This election is not about race.

I repeat, this election is not about race.

This election is about the worst president in U.S. history: George W. Bush.

On the eve of the latest presidential primaries, the high-minded, high-faluting, so-called-liberal New York Times published an editorial titled “Mr. Obama and Rev. Wright.”

The NYT declared “this country needs a healthy and open discussion of race.”

My hometown Los Angeles Times followed suit with “The Wright Choice” - observing that the issue of race:

“... which invokes fundamental questions about the role of government and the distribution of wealth, is something the candidates should be discussing...”

No!

Candidates should be discussing the war, healthcare, schools and the catastrophic failure of Bush's so-called conservatism. When people first said “let's have a conversation about race,” I blogged that this was a bad idea. My original post in January was a reaction to Uzodinma Iweala's Los Angeles Times Op-Ed, “Racism in 'post-racial' America”

Brother Iweala criticized what he termed the “media-concocted fiction” that “not speaking about race is the equivalent of making progress.”

Race matters? True. So what?

US Income inequality has reached the highest levels since the 1920s. The US today is the most unequal society in the industrialized West. Funny, the media never trots out “experts” crying “Let's talk about class.”

The awful truth is nearly 100% of prominent black intellectuals advocate “race talk” because they all rose to prominence doing it (including conservative hypocrites like Thomas Sowell, Glen Loury, and Shelby Steele). Los Angeles journalist Larry Aubry and his daughter Erin Aubry-Kaplan represents two generations of L.A. race-talkers. Of course, it would be great if we could have a serious discussion, but under current conditions that is impossible. The real “media-concocted fiction” is that broadcasting “talking heads” spouting racial clichés and stereotypes is good for you.

One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result. Recall all the times we've been told we “need a dialogue” about race:

1992, after the L.A. riots

1994, during the debate over anti-immigrant Proposition 187

the mid-1990s, during the O.J. Simpson case

1996, over the anti-affirmative action Proposition 209

1997, when Bill Clinton asked for a conversation on race

1999, after the murder of unarmed innocent Amadou Diallo by 41 shots from New York police, and during the Rampart scandal

2000, over black-voter disenfranchisement

2001, after 9/11

2005, when Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans

2006, over immigration issues that drew tens of thousands into the streets

2007, during the Tennie Pierce case, and the MacArthur Park police violence.

Each “dialogue” follows a script.

First, the good liberals allow victims of racism a few minutes to summarize years of grievances and ignored petitions. Then the mainstream media (MSM) lets whacko black separatists with weird names, dreadlocks, gray beards, and funny clothes temporarily out of their cages in university basements to rage against all “white folks.”

After these clowns alienate and frighten nearly everybody, the MSM throws 'em off stage to bring on slick, reasonable-sounding “conservatives” in business suits from corporate-funded “institutes.” These “experts” declare collective white Anglo innocence and collective black and brown guilt in the name of “color-blind” individualism.

The climax is a grim recitation of the alleged “pathology” and general inferiority of the majority of Californians deemed “minorities.” The net effect is always a gain for conservatives by reminding Reagan Democrats why they abandoned the party of F.D.R. for the party of George Bush in the first place.

Notice how the so-called-liberal Los Angeles Times framed the issue of race as one that “invokes fundamental questions about the role of government and the distribution of wealth...” Ah! Race is all about that “Great Satan” of conservatives: Big Government and the capitalist corporate sector has no “role.”

When the Jeremiah Wright “controversy” first erupted, White liberals did what they always do: cut 'n run. Nearly all Establishment liberals condemned Wright as “anti-American” and “anti-White.” Black liberals did what they always do: yak about race. The media-certified “radicals” made a big show of expressing “outrage” over race being injected into the campaign, but anyone could plainly see their joy that Barack, at last, had been pulled down to their level.

Our race-obsessed Los Angeles intellectuals were delighted by Obama's failure.

Anthony Asadullah Samad, PhD (with a name like that and a PhD he must be an expert), declared “Race Trumps Change” :

“Race is America and America is (and always has been about) Race. While race (and gender) has tried to be subordinated to the politics of hope and change - even to the extent of this Presidential campaign was (is) being called, “the age of post-racial politics,” ... race is poised to trump change, in hopes that things don't change - but remain the same.”

Jasmyne Cannick, nationally famous LGBT activist wrote in The Los Angeles Sentinel that “The White Man's Burden is Not the Black Man's Responsibility”:

“Well I guess on the bright side of things, there should be no more questions about whether or not Senator Barack Obama is a Christian... It seems that it's not enough that we've adopted their religion and most Blacks are worshiping to their White blue-eyed Jesus, but now they want to dictate the message that we receive as well. And in the process, they've backed Obama against a wall forcing him to publicly distance himself from his pastor in order to prove that he's not an angry Black man in disguise...”

Brothers and sisters outside Los Angeles do not know this, but Ms. Cannick's “day job” is in the office of California State Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally. Mr. Dymally is supporting Hillary Clinton for president. Ms. Cannick is also a big fan of Los Angeles Congresswoman Laura Richardson. Ms. Richardson is not only supporting Hillary, but went out of her way to campaign against Barack in Ohio.

Of course, citizens have every right to support Sen. Clinton - on real issues. After all, there is not that much difference between Clinton and Obama. However, these race games are disgusting.

If I am the only African American progressive opposing this farce, so be it. The awful truth is that today's media-certified “militants” are personally quite content with their niche under the current regime and are eager to get on Fox News.

One reason I left the Democrats and joined the California Green Party was because I am one African American who is sick and tired of the race games of the old politics. If Barack sincerely wants to transform U.S. politics, it's already clear Democratic and Republican politicians, preachers, and intellectuals won't let him. The Boston Globe was more honest than most in their editorial: “The Illinois senator has made a career ... of promoting common understanding. ... To see those efforts bogging down in the same old swamp is just depressing.”

BlackCommentator.com Guest Commentator, Alex Walker, has been a software engineer in New York, and Massachusetts before settling in Northern California’s Silicon Valley. While living and working in the Hudson Valley of New York he served as vice-president of the Northern Dutchess NAACP and co-chair of the Dutchess County Committee Against Racism in Poughkeepsie, New York. As a freelance writer he has contributed to The Poughkeepsie Journal and Taconic Newspapers in the Hudson Valley, the Somerville Journal and the Somerville Community News in Somerville, Massachusetts, and the Milpitas Post in Milpitas, California. Click here to reach Mr. Walker.

 

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