America's real untouchable third rail
Americans are afraid to talk about it. No one wants to offend. Most of us lack the courage or commitment to openly address what is arguably the most fractious of national issues. Tough. It is long past time to perform a harsh, clinical short-arm inspection on the myths, half-truths, and agenda-driven subterfuge surrounding current events vis a vis race and racism in today's American political vignette.
Specifically, the pious fraud inundating and infusing this year's presidential election boondoggle. Fat-cat party power brokers, Drive-by Media pundits, and special interest toadies all have been orgasmically ebullient in their efforts to "play the race card" and "race-bait."
The objective is ridiculously clear:
Promotion of or detraction from America's first (not first but first legitimate) black presidential candidate, Barack Hussein Obama - but the behind-the-scenes scheming purposefully remains murky and dark. The perpetrators on either side of this dual-edged modus operandi have cleverly implemented their disingenuousness cloaked in color-blind deceit and fueled by white guilt.
The candidates
John McCain. It doesn't take a nuclear physicist to figure out why perpetual presidential wannabe McCain absolutely refuses to attack Obama over anything. Everything is off-limits - Obama's shady political background, his lifestyle choices, his radical Left ideology and political history, his personal and spiritual acquaintances - everything is verbotten, and all because of skin color.
Remember, this is the guy more famous than Benedict Arnold for turn-coating, for blowing with the wind, who attacks his president, his party, and conservative principles whenever expedient, who sides with whomever will provide him with enough votes, money, or favorable publicity to attain his goals. McCain is an honored former prisoner of war, but that only counts for so much, and for so long. He will never run the risk of offending black voters by openly addressing sensitive issues. When it comes to Obama, he figures it is smart to lie by omission.
Such Machiavellian precaution is irrelevant because blacks won't vote for him anyway.
Hillary Clinton. An objective examination of Mrs. Clinton's public record reveals that, like McCain, she is calculating and so when advantageous will literally say or do anything to attain her goals - truthful, moral, legal, or otherwise. But unlike McCain, she is a screecher, an ashtray-thrower, a cat-scratching gouger, an alley fighter. Her only true legacy and original wellspring of power was and remains her marriage to an accomplished storyteller in his own right, someone whose handlers dubbed "America's first black president." Tellingly, and for whatever reason(s), this moniker has been dutifully swallowed, embraced, and bandied about by the Democrat Party faithful of color.
This factor is significant because it influenced Mrs. Clinton to perceive herself immune from what has today become a commonplace, overused, and therefore near-meaningless charge of racism. Justifiably, Clinton flailed away at Obama, his record, and his personal life. Surprisingly to her, she is now paying the price of alienation by black voters. Furthermore, the unexpected negative backlash from black voters has been aggravated by the thinly-veiled, race-tinged buffoonery of First Spouse Bill.
Barack Obama. Obama is an elitist. Not from being born into wealth, position, or power, but based upon his education, political indoctrination, and resulting firm belief that he knows better than do you what is good for you, your children, and the nation. Uber-socialist condescension reigns supreme and those who do not agree with or comprehend The Obama Show are little more than frightened, mouth-breathing louts of the pale variety.
But Obama is also savvy and cunning, wise to the machinations of our political system and societal discord, and made his bones in the back-biting, deal-making, vote-selling charnal house that is Illinois politics. Despite all of the many personal, social, and political disparities in his life, despite overwhelming evidence indicating his and his wife's anti-Americanism, disdain for individual freedoms, the championing of one race over others, and loathing of free enterprise, Obama knows how to work the system, schmoozle Urban America, and keep Whitey on the guilt hook.
Obama's coddling of and reliance upon the race coefficient is increasingly obvious - and you are, after all, known by the company you keep.
The people
So what about us? What about Mitch in Oshkosh, Ashley in Seattle, Tamiqua in Newark, Jorge in El Paso, Sung in Sausalito, B2 in Florida? What about our racism and how it applies to the election? First of all, every one of us is biased. Everyone. Those who deny are either lying, innocently ignorant, naturally delusional, or artificially delusional stemming from one too many bouts with [list recreational drugs of choice here].
Secondly, it is important to note that the greatest percentage of Americans living today fall under the category of Baby Boomers (those born between the years 1946 to 1955) or younger.
This reality is profound because it indicates that an overwhelmingly large percentage of Americans living today, B2 included, could never have been socially-conscious adolescents or adults during the nation's worst period of racism - the years following Reconstruction after the Civil War until the late 1950s and early 1960s. This is undeniably true for blacks, whites, and any other color or creed you care to throw into the mix.
In other words, while we each bear the remembrances passed down to us about such things, while we are incessantly bombarded by televised images of historical bigotry, while we are subjected daily to vile inferences of bygone injustice vomited forth from the bellicose maws of hate mongers, not many of us bear the actual scars from living our lives in the racially-charged and radically different America prior to mid-Twentieth Century.
Let that sink in for a moment before continuing.
In fact, from the 1960s onward, a dramatic if long overdue change in America's race dynamic began its evolution. It started with landmark civil rights legislation, was further nurtured by entitlements, race-based quotas in all forms of life, and myriad equal rights mandates. The entire process was then stringently administered by a plethora of newly-spawned equal rights bureaucracies and law enforcement agencies. It remains so to this day.
... only a dwindling number of Americans living today actually experienced the raw racism that was even then in its ebb five decades ago - blacks included.
Jim Crow, Bull Conner, Selma, Freedom Riders, and Democrat Party-controlled Southern racism is history - a history now several decades and a couple of generations in our past. Certainly, most Americans know about the players and events, but only a dwindling number of us living today actually experienced the worst of it - blacks included.
So I ask you, just how many of the race-baiting rabble rousers you see spouting their divisiveness and screaming "No justice, No peace!" as part of a corporate shakedown scheme, how many of the anti-American, racist preachers you hear vomiting hate from the pulpit, how many of the elitists you must endure who condescendingly proclaim that racism is a one-way street, how many of this sorry ilk were alive and victims during the time of real racial repression?
Not many, which is why you should start using some common sense, why you should question the rhetoric, and why you should become outraged the next time you are subjected to such effrontery.
Is racism in America a thing of the past? Don't be absurd - you cannot legislate away or enforce what evils may be locked away in a person's heart or mind. Our biases remain, but for the most part we have learned to live with them, and with one another. Even so, we are still sadly encumbered with those who contrive to garner power, political leverage, and personal wealth by demagoguery. There are those who continue to purposefully foment racial mistrust and perpetuate divisiveness.
Such reprehensible scheming is lucrative - so always follow the money when searching for truth.
The election
For the remainder of the 2008 primary and presidential contests, Obama, Obama supporters, his liberal backers in Congress, and the Drive-by Media will continue to hype the presumptuous contention that the campaign is turning a spotlight on questions about race and what Americans really feel inside. He and his minions will keep Whitey on the hook by surreptitiously sniping away at White America's collective guilt. Regardless of his personal foibles, shabby political past, or extreme socialism, the vast majority of Black America will remain staunchly supportive simply because of Obama's skin color - and for no other reason.
Until November has come and gone, McCain will studiously avoid any confrontation that remotely smells of race. Out of caution, he will not lift any rocks that would definitively expose the slime of Obama's past history of racism, anti-Americanism, extreme socialism, and shady political dealings. He will further alienate conservative support by denouncing any who attempt to bring such matters to light. He will not dare to offend any political or ethnic group, hoping they will ultimately support him despite his penchant for whoring away his principles.
Throughout the remainder of the campaign, Clinton will continue to take Obama on, and with any weapon at her disposal - including anything sordid that the ruthlessly efficient Clinton, Incorporated can manufacture. The Drive-by Media, Obama's ally, will continue to ignore or obfuscate any evidence she presents for American scrutiny that is detrimental to the Obama campaign. And yet Clinton will continue her scorched earth campaign, hoping against hope that the Democrat Party power brokers at the convention somehow illicitly bestow the candidacy upon her.
Where does that leave us?
First, we are left with three presidential candidates who are arguably the least honorable, least truthful, least trustworthy, and least qualified in the memory of any living American. Second, there is a segment of the American population as well as an elite cadre of politicos for whom racism in America is alive and well - and they wish to keep it so for as long as it serves their purposes.
Happy voting in your version of racist America.