PrintFebruary 20, 2009
A Nation of Cowards?
Of course, Eric Holder is correct.
When it comes to race we Americans are, for the most part, a nation of cowards. This cowardice was on full display during the most recent presidential election and continues today.
As they are in so many other areas of life, chief among our American cowards are the representatives of the national political media. During the presidential campaign, there was a maniacal effort on the part of the national media to find whites who would not vote for Barack Obama, never mind the reasoning for choosing so. Whites who were not for Mr. Obama were automatically racist in outlook and action, you see.
No major media network or national newspaper attempted to investigate the associations of Barack Obama with William Ayres and the Annenberg Project in Chicago. No major media network or national newspaper launched an investigation as to the release of Barack Obama's grades in college, the lack of legal scholarship that somehow landed him as president of the Harvard Law Review, or any other aspect of his mysterious academic record. Think back to how resolute and determined that same media were in smoking out the academic record of George W. Bush to prove he is a dolt.
What is the difference? It is the difference between the incurious or deliberate ignoring of the seemingly endless and disturbing associations and utterances of Barack Obama and the deliberate attempts at smashing anything and everything associated with Sarah Palin. Because Palin is white, she was fair game. Because Barack Obama is sort of black, anything said against him or an honest inquiry into his past was automatically deemed racist - literally no questions asked.
While such cowardice is to be expected from the national media, there is, however, an element of cowardice among too many of us who blanch at the thought of fighting back when accused of racism or an unwillingness to "discuss race," whatever that means. We are reluctant to inflame or we think that perhaps it is understandable that some black Americans believe that all white Americans are inherently racist in thought and action and, as such, those who prattle on about white racism are not checked and required to defend their statements.
Too many of us are unwilling to risk the censure of our self-proclaimed betters, or risk being labeled racists for fear of retribution in the workplace or the neighborhood. Too many of us are unwilling to say out loud that we truly live by the credo laid down so eloquently by Martin Luther King, Jr., on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 and demand that it be proved otherwise. Too many of us are reluctant to remind others that the "salient datum," as William F. Buckley, Jr., observed in Tennessee shortly after Dr. King was murdered, was not that the United States bred the murderer but that "we bred the most widely shared and the most intensely felt grief...as if felt over the loss of one's own sons."
Too many of us are unwilling to respond to real racism perpetrated by the likes of Eric Holder, Barack Obama, and Jeremiah Wright by repudiating their bigotry in loud, bold language. Instead we slink to diversity awareness programs at work and school and pretend they are useful. We yield to the propaganda our children - all of our children - are fed in government schools at the expense of the canons of Western civilization without standing up to demand better of our educators. When reluctant to stand up for our children against the onslaught of illiberal education, it is difficult to imagine how much more cowardly we could be.
Yes, there are rabid racists about in the land. They come in all shades. But they are few in relative number. Yet too many of us have cowered in the face of these racial bullies. No more. Americans of good faith, Americans who live our lives with love in our hearts, charity in our actions, and malice toward only those who seek to destroy us must stand up for ourselves and resist these baseless charges and worthless observations. It is obvious that our acts alone do not satisfy the race-warmongers among us, and it behooves us to conclude that they never will.
We, Americans of goodwill, must push back and declare that the sentiments of people like the attorney general are invalid, untrue, and unacceptable. We must stand up and demand that our president state clearly if he endorses the remarks of the attorney general who, it must be remembered, serves at the pleasure of the president. Anything else and we truly are cowards. Yet we know in our hearts that we are not. Let us prove it once and for all, no matter what anyone might say.
Matthew May welcomes comments at matthewtmay@yahoo.com
