This week is the fiftieth anniversary of the greatest American speech, next to Lincoln's Second Inaugural, and in some ways the completion of Lincoln's greatest speech.
May our nation rise up to live out the full meaning of our creed-- for all, of all races.
The struggle for civil rights-- for a color-blind society-- goes on.
We seem much farther away from a color-blind society since Obama's election. The reason is obvious: a large political class has grasped power on the predicate of racial conflict.
Racial harmony would be a catastrophe for them. Racial hate and fear is their oxygen. You may ask: "isn't that inconceivably evil-- to intentionally stir racial hate and violence to hold political power?"
Well, some Americans have done just that for two hundred years. An entire political party is organized around the kindling of racial conflict.
The races have changed. The Party hasn't, and the vile opportunism hasn't.
"May our nation rise up to live out the full meaning of our creed-- for all, of all races."
ReplyDeleteLofty goal.
"We seem much farther away from a color-blind society since Obama's election."
"Racial harmony would be a catastrophe for them. Racial hate and fear is their oxygen. An entire political party is organized around the kindling of racial conflict."
Oh, wait, this isn't about high aspirations. This is about bashing the Democrats.
What a small man.
Hoo
Afro-Amercans make up about 14% of the US population. If the Democrats are 'organised around the kindling of racial conflict', then why did Obama win 53:47, instead of losing 14:86 (if blacks vote entirely Democrat and whites Republican) or even 47:53 (as Egnor predicted before the election)?
ReplyDeleteOr is it that the less well off have judged that the Democrats represent their interests best? Regardless of the voters' racial identification.
Exceptionally good op-ed in today's LATimes by Jonah Goldberg--"Martin Luther King's real message".
ReplyDeleteFor the benefit of Hoo (who's undoubtedly basking in the afterglow of his egogasm), here are the subtitle and the closing paragraphs:
"Conservatives now believe in race neutrality and reject giving blacks special treatment, as Martin Luther King Jr. and other liberals sought."
[...]
"But in America at least, appeals to social planning and guaranteed economic rights are not universal. They are, deservedly, controversial and contestable — all the more so when decoupled from the idea of colorblindness.
"Today, conservatives, who were too often on the wrong side of civil rights in 1963, are champions of race neutrality, while King's self-appointed heirs are more inclined to champion the ideas that never spoke to the hearts of all Americans."
Heh. Jonah Goldberg (not the sharpest knife in the NR drawer) makes more sense than Egnor. He at least has the courage to admit that ""conservatives... were too often on the wrong side of civil rights in 1963."
DeleteHoo
"We seem much farther away from a color-blind society since Obama's election."
ReplyDeleteNo kidding, since the election of our first black president the right has freaked-out. While Egnor and the more educated conservatives take the track we see here, the rank and file base of the Republican Party is still hard at work coming up with new ways to get the word “ni**er” past the filters of their favorite websites.
-KW
“The Republican Party geared its appeal and program to racism, reaction, and extremism. All people of goodwill viewed with alarm and concern the frenzied wedding at the Cow Palace of the KKK with the radical right.” -Martin Luther King Jr. writing about the 1964 Republican National convention in his autobiography.
ReplyDelete-KW