politics and race
Politics contain an element of insanity when it comes to race. For one thing, a vast number of politicians have an inclination to believe that five or six individuals represent the feelings of all the Black people in America. This odd assumption goes back to before the days of W.E.B. Dubois and continues through present times. I have never felt the need to provide support to a car thief or murderer who has been roughed up by the police, but the general consensus is that I support Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson when they engage in this kind of nonsense. On the same token (pardon the pun), I wouldn’t be mad at (for example) Cynthia McKinney if she refused to repudiate Louis Farrakhan for his statements about Jews, if it was because Farrakhan’s organization had provided more positives than negatives to her community. If all things were considered by the same measure, this is definitely not a radical position. I don’t see this same vast number of politicians requiring some kind of repudiation for Ronald Reagan, whose policy of “constructive engagement” regarding South Africa was a tragic and laughable double standard of morality. Today’s politics have their own double standard where Black politicians are virtually ordered to express distaste for certain people and are then condemned if they “fail” the test. It is this ridiculous dichotomy that Barack Obama’s recent speech about race challenged and why the “Democratic” leadership is probably working day and night to find a way to deny him the nomination that he has already in effect earned and won.
