The more reasoned
arguments I received (meaning those that actually attempted to make a
case and didn’t just call me ugly names) went something like this: while
Obama's policies on taxes and health care etc. are not unimportant, they
are not nearly as significant as the death blow his election represents
to those that claim “ America is all about racism.” The fact that even
uneducated whites voted for Obama makes it difficult to continue to draw
road maps to the racist, evil heart of America .
More importantly, there is now a Black role model in the oval office.
Young people will no longer see the thug life as “hip.” Instead, they
will embrace their inner nerds because the leader of the free world now
looks just like them. And he is a family man!
These benefits trump policy disagreements and ought not to be dismissed.
In other words, to get over our racially obsessed hangover, it is
necessary to take a bit of the “hair of the dog” as it were.
I remain unconvinced. It simply defies logic that in order to get past
race, one must first take it into account.
To ignore any candidate’s ideas is to relegate their election to the
purely symbolic. Symbols are not without their importance, but will the
mere presence of a Black man in the White House “get us over the hump?”
One can only suppose that the failure of Condoleezza Rice, Rod Paige,
Colin Powell, Clarence Thomas and a host of other powerful Black members
in our federal government failure to influence similar rewards is due to
their – what? – lack of Black authenticity? Other ethnic groups do not
seem to need public role models in order to flourish. What is the larger
comment on Black culture when the growing list of academics, doctors,
lawyers and Indian chiefs in our community are unable to alter the
entrenched attitudes of anti-intellectualism, and gangster worship?
Apparently for black youth only a role model with his finger on the
button will do.
What I found particularly interesting was the claim of silencing the
victimologists while presenting arguments that largely address cultural
attitudes. The grand pooh bas of race, however, largely dismiss the
cultural argument. They believe that the problems lay in a racist system
that cheats black people from birth. For them, the issue is the white
racist power structure of which any Black president is merely a pawn --
a tool -- at the very least an aberration. These professional racists
will not go down without a fight. Witness the recent reports detailing
the statistical disparities between Blacks and Whites and the bizarre
claims that an increase in gun purchases since the election is driven by
racism. Before the election night champagne had turned flat, the hard
left was reminding us that in spite of Obama’s election America is still
racist from the ground up.
There is real promise of substantive movement towards a post racial
America and I, for one, am all for it. Movements, however, begin with
ideas and any true transformation of American culture will likewise be
grounded in philosophy – in the way we think about the ideas that are at
the foundation of our Republic. There is simply no other way to make
this transition. We will find the going a lot easier when we finally
decide that there are some things more important than the color of a
man’s skin.
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