A Dissent: No More “Race” Talk

“… 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” :