The racialists in power have again called us to an “honest discussion” about race. As they foresee it, this honest discussion will involve those of us who do not practice racism, but are not black, to come forward, confess our inherent racism, and be duly chastised or punished. Dialogue is not going to be part of the process, since non-blacks have already been found guilty, and the president’s jury is not remotely interested in evidence.

The trap in the president’s faux invitation is that it focuses our attention on the wrong component. The emphasis on race assumes too much, but does so because it advances the agenda of dividing us on grand scales, which is more conducive to the illusion of victimhood and the cure of entitlement. To divide by race in the way practiced by the president and the left enables them to hide one set of social realities from scrutiny, while predetermining the fault of another social set, based entirely on the colors of their skin, as long as it is understood that the guilty are not black. How is it possible that two or more groups, coincidentally divided by skin color, live in the same country but do not live in the same reality?

To hear our black, democratically elected president tell it, our dystopian nation is a hellhole of virulent racism. Thus, every thought, word or action that is critical of the president, and those who peddle racial victimhood and entitlement, is inherently racist. This is the rationale of a leftist, of a simpleton, because there is far too much history and evidence to the contrary to entertain it as serious. No nation on Earth more consciously ensures equality of treatment than ours.

So, if it’s not race that divides us, what is it?  In a word, culture. For decades, a segment of the population that is black has drawn much attention, and critical scrutiny, for the culture that has become synonymous for many with what it is to be black. Not just what whites or non-blacks think constitutes blackness, but what many blacks think it is to be black. However, this is not true of all blacks, which is a critical distinction. There are many blacks who do not subscribe to black culture as it has been manifested in innumerable ways over the prior few decades. Even so, the ones who do, and whose practice of black culture is so visible and overt, make it easy for the lazy to think it is a representation of blackness in general, when it is not.

The president, for example, has no interest in representing the black citizens who live in stable family units, who work hard, provide for their children, encourage success, obey the laws, go to church, and try to do what’s right. He never speaks to their reality. His people, and Eric Holder’s people, are the ones who both celebrate and are imprisoned by a dysfunctional form of black culture. Within that culture there is self-segregation, hostility to other races, paranoia, anger, resentment, bitterness, victimhood, entitlement, crime, poverty, disinformation, deception, exploitation, broken families, destruction of religious faith, and failure.

At the same time within this country there are other cultures, successful social structures that are not afflicted with the same inherent flaws and imminent failure. What’s more, those cultures are not exclusive, because cultures embody the values and expectations of its members. You can subscribe to whichever culture you choose. For that reason, there are black Americans who have nothing to do with black culture as seen in the speeches of community disorganizers and race hustlers, in movies and music, and in videos of rioting in the name of whatever falsehood the left invented before the facts and evidence were made public. Those black Americans have accepted that there is an opportunity to advance and succeed, and create a family history of success and achievement, if they do not accept the invitation to the black culture that is championed by the likes of the president, Mr. Holder, Mr. Sharpton, and countless others whose power comes from using black culture to advance themselves while benefitting its practitioners nothing.

The clash of cultures is what primarily accounts for the divides that exist in reality even though, coincidentally, most of the subscribers to one culture may be black, and most of the subscribers to a competing culture are white or non-black. Race is a tool to inflame passions, using the lie that differences are the product of white and non-black hatred of blacks. Therefore, in black culture outsiders are not welcome. In non-black culture, however, skin color is irrelevant. Membership is defined, without reference to skin color, by one’s individual dignity, willingness to strive, adherence to rules of ethics and conduct, responsibility and accomplishments. In truth, the lines between the competing cultures can be crossed, but only one way.

Indeed, the biggest lie told in black culture is that to “act white” is to sell out other blacks, a fraud whereby some blacks define themselves and each other by loyalty to the culture, rather than to the potential and possibilities of the individual. In this way, membership in the culture that self-oppresses is ensured through coercion and shame. To join the other culture is betrayal and disloyalty, rather than an act of exasperation, or optimism. There is a way out, but it will cost many who try dearly in friendships and family ties.      

Those of us who do not oppress but merely live our lives with respect for the dignity of others, regardless of skin color, hear and see how black culture describes and defines us, and we cannot pretend to agree or accept their branding. We see the despair, the anger and hatred, the violence of the mob that is literally a single event away from boiling over, and we shake our heads because the wounds are largely self-inflicted. Their choices, be they in culture, leadership, propaganda, beliefs, morals or otherwise, were not made for them by us. They are not forced to remain in their perceived distress, but have chosen by their leaders and ideology to remain there, stuck until a future Moses leads them out of a self-imposed darkness that is unnecessary. 

If this were not true, and if ours was a racist nation, the countless foreign nationals who come legally to the United States from Africa, the Middle East, and Asia would all fail miserably, falling victims to the entrenched racism that simply doesn’t exist. A major reason those people succeed, seizing upon the opportunities that are there for the taking, is that they are not indoctrinated by a culture that lies to them about what their future is, or could be, in our amazing country. They succeed because no one is preventing them from doing so.

If we were ever to have that honest conversation about race, it would need to start with culture, and how that form of black culture which imprisons its subscribers condemns them to failure.  The last thing the president wants is that conversation. If all those people freed themselves from the yoke of that culture, they might turn on the Democrats forever. Imagine that.