PrintOctober 23, 2009
Hating Whitey Makes Unexpected Comeback
Here we are only nine months into the ubiquitously proclaimed "post-racial presidency," and all that promised harmony among the races has disappeared faster than a Chicago minute. All it took for addled minds to conjure shadows of racism behind every whitey tree in the whole American forest were voices raised in dissent over the President's far-left policies.
No sooner had congress' summer recess begun -- without the President's hoped-for passage of Obamacare -- than the racist cries began their assent. Nancy Pelosi threw down the "swastika" gauntlet aimed at townhall attendees, which essentially tarred those citizens with white-supremacy slander. In early August an African-American MSNBC newsman actually declared that the word, "socialist," being used to define Obama policies, was a new "code word" for "N**ger."
Then, Joe Wilson's impolite, but factually accurate blurt of "You lie," aimed at the President's claim regarding illegal alien coverage in the healthcare bill, was hailed as racially motivated by liberals at every level. Maureen Dowd penned a wicked screed, swearing she heard Wilson use the word, "Boy," even though no one else did - not even the recording devices. Jimmy Carter doddered forth with his feeble opinion in public, concluding that of course, the outpouring dissent had to be racist. Even Bill Cosby chimed in on the so-called white-racist motivations.
Interestingly enough, before the election, far-left feminist icon, Erica Jong, gave an interview to the Italian press, details of which were reported by the U.K. Telegraph. Jong was taking daily doses of Valium, she said, just to deal with her "pre-election anxiety." If Obama were not elected, she contended, then it would start a "second civil war" and "blood would run in the streets." Jong confided that her writer friends were equally traumatized, that Naomi Wolf was calling her every day, that Ken Follett was "extremely worried" and that Jane Fonda had sent her an email claiming that she "cried all night and can't cure her ailing back for all the stress that has reduced her to a bundle of nerves."
Well, we had the election. White America came through. Now, where's all that absolution, honey?
From anyone's pre-election calculations, an Obama presidency held the promise of relieving America's white citizens of their centuries-long guilt over slavery and civil-rights injustices. Such, however, has not been at all the case and hating whitey is making an unexpected comeback.
There was President Obama's own "teaching moment" on race wherein he reminded us we are still a racist nation where white police officers act "stupidly" against black professor-types just because of the color of their skin. Even the beer-fest afterward left divisive hard feelings and rancor among unjustly accused police officers.
Last week we saw the racist fires stoked against Rush Limbaugh for the "crime" of wishing to purchase part ownership in the St. Louis Rams. Media outlets from coast to coast used false and slanderous quotes to justify the rhetorical lynching of Limbaugh. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, both with more than a few anti-Semitic slurs in their pasts, blasted Limbaugh with false racist charges. An MSNBC contributor remarked that many NFL players had said they wouldn't play for a team owned by Limbaugh because he "would just love to say he owned a plantation full of black men."
But the real cake-taker in this poisonous concoction is the proclamation by Louis Farrakhan in Memphis this week. Farrakhan spoke to a hall full of people who were gathered to celebrate the 14th anniversary of his Million Man March (attended by Barack Obama). This week he warned his Nation of Islam followers not to "become complacent" because of the election of the first black president. Speaking of Obama's election, Farrakhan said "This can pacify you and lull you to sleep in a dangerous time, making you think that we live in a post-racial America-when the opposite is true."
Now, I'm not one generally inclined to agree with the audaciously Hitler-celebrating head of the Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan. But on the matter of a post-racial America he would seem to be nailing it. Anyone still believing in the promise of Barack Obama bringing racial peace, harmony and Christian forgiveness to White America might be suffering from a severe case of willful blindness.
When every utterance of disagreement with a president is framed as bigotry and racism, then the old black separatists' call to hate whitey has made a sure comeback and there isn't a thing Christian about it.
In fact, it would seem a very Jeremiah Wright inspired phenomenon. Lest we forget, Jeremiah Wright bestowed the lifetime service award from his church on Louis Farrakhan. Barack Obama seems to have soaked up a whole lot more from Wright and Farrakhan than he let on during the campaign. If the President is not stoking the resurgence of racial hatred, he certainly has done nothing substantial to stop it either.
Perhaps we should have paid a bit more heed to those racist associations of Barack Obama's, because in the infamous words of Spike Lee's Malcolm X, it certainly appears we whitey Americans have been utterly and thoroughly "bamboozled."
Copyright Creators Syndicate 2009. Appearing by special arrangement.
