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Let us assume that 5% of the country is racist. Or 7%. Or 12%. Pick your number, stick with it.
Let us assume that some slice of the American white population is hell-bent on opposing President Obama out of a belief that blacks are inferior. Too clever or too embarrassed to use the N-word, they throw around coded rhetoric instead. Let us assume that a larger number can't stomach the idea of having the liberal son of a Kenyan commanding the armed forces. Unwilling to come out and say those words, they express their frustration in other ways instead.
What do we do then?
That's one of the many frustrating things about the latest racial rhetoric riot. I happen to believe that much of the rage directed at Obama is so histrionic, so out-of-proportion, that it can't be explained away by anything but his history-making background, meaning his skin color. It saddens me to see and hear so many people say Obama's a secret socialist when he's a pretty typical Democrat. It sickens me to hear them say he's not a real American. It disgusts me to hear Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck foment the fear.
Bill Clinton proposed a health care plan that leaned much further left than Obama's - and it was cooked up in a back room by his wife, so there was nobody else to blame. Clinton's plan was pilloried and defeated, but not like this. Not with this degree of despicable, "let's take our country back from the man who seeks to alter its very complexion" ferocity.
But what do we expect all this attention, all this finger-pointing to do to the racist 5%? It won't persuade them to change their ways. It won't encourage them to walk in the shoes of black Americans.
<span style="font-weight: bold">Racists aren't particularly good at reasoning, anyway. That's what makes them racist.</span>
Maybe the embarrassment and ostracism itself serves a social purpose. Maybe it's worth it just to send the message to racists we're on to them so they don't get the idea that their beliefs are acceptable.
The racist 5%, though, is more of an annoyance to the rest of us than an active threat. It's long been illegal to discriminate in hiring or in public accommodations. The beliefs of the racist 5% aren't going to keep kids from getting educated or families from getting housed. Not in the America that's been successfully shaped by the civil rights movement.
Racists lost the argument in the 1960s, when basic legal protections for blacks were passed. They lost again in 2008, when a man with darker skin became the leader of the land. There's still plenty of individual discrimination, yes, but whenever and wherever official, institutional discrimination is found, it is countered, usually with the full force of the law, and with the stern moral disapproval of millions.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2009...l#ixzz0RUEnn4Ct
Let us assume that some slice of the American white population is hell-bent on opposing President Obama out of a belief that blacks are inferior. Too clever or too embarrassed to use the N-word, they throw around coded rhetoric instead. Let us assume that a larger number can't stomach the idea of having the liberal son of a Kenyan commanding the armed forces. Unwilling to come out and say those words, they express their frustration in other ways instead.
What do we do then?
That's one of the many frustrating things about the latest racial rhetoric riot. I happen to believe that much of the rage directed at Obama is so histrionic, so out-of-proportion, that it can't be explained away by anything but his history-making background, meaning his skin color. It saddens me to see and hear so many people say Obama's a secret socialist when he's a pretty typical Democrat. It sickens me to hear them say he's not a real American. It disgusts me to hear Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck foment the fear.
Bill Clinton proposed a health care plan that leaned much further left than Obama's - and it was cooked up in a back room by his wife, so there was nobody else to blame. Clinton's plan was pilloried and defeated, but not like this. Not with this degree of despicable, "let's take our country back from the man who seeks to alter its very complexion" ferocity.
But what do we expect all this attention, all this finger-pointing to do to the racist 5%? It won't persuade them to change their ways. It won't encourage them to walk in the shoes of black Americans.
<span style="font-weight: bold">Racists aren't particularly good at reasoning, anyway. That's what makes them racist.</span>
Maybe the embarrassment and ostracism itself serves a social purpose. Maybe it's worth it just to send the message to racists we're on to them so they don't get the idea that their beliefs are acceptable.
The racist 5%, though, is more of an annoyance to the rest of us than an active threat. It's long been illegal to discriminate in hiring or in public accommodations. The beliefs of the racist 5% aren't going to keep kids from getting educated or families from getting housed. Not in the America that's been successfully shaped by the civil rights movement.
Racists lost the argument in the 1960s, when basic legal protections for blacks were passed. They lost again in 2008, when a man with darker skin became the leader of the land. There's still plenty of individual discrimination, yes, but whenever and wherever official, institutional discrimination is found, it is countered, usually with the full force of the law, and with the stern moral disapproval of millions.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2009...l#ixzz0RUEnn4Ct