Only a Liberal…

Racism is a product of ignorance. No one has ever been worried that people would go back to thinking the world was flat, yet some in the African-American community would have you believe America could go back to segregation and 3/5 votes at a moment’s notice. Under the watchful eye of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, a generation of color-blind Americans was born, and they either don’t know it or don’t care to acknowledge it.

As a result, every post-Obama-election show has the token black correspondent on their program in shock and awe that a black man was elected President. Another ivy-leaguer with a political background and an ability to speak got elected president, yet all these black correspondents can’t believe their eyes and can’t contain their joy. Am I the only person in the country that finds this immensely condescending? CNN, Fox, MSNBC… they all breathlessly await the happy words of their black correspondent. It’s demeaning, and its pathetic to see this inferiority complex.

Now, if you think I’m out of touch, or too young to understand, perhaps you should ask yourself, “Wasn’t that the point?” This obsession with black identity and black power has hindered the black community from achieving the goal they so strongly claim to pursue: integration. Too many black leaders keep telling their community that they can’t achieve anything because of evil white people. That may have been true 40 years ago, but it isn’t any longer. Politics aside, Barack Obama is an intelligent, well-educated, charismatic man with a diverse upbringing and several years of political experience. It is silly to assume a person with those characteristics in the year 2008 would be prevented from becoming President simply because the pigment of his skin is slightly darker than his predecessor. It is ludicrous.

Racism in America is dead. Yes, there are still racists out there, and they won’t hire blacks, or whatever race that particular racist doesn’t like. There’s also chauvinists who won’t hire feminists, and feminists who won’t hire chauvinists, and there always will be. Our society could reduce murders by increasing the number of police substantially, but we don’t because it would cost too much. We could reduce the number of rapes by installing cameras everywhere, but that would infringe on people’s privacy, among other things. In other words, there is an acceptable amount of murder and an acceptable amount of rape, whether you think its politically correct to say so. Likewise, there is an acceptable amount of racism. Racism as some widespread systemic problem that can be totally cured is a fairy tale, and it is overkill. We have bigger concerns in this country.

I recognize there was once a time for government intervention on very serious, unacceptable racism, but that time has passed. A generation of Americans watched the Cosby Show and Oprah, watched Superbowls and World Series with players of all colors, saw Tiger Woods become the best, and most popular, golfer in the world. Black Americans have been achieving incredible things alongside white people for decades, but the race racketeers want you to believe racism is alive and well, and it is holding down the black man and black woman to this day. It’s a bunch of bull. Other than some blatantly racist forms of hip hop, how could anyone with a TV grow up with a overall, negative view of African-Americans? It’s not possible.

More immigrants come to America than any other country in the world. They are obviously aware of what I’m trying to convey. They know America won’t treat them differently because of where they came from. Not only immigrants, but several prominent blacks agree, such as Thomas Sowell, Larry Elder, Jesse Lee Peterson, Michael Steele, etc. Sowell said in his column linked above, “Romantic self-indulgence and self-deception are things that some people can afford when they reach the point where they can afford identity angst. But millions of other people will remain mired in poverty if they believe such notions.” All minorities need to move onto other more important things than worrying about racism.

The inferiority complex and fear of regression to the racist America of the past caused the media to overreact to the controversies of Don Imus, Michael “Kramer” Richards, and Duane “Dog” Chapman. Imus’s comments weren’t even racist when you actually analyze them intellectually. Neither were Dog Chapman’s. They were racIAL. Who knows about Richard’s real beliefs, but the fact is, even if one of these guys was a racist, why don’t we just ignore him? None of these people can revert America back into what it was before the civil rights movement. It’s preposterous to have such illogical fears.

Americans need to look at this election not as some milestone that needed to be reached, but as evidence that we had already reached our goal. The war on racism has been over for years. It still exists in small amounts, and will always exist in small amounts. When it occasionally rears its ugly head, we will deal with it on a case-by-case basis, but a constant alertness to it is unnecessary and unproductive.