Actors Chris Rock and Don Cheadle continued to perpetrate racial animosity with their inane Independence Day tweets implying that the holiday was meant only for whites.

Chris Rock, that bastion of racial sensitivity who never lets an opportunity slip by to propagate white guilt, tweeted the message "Happy white peoples independence day the slaves weren't free but I'm sure they enjoyed the fireworks," as Americans celebrated Independence Day. Later, actor Don Cheadle retweeted the message and defended Rock with the lame excuse that only "18^th century whites" should be offended by Rock's comment.

This is the reason America can't move past race. It is not white people who are too cowardly to confront the past, as Eric Holder infamously scolded us, but prominent blacks who refuse to let go of the past. In fact, Chris Rock's entire schtick revolves around race relations and his assessment that blacks continue to endure enmity from whites while refusing to acknowledge that any progress has been made in race relations. Not even the fact that America has a black president is enough to overcome the racial animosity displayed by prominent blacks. In fact, President Obama reneged on his promise to heal race relations and now takes every opportunity to inflame racial passions in his quest to excuse his poor performance in office or shift attention elsewhere.

Racial animosity is a lucrative industry promulgated by such exploiters as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. They have no interest in moving on or racial healing. Their business model is built around antagonizing blacks into believing that race relations in America are still stuck in the 19^th century. It is insulting to Americans to watch prominent blacks such as Rock and Cheadle, who enjoy lucrative entertainment careers with millions of adoring fans, both white and black, pontificate on the hardships experienced by black Americans and the lack of racial sensitivity that supposedly exists in this country. They can't see that their attitudes, prominently displayed in these Twitter messages, are the reason that racial animosity continues to exist in America.

When called on it, they first claim it's a joke, then claim that it's a black thing, as if white America is incapable of understanding. What white America is incapable of understanding is why some won't let it go already!  I don't recall any recent black lynchings, and the one horrid episode of a black man being dragged to death in Jasper, Texas resulted in the death penalty for the white perpetrators. Despite what we constantly hear from the black race hustlers, we've come a long way in America towards normalized race relations.

So, once and for all, could we just get over it already and let America get on with life? We need to worry about the employment picture, about Iran getting nuclear weapons, about terrorists killing Americans, and about European fiscal profligacy sinking the world economy, but not about slavery which ended over 140 years ago!

Tom Roberson blogs at tomroberson.wordpress.com.