Our new US Attorney General, a black man in a very high office, called the United States a "nation of cowards" when it comes to race and talking about race. Eric Holder, the nation's first African-American attorney general, insulted the entire country today when he spoke to Justice Department employees. The gathering was meant to highlight Black History Month.
Would more and honest discussion of race relations be welcome? Sure they would, but what does Eric Holder think of Barack Obama's campaign last year doing back flips to
prevent bringing the topic of race into any discussion about the election? He didn't go
there.
Holder did not acknowledge the fact that it was a whitefolk-controlled Congress that created Black History Month and Martin Luther King Day, and whitefolk-controlled state legislatures that adopted them both as state holidays.
He did not mention the fact that
a cartoonist is under attack today for showing a dead ape and referring to the author of the stimulus bill; the primary author was Rep. David Obey (D-WI), a white guy, but
the lunatic Left is having a spasm of paranoid heebeejeebies by assuming it was a slur against Barack Obama, a white man with some African ancestory.
Holder ignored the fact that "political correctness" has had a chilling effect on open and honest discussions of race and race relations.
Holder did not mention the fact that there is no "White Congressional Caucus," but there is a "Black Congressional Caucus." Across the country, there are "Black Chambers of Commerce," but nobody dares have a "White Chamber of Commerce." The double standards of the Left are stunning. Holder did not mention that.
Nor did he say how he feels about the fact that over 90 percent of Black Americans voted for Barack Obama
because of race, and chose to vote agains John McCain because he was white. Whereas, on the other hand, tens of millions of whites and other non-blacks voted for Barack Obama, not caring that he is half black, because they are not obsessed with the race of a candidate - or anybody else, as Eric Holder admitted today that he is.
Holders own words, from "Remarks as Prepared for Delivery by Attorney General Eric Holder at the Department of Justice African American History Month Program - Wednesday, February 18, 2009"...
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. 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.
Perhaps that's because that vast majority of us are not as obsessed with race as Holder and so many other liberals and Democrats are. I'm a white guy, and when I walk down the street or engage a stranger in conversation, I don't think in terms of race (unless it's thrown in my face by somebody like Eric Holder). Holder and his fellow travelers do, constantly, and they project their own paranoia and onto others. The chip on Holder's shoulder should not be ours to carry, but there he was today, trying to strap it onto our shoulders.
The entire speech was an excercise in keeping whatever racial tensions there still are in the United States stirred up. Keep black people convinced that they are all kept down, all victims, and you have a nice constituency that looks to you, the Government Officials, for protection. That gets votes. Holder, Obama, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and all the rest know that if Black Americans realize that Jim Crow is dead, that the Union won the Civil War, and that
a black man is the Attorney General under a President who is half black, some might start to also realize that they no longer need to vote for liberals who offend the essentially conservative values of most Black Americans.
As Diane Alden wrote, "By demonizing Republicans and conservatives the left can continue to impose the big lie, which will be accepted as gospel by minorities, whom Democrats believe 'owe' them." (
Source) In other words, speeches like Holden's use partial truths to perpetuate a larger lie in order to perpetuate their political grip on minority groups.
All of Holder's speech is noteworthy, but I want to highlight a couple of passages for special attention (emphasis added):
I, like many in my generation, have been fortunate in my life and have had a great number of wonderful opportunities. Some may consider me to be a part of black history. But we do a great disservice to the concept of black history recognition if we fail to understand that any success that I have had, cannot be viewed in isolation. I stood, and stand, on the shoulders of many other black Americans. Admittedly, the identities of some of these people, through the passage of time, have become lost to us - the men, and women, who labored long in fields, who were later legally and systemically discriminated against, who were lynched by the hundreds in the century just past and those others who have been too long denied the fruits of our great American culture. The names of too many of these people, these heroes and heroines, are lost to us.
Let's pause for a brief comment here. I agree that we must not forget the sad history of slavery and its abuses, and the subsequent sad history of discrimination.
But must we constantly drum it up? Not just during Black History Month, either; we get this kind of talk year round. We shouldn't forget the Jewish Holocaust, or the Cambodian Holocaust, or the hundred of years of abuse the Irish took from the English, or any abuse of entire peoples.
But for God's sake, do we hear Jews, Cambodians or Irish constantly whining about past abuses?
Holder continued (emphasis added):
But the names of others of these people should strike a resonant chord in the historical ear of all in our nation: Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, Walter White, Langston Hughes, Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson, Charles Drew, Paul Robeson, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Vivian Malone, Rosa Parks, Marion Anderson, Emmit Till. These are just some of the people who should be generally recognized and are just some of the people to whom all of us, black and white, owe such a debt of gratitude. It is on their broad shoulders that I stand as I hope that others will some day stand on my more narrow ones.
That's good list of American heroes but uhm, would it have killed Eric Holder to include
President Abraham Lincoln, or the
white abolitionists of the early 1800's? Would it have been too much trouble to mention the thousands upon thousands of
white kids in the 1960's who risked brutal attack and even death to march for civil rights? Couldn't Eric Holder have acknowledged the courageous work of
white senators and white congressmen and white state legislators around the country who spoke up for civil rights, drafted anti-discrimination laws and passed them, at a time when doing so risked losing elections and even being targeted for violent attack? A mention of the whitefolks who helped the
Underground Railroad bring thousands of slaves north to freedom would have been a nice touch. Holder omitted mention of another hero, white guy
Salmon P. Chase, known as “the Attorney General of Fugitive Slaves” for defending runaway slaves.
No, Holder didn't bother with any of those, although he is undoubtedly aware of all of them. An acknowledgement of those things and those people - those
white people - would have diluted his race baiting message and his effort to keep many people believing that Governor George Wallace is still standing in front of the school entrance, arms crossed, vowing to keep out the niggras. What's truly said is that many people swallow that kind of stealth propaganda.
A final note: Many of the people who read this post will be upset by my calling Barack Obama a
"white man with black ancestry." But that is no less accurate than it is to call Vanessa Williams "black." It is more accurate than simply calling Obama "black." It would be just as accurate as calling him, by the way, a black man with white ancestry.
And here's the irony: Liberals like Eric Holder, who demand a more honest dialog about race, get sweaty palms over things like that.
The reason is simple: While it's easy to demand an honest, from-the-heart discussion about race, the protocols of the Liberals' own Stalinistic political correctness do not allow it.
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