[BRIGADE] PJB: Uprooting the New Racism
Published: Fri, 03/28/08
"Longshoreman philosopher Eric Hoffer once wrote that all great
movements eventually become a business, then degenerate into a
racket. That is certainly true of the civil rights movement..."
Brigade, in Pat's column below he mentions Ward Connerly, founder
of the American Civil Rights Institute. Learn more about it here -
it's worth a visit: http://www.acri.org
For the Cause -- Linda
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Uprooting the New Racism
By Patrick J. Buchanan
Friday, March 28, 2008
In his Philadelphia address on race, Sen. Obama identified as a
root cause of white resentment affirmative action -- the punishing
of white working- and middle-class folks for sins they did not
commit:
"Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that
they have been particularly privileged by their race," said Barack.
"As far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything. ... So
when they ... hear that an African American is getting an advantage
in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an
injustice that they themselves never committed ... resentment
builds over time."
On this issue, Barack seemed to have nailed it.
But then he revealed the distorting lens through which he and his
fellow liberals see the world. To them, black rage is grounded in
real grievances, while white resentments are exaggerated and
exploited.
White resentments, said Barack, "have helped shape the political
landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and
affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. ... Talk show
hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking
bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of
racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or
reverse racism."
What Barack is saying here is that the resentment of black America
is justified, but the resentment of white America is a myth
manufactured and manipulated by the conservative commentariat.
Barack is attempting to de-legitimize the other side of the argument.
Yet, who is he to claim the moral high ground?
Where does this child of privilege who went to two Ivy League
schools, then spent 20 years in a church where racist rants were
routine, come off preaching to anyone? What are Barack's moral
credentials to instruct white folks on what they must do, when he
failed to do what any decent father should have done: Take his wife
and daughters out of a church where hate had a home in the pulpit?
Barack needs to reread the Lord's admonition in the Sermon on the
Mount: "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's
eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?"
Longshoreman philosopher Eric Hoffer once wrote that all great
movements eventually become a business, then degenerate into a
racket.
That is certainly true of the civil rights movement. Begun with
just demands for an end to state-mandated discrimination based on
race, it ends with unjust demands for state-mandated preferences,
based on race.
Under affirmative action, white men are passed over for jobs and
promotions in business and government, and denied admission to
colleges and universities to which their grades and merits entitle
them, because of their gender and race.
Paradoxically, America's greatest warrior for equal justice under
law and an end to reverse racism is, like Barack, a man of mixed
ancestry. He is Ward Connerly. And his life's mission is to drive
through reverse discrimination the same stake America drove through
segregation.
And when one considers that the GOP establishment has often fled
Connerly's cause and campaigns, his record of achievement is
remarkable.
Connerly was chief engineer of CCRI, the 1996 California Civil
Rights Initiative, Proposition 209, which outlawed affirmative
action based on ethnicity, race or gender in all public
institutions of America's most populous state. Two years later,
Connerly racked up a second victory in Washington.
In 2006, Connerly went to Michigan to overturn an affirmative
action policy that kept Jennifer Gratz out of the University of
Michigan, though she had superior grades and performance records
than many minority students admitted. The Michigan proposition also
carried and has been upheld by the courts.
One U.S. senator, however, taped an ad denouncing Connerly's
Proposition 2 in Michigan and endorsed affirmative action for
minorities and women. That senator was Barack Obama.
Comes now the big test. Connerly is gathering signatures to place
on the ballots in Nebraska, Arizona, Oklahoma, Colorado and
Missouri -- the latter two crucial swing states -- propositions to
outlaw all racial, gender and ethnic preferences. Voting would be
the same day as the presidential election.
"Race preferences are on the way out," declares Connerly.
Now that our national conversation is underway, Barack should be
asked to explain why discrimination against whites is good public
policy, while discrimination against blacks explains the rants of
the Rev. Wright.
America is headed for a day, a few decades off, when there will be
no racial majority, only a collection of minorities. When that day
arrives, if some races and ethnic groups may be preferred because
of where their ancestors came from, while others can be held back
because their ancestors came from Europe, America will become the
Balkans writ large.
Folks need to be able to separate the true friends of racial
justice from the phonies who believe with the pigs on Orwell's
Animal Farm -- that "all animals are equal, but some animals are
more equal than others."
SOURCE: http://buchanan.org/blog/?p=974