, what should we discuss? Racial epithets that whites can only refer to as “the N word” whereas blacks use the term routinely in rap songs? The word “ņìggárdlÿ,” the utterance of which in a private staff meeting resulted in a mayoral aide in Washington, D.C. being forced to resign? What about off-hand jokes by radio personalities that wind up getting them fired from their gig no matter how much they endeavor to apologize for it? How about rioters in LA who express their dissatisfaction with what they see as racism by smashing into local electronics stores and stealing televisions and air conditioners? How about everyone from the ubiquitous Al Sharpton–as big a racist as there ever was–to the National Association of Black Journalists (were there an Association of White Journalists, such an entity would be declared racist by its very existence) declaring that the only possible interpretation of a NY Post cartoon was one that had racist overtones?
The fact is that black leaders, black activists, black organizations, have made it clear that any slight, real or imagined, is cause for condemnation, retaliation, and media pillorying of the highest order. Under the current atmosphere, who would WANT to discuss racism? Well…Barack Obama did, back when he gave that superb speech about Rev. Wright. I don’t recall whites rioting over it. I don’t recall whites going on TV in droves and screaming for censure. My recollection is that it was a major turning point for white voters to assess Eric Holder’s future boss and deciding that they liked what they saw.
If you touch a hot stove, get burned, and say, “Whoa, I’m not touching that stove again,” is that an act of cowardice? Or is that just a reasoned response to an atmosphere created by many members of the very audience that Holder would presumably claim as his constituency? And by the way, not for nothing, but when did an attorney general become an “average American?”
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