**More: Mona Charen at NRO, Bold Emphasis Mine:
"Numerous accounts of the imbroglio were available online — though the president need only pick up the phone to get all the information he wants.
He didn’t want information. He preferred his comfortable, prejudiced view."**
I maintain my anonymity on this website for a whole host of reasons, largest of which is due to fear of nuts and kooks seeking to retaliate for any comments. Its with this freedom that I feel comfortable giving my thoughts on race.
As I stated below in my Sotomayor comments, racism is toxic, shallow and stupid. My views come largely from my understanding of Scripture and its comments on all being equal before God, specifically Galatians 3:28 (emphasis mine):
There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus (NIV).The Apostle Paul through the Spirit is essentially saying that we are all equal before God and created in his image. This is the crux of my view of those who are of different racial and ethnic backgrounds. My view is that the work of Calvary was for ALL humanity. Not just one race.
Having established that, I'm sure frequent patrons of JGAH know my absolute zero patience with incessant Black Victimization and my feelings that this nation has exonerated itself for past sins; slavery, Jim Crow and "Separate But Equal" and the like. I feel I laid out my position in this regard adequately last March in discussing the stupidity of Jeremiah Wright. Also, you may remember this bit of venting on election night after Obama took California to seal up the election:
Of course I wrote that, knowing full well the race industry was not going to go away. And the events of the last 10 days - the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Havard Professor of (you guessed it) African-American Studies - has Barack Obama trying to do damage control for making these comments at a Press Conference earlier this week (bold emphasis mine):
Lastly, can we all now, finally, agree that the United States of America has no "deep seated racism"? We have just elected, for the highest office in the free world, a black man who is a complete joke of a candidate in terms of accomplishment and grasp of fact. We were able to look past his slobbering kook of a Pastor, his sketchy voting record in the IL Senate, his ultra left wing voting record in the US Senate, his pathetic knowledge of human nature etc etc etc because... sorry, this is going to hurt... because he was black. Look at me, the average Chicago 20-something would say to me as he waived his Obama button in my face as I walked to work, I'm a white guy and I'm not racist! I'm voting for Obama! You? Hardly.
So, now that Obama has been elected - is the race industry going to go away? What kind of real jobs can we land the leaders of the civil rights movement? Jesse Jackson, greeter at WalMart? "Hello, Ma'am, Clorox 1 gallon jugs are 2 for $5. If you don't sterilize, you demoralize. No cleanliness, no peace. Hey hey ho ho, skidmarks in the bowl have got to go."
"Now, I don't know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that, but I think it's fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That's just a fact."I'm having a hard time understanding this. If you don't know and haven't seen all of the facts, than how can you make the assumption that Cambridge Police "acted stupidly"? Because, if you are a community organizer and grievance monger at heart, this is your natural inclination. And that's exactly what this guy is, folks.
Mr President, its time hight time for you and the rest of your traveling companions in the race industry to shed this knee-jerk reaction. If you don't have all the facts - as you admit to above - then simply say that you do not and that you are withholding comment. Don't just default to your typical victimization-oriented response and then have all of your worshipers in the Ministry of Information and your mindless followers attempt to portray you as "Post Racial". I'm with IBD's Editors here, there is nothing Post Racial about this man at all. Race is everything surrounding this guys ascension to power.
One last thing, and I'm certainly going to get hatemail about this... its time for grievance-oriented Black Americans like Obama and Gates to grow up and stop making excuses for the struggles of Black Americans living in poverty. I was on a bus ride through the South Side of Chicago yesterday and this really hit home as we drove by the Harold Ickes Homes housing project. People in this nation - of all walks of life who invest in themselves, work hard and yes, pull themselves up by the bootstraps, whether they have boots or not - go from rags to riches constantly. This nation has provided every kind of break to Black America - EEOC, college grants, the living fear employers have of being labeled "racist" and "discriminatory" - and its time to stop making excuses for those who are in poverty because of personal decisions they have made. Finish School, don't have children until you are married and established, work hard and deny yourself immediate gratification. Irrespective of your station in life, your destiny is ultimately in your own hands. You are, as it has been said, the sum total of every decision you have ever made in your life.
Enough with the knee-jerk race hustling. Enough already.
